The Drift Back to War Insecurity and Militarization in the Nuba Mountains
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sudanHuman Security Baseline Assessment issue brief Small Arms Survey Number 12 August 2008 The drift back to war Insecurity and militarization in the Nuba Mountains n January 2008, the Sudan People’s South—were declared complete, coin- UNMIS has done little to calm Liberation Army (SPLA) announced ciding with the third anniversary of tensions, in contrast to the active I that it had completed the with- the CPA.6 efforts of the much smaller drawal of its forces from the Nuba The withdrawal of the SPLA from number of unarmed ceasefire Mountains region of South Kordofan1 the Nuba Mountains region feels to monitors, the Joint Military in accordance with the 2005 Compre- many local communities like a hand- Commission (JMC),8 which were hensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The over of the territory to the SAF. It has present from 2002–05. CPA requires Government of Sudan revived local resentment over the CPA, The region has received few tangi- (GoS) and SPLA forces to redeploy increased feelings of insecurity and ble benefits from the CPA, and to their respective sides of the still- neglect, and deepened concern that frustration among the region’s disputed North–South border of government hardliners in Khartoum different constituencies is contrib- 2 1 January 1956. are mobilizing ethnic militias to manipu- uting to heightened insecurity. Like much else in the CPA, the pull- late elections scheduled for 2009. back was far behind schedule. The The Issue Brief examines insecurity The Nuba Mountains region is a SPLA had linked the withdrawal of and militarization in the Nuba Moun- microcosm of the tensions surround- its forces to satisfactory demarcation tains and surrounding areas, a region ing CPA implementation. Many local of the North–South border, and the that has been overshadowed in recent residents feel ignored—with good integration of the former enemies’ years by the Darfur conflict and, more reason—by the international commu- police and armed forces, the latter into recently, the insecurity in Abyei. It nity and neglected by the UN system. the CPA-mandated Joint Integrated focuses on the eastern part of the region Growing ethnic insecurity in the region Units (JIUs).3 Resolution of the border where political tensions have been has the potential to deteriorate signifi- issue—one of the main threats to the high since the CPA: military observers cantly over the coming months and survival of the 2005 agreement—has in the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) needs urgent attention to prevent it been complicated by the fact that many peacekeeping force are insufficiently from spiralling out of control. of Sudan’s richest oilfields lie in the resourced and supported; there are no border area, and much of the documen- permanent UN civil affairs and human A history of violence tation needed to determine the border rights officers; and international NGOs 4 and other independent observers are has been destroyed. JIU deployment The Nuba Mountains cover more than few.7 It finds that: 2 has also been delayed and fraught 80,000 km in South Kordofan state, the 5 geographical centre of Sudan. Until part with problems. The area is highly militarized with Despite complications on both both parties to the conflict actively of Western Kordofan was annexed to counts, however, SPLA forces began to violating the CPA, including by re- South Kordofan in 2005, in line with move south in July 2007, the month set cruiting members of armed groups. the provisions of the CPA, Nuba from for the completion of the withdrawal. Khartoum’s paramilitary Popular more than 50 different ethnic groups They halted almost immediately at signs Defence Forces (PDF) is being re- accounted for approximately three- that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) organized in the region on a sharper quarters of the state’s inhabitants. were not reciprocating—apparently re- ethnic basis than in the past. These indigenous black Africans out- luctant to withdraw from oil-rich areas Arabs returning to marahil (animal numbered the Arab Baggara (cattle of the occupied South—but resumed migration routes) closed by the war herders), chiefly from the Missiriya again in January 2008. On 9 January, the are being armed, often through the and Hawazma tribes, who moved into respective withdrawals—the SPLA from PDF, with a corresponding mobili- the mountain region centuries ago in South Kordofan and the SAF from the zation by some settled tribes. search of water and pasture for their www.smallarmssurvey.org/sudan 1 expanding herds.9 Although repre- Yousif Kuwa Mekke, they demanded out of their homes were forcibly relo- senting a ‘bewildering complexity’ of ‘the right to be Nuba’ and an end to cated to ‘peace camps’ in government- tribes,10 with different cultures, inter- marginalization in all its forms. As controlled areas. Nuba women were ests, and grievances, most Nuba are ‘Africans’ within the political bounda- systematically raped and children for- sedentary farmers and share an expe- ries of Arab-dominated northern Sudan, cibly Islamized.12 The head of security rience of oppression. The subjugation they fervently supported SPLA Chair- in South Kordofan, who later sought extends from the slaving raids of the man John Garang’s vision of a ‘New political asylum in Switzerland, said 19th century to the jihad declared against Sudan’, in which all Sudanese would the orders given to government troops them during the civil war by the gov- have equal rights and duties, irrespec- were ‘to kill anything that is alive . ernment of President Omar al-Bashir. tive of ethnicity. to destroy everything, to burn the area Long regarded as second-class citi- The civil war in the Nuba Mountains so that nothing can exist there.’13 zens by Sudan’s Arab elite, the Nuba’s was brutal. The government of Sadiq For 13 years, Nuba in SPLM/A- indigenous cultures and religions were al-Mahdi (1986–89) armed the Baggara controlled areas went without humani- suppressed, and local languages banned. to fight their Nuba neighbours, politi- tarian aid: the government sealed off Many reacted to political, economic, cizing age-old resource tensions. When the mountains from both relief and ex- and social marginalization by taking the National Islamic Front (NIF) seized ternal monitoring. With no independent up arms against the government in power in 1989, scores of villages were witnesses, the full extent of the atroci- the mid-1980s. This followed harass- destroyed in joint army–militia offen- ties in the area was revealed only when ment and government attacks on Nuba sives. In 1992, a jihad was declared in a small group of international NGOs villages suspected of having joined which all rebel supporters, Christian and organized a clandestine humanitarian the SPLA uprising in South Sudan. Muslim, were denounced as apostates airlift and a human rights monitoring Under the leadership of a former teacher, deserving of death.11 Villagers burned programme in 1995. The attention sud- Nuba Mountains, Sudan Debi WHITE NILE NORTH Abbassiya KORDOFAN Es Sunut Abu Kershola Abu Junuk Dilling Habila Um Burumbita Fayo Um Bartabo El Fayd Abu Jebeha Julud Lagawa Babanusa Arid S OUTH K ORDOFAN Heiban Kadugli Mendi Um Sirdiba Longan Kauda Kalogi Bilynga Khartoum Shatt Damam Talodi SUDAN Buram Kharasana Lake Abiad South Sudan Debi UPPER NILE State boundary Abyei Main roads UNITY State capital Other town 0km50 Village Bentiu 2 Sudan Issue Brief Number 12 August 2008 denly focused upon the Nuba secured a ceasefire agreement in Bürgenstock, Many Nuba fear their fate if South Sudan separates Switzerland, in January 2002. But the subsequent Machakos peace negotia- following the 2011 referendum tions in Kenya initially excluded the Nuba entirely, and they only belatedly received a separate protocol, which forms part of the CPA, but which failed Indeed, the Bürgenstock ceasefire The JIUs that were to have formed to satisfy their aspirations.14 of 2002 was a mixed blessing. It gave the nucleus of a new national army 22 The CPA gave the Nuba limited the Nuba a period of relative security, with a ‘common military doctrine’ regional autonomy and a ‘popular but almost formalized the separation are integrated in name only. In reality, [parliamentary] consultation’ on the between government and SPLM areas the 6,000 SAF and SPLA forces in CPA—devoid of enforcement mecha- in the region by defining the so-called Kadugli, Heiban, Talodi, Buram, Julud, nisms.15 Many Nuba considered this ‘goose eggs’—cantonments around Um Sirdiba, Dilling, and Arid, near inadequate, fearing for their fate in Julud in the west and Kauda in the east Lagawa, are separate, except at the the event of South Sudan separating that were SPLM/A strongholds during administrative level. Without the re- following the 2011 referendum. Many the war. The CPA was supposed to quired co-location in training centres, also accused the SPLA leadership of integrate the administration of these the former enemies have separate compromising the political rights of areas into the joint National Congress chains of command, training, arma- the Nuba and Southern Blue Nile State Party (NCP)–SPLM state administration, ments, and barracks. Police forces, in order to get self-determination for but in reality they became increasingly which should have been integrated in Abyei, which was the only one of the isolated to the point where they are now the first six months of the interim three border ‘transitional areas’ to be separate enclaves to which access by period, also remain separate.23 UN granted a referendum to determine government allies (coming from gov- officials say the Sudan government is whether it would be part of North or ernment areas) is almost precluded. ‘reluctant’ to recognize the SPLA police South Sudan after 2011.16 force, and SPLA officers say that the The CPA protocol on South Kordo- Slow CPA implementation SAF refused them joint training in fan was considered weak for other Kadugli.