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