Members of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) on Thursday convened a special session to honor the memory of their fallen colleague, Isaac Kon Anok, who died at 82 on 8 August 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The poignant session followed a public viewing of his remains, during which the speaker of the Council of State, Deng Deng Akoon, delivered a heartfelt eulogy detailing the deteriorating health of the deceased in the country.
“In South Sudan, especially in the Council of States, we have a lot of problems, especially with our elderly people,” Speaker Deng said during a funeral prayer service at TNLA on Thursday. “We are always trying and struggling to at least maintain and help them get treatment.”
For his part, Nyienger Kon Anok, the son of late, described his father as a person of high integrity who contributed a lot to the nation.
“He was a person of very strong integrity, his spirit could not be corrupted, and all of his colleagues and friends know who he was,” he reminisced. “His words were very few but what he did during his lifetime can be attained through what I am saying today.”
Meanwhile, Makur Thiong Maal, an elder and in-law of the deceased, said liberators of the country have long been forgotten with nobody taking care of them.
“Kon was a man of few words, he was always smiling and lived a very simple life,” he recalled. “He was not aggressive, not rude and he can live with any community.”
The late Isaac Kon Anok was born on 1 January 1940 in Aweriar, in the Pap area of Aliab land, and was the first Dinka boy from Aliab to attend the government elementary school in Yirol County in the current Lakes State in 1950.
After completing his elementary school in Yirol in the mid-1950s, he proceeded to Tonj Intermediate School in 1957 after which he enrolled at Rumbek Secondary School from 1961-1957.
From 1983 to 1986, he served as the Director of Information for the Bahr el Ghazal Region.
Anok joined and participated in the second Sudan civil war that ran from 1983 to 2005 in 1986. He was instrumental in the formulation of the SPLM’s negotiation positions with the Government of Sudan, especially during the 1994 IGAD Declaration of Principles and later the talks that led to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005.
He was the first SPLM commissioner of Yirol County and served from 1994 to 1996. He also served as the first commissioner of Awerial County from 2001 to 2005.