Dissident Spotlight: Peter Biar Ajak
Peter Ajak escaped Sudan's civil war, wrote extensively about it, and has been charged with shipping illegal arms to South Sudan to overthrow the government.

When Europe decolonized Africa, the Europeans drew arbitrary lines on a map to create newly independent African states. Some countries, like Tanzania, reconciled the various ethnic groups within the new borders to build a common identity and instill political order.
Sudan was not one of those countries.
After decades of civil war, Sudan split into two countries: Sudan in the north and South Sudan in the south. South Sudan remained wracked by conflict between two warring ethnic groups, the Dinka and Nuer tribes.
Peter Ajak was born in present-day South Sudan. He fled the country as a child, then immigrated to the United States under a program for Sudanese refugees. After earning his Master’s Degree in Public Administration at Harvard, Ajak returned to South Sudan to use his education to develop his country of birth.
From Work to Protest to Prison
Ajak returned to South Sudan in 2010, just in time to join the government after 98% of South Sudan voted to secede from Sudan in 2011. He worked in the Office of National Security.
He had work outside of the government, too. Ajak founded a youth wrestling league to encourage cooperation among young people from different tribes and ethnic groups. He founded several youth groups aimed at encouraging dialogue across political lines.
Ajak’s role as a dissident emerged slowly as he spoke out against the South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir. Kiir cracked down on dissent first by firing cabinet members then by torturing and murdering journalists.
Ajak spoke out against Kiir and his increasingly authoritarian grasp on power. Calling for “free and fair elections” made him a target of Kiir’s government. In 2018, Ajak was arrested. Amnesty International found that Ajak was one of six men arrested for “their alleged role in an uprising that took place” in the Blue House, South Sudan’s detention center.
After eight months of detention with no trial, Ajak was finally charged with “promoting public violence and disturbing the peace.” He was sentenced in June 2019.
Pardon, Release, and Assassination Attempt
In 2013, South Sudan plunged into a civil war, and while there was a ceasefire agreement in 2014, the hostilities waxed and waned. They never ended.
In 2018, Kiir and his rival, Kiir’s former Vice President, Riek Machar, reached a power-sharing agreement but didn’t form a unity government. Amid international pressure, Kiir pardoned over 30 prisoners in the Blue House, including Ajak.
Ajak fled to Kenya on South Sudan’s southern border to be with his family. However, Kiir ordered the security services to kidnap or kill Ajak. After spending about a month in hiding, Ajak fled to the United States, where he has lived ever since.
Ajak’s Current Legal Troubles
Since returning to the United States, Ajak earned his PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge, continued pushing for South Sudan to hold democratic elections, and became a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center.
In March 2024, the Justice Department charged Ajak and one other person with exporting arms to South Sudan. The maximum penalty for those charges is 50 years.
“Sanctions and export controls help ensure that American weapons are not used internationally to destabilize other sovereign nations,” said U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino for the District of Arizona in a Justice Department press release.
After being starved and tortured in the Blue House and after fighting the political failures of Kiir’s government, it’s unsurprising to see Ajak support an armed overthrow of South Sudan’s dictator.
Ajak may have violated American law, but seeing him end up in an American prison would be a tragic turn in a lifetime of hopeful dissidence.