GENOCIDE ON THE NUER CONTINUES, NYKAW ADDS INSULTS TO INJURY
By: Lunyjock Gatwech,
October 7, 2002.
Killing and Maiming of innocent Nuer civilians have continued in Gambella unabated despite Army intervention, while an Anuak extremist spokesman Nykaw Ochalla, from U.K has continued to add insults to injury by blaming the victims. Though tactic of blaming the victims has been the mode of operation of various extremist groups known to have inflicted the worst genocides around the World, it’s the first time in Gambella that such extremists have managed to coordinate their propaganda in the air with deadly actions on the ground. This is a clear indication of a further step upward in this senseless conflict that has consumed many in the last eleven years.
As soon as the conflict broke out between the Anuaks and the Nuers in and around Itang Town in July 2002, Nykaw immediately went on air (on BBC) to condemn what he called “genocide and ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by the Nuer on Anuak, with the collaboration of the EPRDF government and OLF. He has since written two articles post on the Ben’s website.
In the last article “Culture of Violence and Complaint”, the writer spends a chunk of it painting the Nuer culture as violent, though all evidences point to the other side. In an interesting twist however, the writer turns around to invite the same people he branded evils to rally for his crusade against the EPRDF government. Understandably he makes no mentioning about the terror and violence his kinsmen are perpetrating on the Nuer civilians in and around Gambella at the moment.
Since I wrote my article in response to one of the writer’s article in August, many more deadly attacks have rained on the Nuers resulting in many casualties. News of some of the attacks has filtered to international media like IRIN. But most of them have passed unnoticed despite the physical presence of Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) and Walta Information on the ground. So before proceeding to repute Nykaw’s baseless accusations, I would like to update the readers on the recent attacks on Nuers in and around Gambella town.
- August 30, 2002
-Two adults Nuer men were stabbed several times by a group of Anuak youth in and around Gambella’s main market. The victims escaped with injuries, some of the assailants were later on apprehended by the army.
-Same day a group of Anuaks including policemen attacked a Nuer settlement at Ochom (about 10 kilometers from Gambella town) killing two and wounding four. On of the assailants’ side, a policeman lost his life. Credible information indicates that the attackers were transported from Gambella by a motorboat allegedly supplied by an Anuak Church.
- September 17, 2002
-A hand grenade thrown on to a passenger Isuzu truck, full of Nuers traveling to Lare in Jokaw Woreda, killed two instantly and wounding 18. One of the victims later died in Hospital from his wound. The attack took place at the Mobil fuel station in the middle of Gambella town and was surprised when walta information reported it as if it took place in Lare, Jokaw Woreda. The culprit who was also wounded in the process was later on apprehended by the army and allegedly confessed that he was part of a bigger group organized to eliminate the Nuers. The plan was originally envisaged to attack the Nuer during the Ethiopian New year celebration. He has also allegedly named the Regional Anuak officials who provided him with the hand grenade.
- September 25, 2002
-On the early hours of Wednesday a hand grenade was thrown into a dormitory at the Teachers’ training College wounding six ethnic Nuer Sudanese refugees, one of them seriously. The assailant (s) is (are) still at large.
-Same day a group of Anuak coming as far as Abobo woreda attacked the Nuer settlement at Ochom for the second time, wounding four people, but killing 35 sheep, six cows and unspecified number of goats. Four households were burned down. Among the assailants, unspecified number was killed or wounded.
- October 3, 2002
Five Nuer men who went to cut bamboo for roofing on the road to Anfilo Woreda of Oromia region were Ambushed, killing two, and wounding one. Two escaped unharmed but identified their attackers as Anuaks. The perpetrators are still at large.
- October 4,2002
-A group of Nuers collecting firewood at the northeastern periphery of Gambella town was attacked killing one. The rest escaped unharmed.
These attacks show not only further escalation of the genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated on the Nuers, but also the extend of organization and determination on the side of Anuaks to get ride of the Nuers from Gambella. As we can see it from above, a new element of warfare has been introduced, that is a terrorist like tactic of bombing civilians.Despite these atrocities perpetrated against them with the compliance of the Regional government, Nuer responses have remained spontaneous and isolated because they have expected much from the intervention of the Army and the Federal Police. As we can clearly see above, the actions of these entities have not stopped the violence. If anything at all, they have turned the conflict from a fight between two sides to unilateral slaughtering of one side. They either have no capability or the will to stop it. As a result the Nuer rural folks whose relatives have fallen victims to this violence are getting more and more impatient. I would not be surprised therefore, if some of them should try to take law into their hands and mount a proactive defense or even going to offensive of their own.
