But they and their leader, John Garang, show little sign of making the commitment real. Partly, the problem is money. But education and health schemes come low on the SPLA's list of priorities. Only one in 10 people in the SPLA-controlled Bahr el Ghazal province have access to health services. Fewer than one in 10 has access to a borehole with clean water.
Education is almost non-existent, so prospects for the future are doubly bleak.
Across south Sudan, there is one secondary school for every half-million inhabitants. In reality, you frequently see soldiers who are barely in their teens. One young soldier is dwarfed by the grenade launcher that he is carrying. By default, aid agencies have become almost the only encouragers of civilian structures. Such projects are drops in a depressingly large ocean.