مارس 1987 مذبحة الضعين في الديمقراطية السودان القديم!!!

More than a thousand Dinka men, women and children were killed, some burned,to death, by inhabitants of the town of Ad-Da'ein, in western Sudan in March 1987.

Ad-Da'ein is linked by railway to the regional capital Nyala and to Khartoum, and serving as a major commercial centre for the region, including the grain and cattle trade.

Its population of 60,000 is largely from the Rezeigat ethnic group, with others from the Dinka, Fur, Zaghawa, Jur, Berti and Hausa, and it is an Umma party centre of influence.

The Dinka began migrating to Ad-Da'ein during the first civil war, but many returned south after the 1972 Addis Ababa peace accord.

When the second civil war broke out in the mid-1980s and their villages were repeatedly attacked by militias, many Dinka fled again to Ad-Da'ein in search of food and work. Most were employed as temporary labourers in agriculture and building: carrying water, digging latrines and bricklaying. Out of some 17,000 adults, only a handful were employed by the government.

In the 1960s the Dinka in Ad-Da'ein built a church on land given by one of the Rezeigat sheikhs, and attempted to develop good relations with the Muslirn community. In the climate of hostility of the 1980s, however, some 400 hundred Muslims petitioned the local judge to remove the church. Even the church's roof-top solar heating system apparatus aroused suspicions of "espionage".

On the evening of 27 March, 1987, an armed Rezeigat group attacked the church, where 25 Dinka had congregated after evening prayers. The attackers went on to the homes of Dinka families in the neighbourhood and burned them down, killing at least five people.
That night, some Dinka fled; some hid with families in town, and others gathered, under police protection, in Hillat Sikka Hadid, a neighbourhood beside the railway station. Next morning, government officials moved them to the railway station itself, and put them into eight railway wagons, as well as the station police compound, intending to move them out of town for their own safety.

A mob of townspeople, mainly Rezeigat, descended upon the railway station and began attacking the southerners: by sunset more than a thousand Dinka had been killed, many burned alive in the railway wagons. Some children were abducted from the site. The train eventually set off, taking the survivors to Nyala.

Two lecturers from the University of Khartoum, Dr Ushari Mahmoud and Dr Suleiman Baldo, learning of the massacre and the civilian government's attempts to cover it up, set out to investigate. They concluded that the various official accounts were contradictory, and the claims of "provocation" that were offered were too flimsy to explain the scale of the killings. Awkward questions arose about how much the massacre was planned or anticipated by government officials, and the disappearance of individuals such as the local Christian priest.

In gathering information from eye-witnesses and survivors, Dr Mahmoud and Dr Baldo also uncovered evidence of slavery. . They presented testirnonies which outlined the patterns of Rezeigat militia behaviour in seizing slaves, the role of government policy in the civil war in distorting inter-ethnic relations, and the government's lack of action against the practice of slavery.

Further investigation of the massacre at Ad-Da'ein was blocked by a majority vote in the parliament during Sadiq al-Mahdi's premiership. The university lecturers who had reported the massacre and the slavery were harassed and detained by the authorities on several occasions.

You, Mohamed, and I, are not brothers.
You're the son of my aunt - You're my cousin!
Long ago your Arab father came,
with the Holy Koran and his traditional ways,
But without a mistress for his wife!
You, cousin Mohamed in the Northern Sudan,
are an offspring of my slave-aunt
who in her wretchedness stooped to conquer
- by blood-strength -
a reality as large as the Imatong Mountains!

You are no longer a pure Arab like your father.
You are the hybrid of Africa
The generous product
of many years of bloody war
on the African land
Your African Motherland!

My cousin Mohamed
says he knows everything
because he is educated.

When I sing songs
about Freedom, Justice and Equality,
My cousin gets angry and shouts at me:

"You Abid!
You also want to be free,
and be equal to me!"

