Tuesday, Jun. 14, 2011
Darfur Redux: Is 'Ethnic Cleansing' Occurring in Sudan's Nuba Mountains?
By Alan Boswell / Juba

In April, I crossed into remote central Sudan's Nuba Mountains and
found a land back on the brink of a forgotten war. Since then, the war
has returned, and reports from the ground indicate mass atrocities
repeating themselves. With the world preoccupied with dividing Sudan
into two new countries next month following South Sudan's January
referendum for independence, international leaders are understandably
reluctant to become involved in yet another crisis in Sudan. But the
world might not have much of a choice.

Unlike the Darfur conflict of the past eight years, which targeted
rebellious Muslim non-Arabs in the western portion of the country,
those in the crosshairs this time are the Nuba people, a
religiously-diverse group of African tribes that dot the bouldered
slopes of central Sudan's Nuba Mountain range with mud hut villages.
Roaming the surrounding plains are their longtime neighbors, Arab
cattle herders. Normally, these two groups could co-exist peacefully.
But in north Sudan's political cauldron, this arrangement has proven
toxic.

The Sudanese government's Arabist policies and conservative political
Islam serve as potent tools for keeping power in the hands of a small
few tribes. But marginalized non-Arab groups in north Sudan — the Fur
and Zaghawa in Darfur, the Funj and Uduk in Blue Nile, and Beja in the
East, and the Nuba in South Kordofan — have fought back. After the
loss of the south's oil reserves, the stability of President Omar
al-Bashir's regime and its grip on power could be severely weakened.
If the past week is any indication, the end result could be an
implosion of north Sudan from the edges.

Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, has reportedly transformed
from the quiet, albeit tense, town I visited weeks ago to a hellish
battlefield of tanks, craters, and body limbs. According to the U.N.,
most of the 60,000 resident population has fled, with some 6,000
camped outside a United Nations peacekeeping base hoping for
protection amid reports that government forces are going to
door-to-door hunting down opposition. Dilling, another town I stayed
in, was also emptied, according to U.N. accounts. The British
Ambassador to Sudan, Nicholas Kay, reported on his blog that he
witnessed bombs loaded into the back of Soviet-model Antonov airplanes
in Khartoum and MIG war planes returning from action — sources on the
ground confirm to TIME aerial bombing campaigns across the state in
civilian areas, and the U.N. has confirmed bombings in 11 of the
state's 19 districts. Retired Nuba rebels have been reactivated, and
Arab paramilitary militias — activated during the war but mostly
dormant the past few years — are back on the prowl, say sources in
Kadugli. (See why the north began to protest after the secession
vote.)

Communication to sources within the maelstrom is difficult, but the
one civil institution with actual networks across the ground — the
Sudanese church — is ringing alarm bells as loudly as they can. "The
reports being received from various quarters point to a deliberate
process of ethnic cleansing," said a statement from the All Africa
Conference of Churches. The Sudanese Council of Churches gives an even
more graphic description: Fleeing Nuba "are being hunted down like
animals," it says. The violence is religious, too: church officials
report church buildings being burned and looted. What makes even more
painful for longtime Sudan observers is the sickening feeling of
watching a sequel to a past nightmare: long before Darfur, ethnic
cleansing came here first, when few were watching. "The war in the
Nuba Mountains is horrifically reminiscent of the genocide in the
1990s, which claimed the lives of up to 500,000 of the Nuba peoples,"
warned Ulrich Delius, Africa head for the Society for Threatened
Peoples.

The latest clashes erupted on June 5, but the friction had been
rapidly escalating since state elections in early May. That poll
pitted Ahmed Haroun, handpicked for governor by Bashir after both men
were indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in
Darfur, against opposition challenger Abdulaziz al-Hilu, a Nuba-backed
former rebel leader. After a drama-filled vote count, Haroun was
declared the winner by a slim margin. Al-Hilu — who told me in the
lead-up to the vote that he feared Haroun was readying to unleash the
tactics of Darfur on the Nuba once again — rejected the result as
fraudulent. After weeks of rising rhetoric on both sides, the northern
army attempted to forcibly disarm al-Hilu's Nuba fighters, who
resisted — and the firefights began. Tanks and heavy artillery rolled
in from the north, and reports of ethnic violence soon followed.
(Read: "In Sudan's Nuba Mountains, On the Edge of War.")

Like al-Hilu, many Nuba soldiers fought on the side of the southern
rebels during the long civil war, and technically still carry the name
of Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), also the official name of
South Sudan's ex-rebel military. But when Sudan divides next month,
these Nuba will be northerners, and this is now a battle for their
homeland — and, as they see it, cultural survival. "We will not disarm
after July 9th," said an aide close to al-Hilu.

High-level talks began in Addis Ababa on Sunday. President Bashir and
his southern counterpart at the talks, Salva Kiir, have much to
negotiate — oil and the disputed border district Abyei, for starters.
But with the South Kordofan conflagration adding to an already
destabilizing north-south border, the situation there can not be
ignored. Ceasefire negotiations are underway, but an aide to al-Hilu
tells TIME any truce must include provisions for power-sharing.
"Otherwise, we have other options," he said, a likely euphemism for a
protracted, more organized, war with goals of regime change. Al-Hilu
is being represented at the negotiating table by Malik Agar, the
governor of Blue Nile and a fellow former SPLA commander left in the
north. Together, they carry enough political weight to be a constant
thorn in the side of Bashir and his allies. If their alliance grew
wider — by perhaps allying with rebels in Darfur and the East or with
restless urban youth — then it could mean serious trouble for Sudan's
regime. (Watch the empowerment of the southern Sudanese as they voted
for secession.)

Meanwhile, as politicians negotiate, the humanitarian situation on the
ground seems to be turning graver by the day. International aid groups
have mostly pulled out, and the northern government has been blocking
humanitarian access. Nuba now view the U.N. peacekeepers, the only
major international presence now on the ground, with shades of deep
suspicion and anger for failing to keep any peace. Said one local
church official collecting reports from across the state: "People are
getting hopeless. There is no food, and no where to go." It seems even
splitting Sudan up might not be enough to keep the nation from falling
apart.

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