Essay – June 29, 2026
Silence often takes me back to the Post-Referendum Negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan.
The room was full.
Senior officials from the Government of Sudan, mostly from the National Congress Party (NCP), and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) sat across from one another. Between them lay one of the most consequential questions of the time: the future of oil, and the terms under which it would continue to flow from fields in South Sudan through pipelines in Sudan.
The discussions were difficult.
Every word mattered.
Every proposal carried political, economic, and historical weight.
Then the lead negotiator from the Government of Sudan delegation received a phone call.
He quietly excused himself and stepped outside.
The room fell silent.
When he returned, he leaned over and whispered something to a colleague.
The silence deepened.
A few moments later, the lead negotiator from the SPLM also received a phone call.
He, too, excused himself without explanation.
Silence again.
When he returned, the South Sudanese delegation requested that the session be adjourned.
The request was accepted.
The two delegations withdrew to their respective quarters.
I was serving in the Joint Technical Secretariat, assigned by the Government of Southern Sudan.
And so, I remained with the SPLM delegation.
It was there that we learned what those phone calls had meant.
Abyei had come under heavy bombardment by the Sudan Armed Forces.
In that moment, the negotiations ceased to be about oil tariffs.
The room had fallen silent because events on the ground had overtaken the conversations around the table.
The negotiations did not resume.
Both delegations withdrew to their respective capitals.
I have often returned to that moment.
Not because of what was eventually said,
but because silence had already revealed something words could not.
Diplomacy is usually remembered for speeches, agreements, and official photographs.
Yet some of its defining moments unfold in silence.
Silence is rarely empty.
Sometimes it carries uncertainty.
Sometimes it carries grief.
Sometimes it carries news too heavy for immediate words.
And sometimes it carries the quiet realization that the conversation we thought we were having had suddenly become a different one.
Perhaps that is why silence deserves our attention.
For not every important conversation is spoken.
Some are simply heard.
Since that day, I have learned to listen differently.
Not only to what is said,
but also to what silence is trying to tell us.
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𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘐𝘝
What has silence taught you?
Apuk Ayuel Mayen 