Nuba Mountains So That Nothing Can Exist There.’13 Zens by Sudan’S Arab Elite, the Nuba’S Was Brutal
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.
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