TITLE:
MY COUSIN MOHAMED

It was hard to avoid hearing stories of atrocities committed by the Arab militias. This woman had been raped; this man tortured and castrated; the man's wife had been killed in front of him; a boy of ten had been kidnapped and kept for two years as a servant, beaten when he tried to escape, and finally killed. There were clearly many Dinka still in captivity".
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Abyei lies on the border-line between north and south, where Kordofan dips down into Bahr al-Ghazal. Most of Abyei's inhabitants were Ngok Dinka, who might have expected to be governed from Juba, which was then capital of an "autonomous" Southern Sudan.

However, the disproportionate political power of the Meseriya Arab minority had helped to ensure that the district was incorporated into Kordofan, and ruled from Khartoum. This decision generated a great deal of local resentment, and Ngok Dinka activists pressed for Abyei to be made part of Bahr al-Ghazal.

In 1977 President Nimeiri made peace - called "National Reconciliation" - with Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party, which Nimeiri had banned. He then used al-Mahdi to encourage the deployment of Meseriya militia forces - initially armed by the Umma - against Ngok Dinka villages around Abyei.

Traditional arrangements between the leaders of the Arab and non-Arab tribes broke down as a result of outside interference with modern weaponry. Thousands of Ngok Dinka were displaced when their homes were burned and looted, many were killed at random, and others were seized as slaves, to sell or to hold to ransom.

الاخ جوك بيونق ..لك التحية و التقدير

Quote: مارس 1987 مذبحة الضعين في الديمقراطية السودان القديم!!!

في بوست عودة اقلام الهامش الي موقع السودانيزاون لاين ضرورة ..فم...تصارأ لأهل الهامش ..


في الارشيف الان كتبت هذه المداخلة :

Quote: الذهنية المركزية الاولي لا زالت تتحكم في المجتمع السوداني العريض وخاصة في الوسط و الشمال .. وحينما تكون العقلية (المركزية) و بهذا الفهم هي المسيطرة يصعب حينها اختزال القضية في غياب الديمقراطية ..مثلأ : السودان شهد فترات حكم ديمقراطي في مراحل مختلفة من تاريخه .. ما الذي تغير لاهل الهامش (والاكثر تهميشأ) ؟ لا شئ !!! حادثة حرق الجنوبيين و هم احياء في مدينة الضعين حصلت في فترة عهد ديمقراطي ..

ما حدث في مدينة الضعين جريمة ووصمة عار في جبين الديمقراطية الثالثة

مهم جدأ توثيقك لما حدث ..

Quote: ما حدث في مدينة الضعين جريمة ووصمة عار في جبين الديمقراطية الثالثة مهم جدأ توثيقك لما حدث ..

الأخ محمدين محمد
مذبحة الضعين ودارفور وجرائم أخرى وصمة عار على جبين هؤلاء القوم، سنقوم بتوثيقها لشهادة التاريخ ولاجيالنا القادم.
شكرا على المداخلة.
جوك

Quote: Two lecturers from the University of Khartoum, Dr Ushari Mahmoud and Dr Suleiman Baldo, learning of the massacre and the civilian government's attempts to cover it up, set out to investigate. They concluded that the various official accounts were contradictory, and the claims of "provocation" that were offered were too flimsy to explain the scale of the killings. Awkward questions arose about how much the massacre was planned or anticipated by government officials, and the disappearance of individuals such as the local Christian priest.

Thank you Jok Biong for this important document.
I hope that Dr. Baldo could shed more light on his excellent documentation, along with his colleague Dr. Ushari, in the wake of the 20th anniversary of this tragedy.
I witnessed Dr. Baldo's suffering from the Inqaz because of his work on this. He was dragged a lot to the HQ of the Security during the the first 5 years of the Inqaz.
I will forward him this post hoping that he could add more on this topic. Dr. Baldo has been doing similar investigation projects in many other African countries in his capacity as a prominent human rights reseracher with number of US-based orgs.

mohamed elgadi

Quote: I will forward him this post hoping that he could add more on this topic. Dr. Baldo has been doing similar investigation projects in many other African countries in his capacity as a prominent human rights reseracher with number of US-based orgs. mohamed elgadi

Dear brother
it will be a great thing if you do so
because Dr.Baldo reflected the good position and great stance of our national that it was
shameful for such things to happened

My best regards
JOK