Sudan: Nuba Diaspora Call for End to Violence in the Nuba Mountains
By NewsfromAfrica
The Nuba Diaspora, in collaboration with international NGOs operating in Sudan, have called for an end to violence in the Nuba Mountains. The call comes in the wake of the November 10 bombing of Yida, a place where Nuba people - mostly women, children and elders - from the Southern Kordofan province of Sudan had taken refuge to escape the ferocious repression in their homeland. The bombing left 12 people dead and 20 other seriously injured.
Sadly, the bombing came at a time when the UN agencies were just beginning to help these refugees so that they could survive in a new and hostile environment. The Nuba Diaspora and the NGOs condemned the act as a violation of international law and in complete disregard of South Sudan as an independent nation. They said this was a clear manifestation that the Khartoum regime would stop at nothing in its attempt to break the will of the Nuba people to affirm their right to self-determination. They said the act only served as a pointer that the Khartoum regime was hell bent on breaking the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and provoke a new war between the North and South.
Yassir Mahmoud , a Nuba residing in Kenya is calling upon world leaders to intervene and contain the deplorable situation happening in his motherland. “I call upon the world leaders to marshal their energies and support our people,” said Yassir. ”I view the ravages in my homeland as a disease that is widely spreading across the Nuba Mountains region, not to mention the bombing and slaughtering of innocent civilians in cold blood; its quite tormenting, “he added.
Having made it to Kenya to seek education like many other residents of the Nuba Mountains in the Diaspora, Yassir says he can no longer concentrate in his studies. He relates his experience to the sorry state of affairs of the downtrodden in his native land.
“The situation back home is leaving us miserable, with little, or at times no concentration at all on what brought us here in Kenya. We came to learn but with the circumstances at home getting worse by day, it is directly affecting our engrossment in studies, left, right and centre. ”
The Diaspora and their Nuba mountains friends from all over the world expressed great concern over the outbreak of conflict in June 2011 and other acts of oppression by the Khartoum regime, which are an affront to the rights of the people in Darfur, Southern Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.
“Historically these territories have witnessed the successive tragedies and traumas of slavery, colonization, and complete closure and non participation in access to proper and appropriate education, health systems, and ownership and management of their natural resources”, said the Diaspora. “In particular the Nuba have suffered invasions of slave traders, forced arabization and forced faith conversions. They have been forcefully recruited to fight in conflicts that were not for their defence but for the benefit of external regimes”.
Despite these injustices, the Nuba have managed to cope with the dire conditions and developed an extraordinary resilience together with a strong sense of identity.
It is noteworthy that the regime in Khartoum has so far managed to control them through economical, social, environmental, political, cultural, and communication mechanisms combined but has not succeeded in breaking their will.
“Economically, the regime is empowering all those who are allied to its orientation and servings its apparatus, through fiscal as well as financial instruments. Socially, the regime is using a belittling mechanism and diffusion of moral oppression and glorification of external and imported social norms, tradition and customs, mostly expressed or penetrating through the marriage and religious practices”, said the Diaspora.
The Diaspora also accused the Khartoum regime of mismanaging the environment in order to have the command and control of the means of subsistence in terms of food and nutrition security.
“Politically a discriminative policy has impeded the participation of the Nuba in the local, national and international political arena. Culturally the people have witnessed major cultural invasions which operated in promotion of alternative languages and religions and dances, customs and traditions”, said the Diaspora. “Most of the imported cultures attempted to create the sentiment that the local cultural manifestations as inferior and regressive. The mass media was and is still monopolized by those who are in power and control the wealth of the nation, Radio and TV in particular”.
The Diaspora noted that the CPA has not well addressed the challenges and causes of conflict for the Nuba and the peoples of the other marginalized areas of the Sudan, and this is the major reason behind the return to violence and the menace of a new civil war and possibly an international conflict.
“The regime insists on killing these vulnerable groups, even if they have escaped the war and armed conflict areas, and they are persecuted even in the refugee camps. The killing continues”, the Diaspora lamented.
They called on all the Nuba in the Diaspora to support their people, by using all possible means to make known their suffering and their struggle, mobilize the media in the areas and in the nations where they live so that the Khartoum regime cannot act secretly and with impunity.
They also called on the international and local NGOs to organize fact finding missions in the area, produce reliable documentation and provide funds to support the civilians. The international powers and the UN Agencies should pressurize the Khartoum government to allow free access to the area and to promote a political dialogue now, when a fully blown genocide and another war can still be avoided.