Having updated the readers on the conflict and showed which side is perpetrated the violence; I must say that Nykaw’s article, “Culture of Violence and Complaint”, is not only a reflection of his hatred against the Nuers, but also an insult to the victims who are still dying today. The writer started the complaints on the radio and inter net, and then turned around to condemn others who responded against him. If he had expected us to keep silent while being attacked from the airwaves as well as on the ground, then he must be way behind. Those days when the Nuer were attacked by his kinsmen and remained silent are gone. We are at a technological age now, thanks to inter net. The world must hear what is going on in Gambella Region.
The Regional power mal-distribution is one of the most important problems at the center of the conflict raging today in Gambella. But in my opinion it’s not who occupies the top job of the Regional presidency per se that is the problem. Any one among the five indigenous ethnic groups can occupy it at a time. Neither is the fact that the Anuaks occupy the Regional Presidency, security chief, police commissioner, Attorney General and the high court presidency is a problem per se, but the way these key positions are used, is the problem. In the last eleven years these positions have been used to the detriment of others, particularly the Nuers. The Nuer areas have been neglected and completely cut out of development. Nuers have been killed by Anuaks with impunity. Several of such examples can be found in Mr. Nyang Batiok’s article posted on the same website in August. Nuer leaders who dare to question these problems are immediately thrown to jail with no due process of law. Mr. Gatkuoth Diew, the former secretary general of Gambella Peoples Democratic Unity Party (GPDUP) and his four other colleagues languished in jail this way, for three odd years, only to be told it’s enough. No charges, no convictions.
Equally important is also the regional council representations. Yes, the Anuaks have six out of nine Woredas in the region, while the Nuers have two. But representation in Ethiopia is made according to population, not by landmass. According to the last census, the Nuers make up 40%, while the Anuaks 30% of the regional population. Based on this fact, the Nuers should have more representations than the Anuaks. But as Nykaw admits it in his article, the Anuaks have 29 seats while the Nuers 19 in a 54-seat Regional parliament. Can anybody tell me this is a fair representation? No it’s not, and unless this is rectified, it’s not logical for the Anuak dominated Gambella Peoples Freedom Party (GPFP) to claim majority in the Parliament. When this is corrected however, should the Nuer representatives who will form the majority in the parliament opt to choose GPFP to lead them, then that will be consistent with practice of democratic.
The Nuers were left out from the Regional Government during the transitional period not because they got involved in “criminal activities” as alleged by Nykaw, but because of a deliberate stick and bullet policy pursued by Gambella Peoples Liberation Movement (GPLM). No sooner than the GPLM assumed power in the region, following the fall of the Dergue Military Government in 1991, then elimination of educated Nuers commenced immediately. This campaign to eliminate educated Nuers was sometimes conducted covertly, but in most cases openly, like the late Deng Dung who was gunned down in day time at Gambella Bus station; and Simon Chuol Thong and Biel Kailech who were taken out from the prison and murdered. The killers are known in most cases but no one dares to ask them. Some of them of them are now officials in the Regional Government and are playing role in the current violence.
It’s also an open secret that the GPLM did also kill several hundreds highland settlers in Okuna Kijang, Abobo Woreda during the transition period. I am therefore shocked to see Nykaw claiming that the GPLM was included in the transition because it had “a clean record of human right”. What about those Nuers victims whom Nykaw knew by names and the settlers massacred by the GPLM militia? Are they not human beings? The EPRDF out of political expediency might have included the GPLM murderers in the transitional Government, but that is up to them. For us we know what GPLM was, a collection of blood thirsty, ill disciplined and alcohol driven bunch of killers who could not spare even their leader. Their leader Agua Alemu, after allowing his militia to kill with impunity, they turned their guns against him and murdered him at his home in 1992 following disagreement over ration. If these are the jewels of the writer, well I doubt if he was not one of them.
Nykaw also tells us a consensus was reached in 1997 to fill the top three Regional posts of President, vice and Secretary by an Anuak, a Nuer and a Majangier respectively. That is fair enough since democracy sometimes works with compromises. What he does not tell us and perhaps intentionally, is why the post of the Vice President has remained vacant since the Nuer occupant died in 1991. The reason is that the Anuak elite wants to choose a leader for the Nuers. The Nuers nominated their former party’s (GPDUP) secretary (now the chairman), who happens to be also the Regional head of Trade, Transport and Tourism Bureau as well as a member of the Regional and Federation Councils, to occupy the post on their behalf. But the Anuak led regional Government says, “he is not good enough”. “We know who can represent you” and nominated a Nuer guy who was dismissed from the party due to corruption and misconduct. The Nuer refused sighting previous consensus, agreements and the Constitution. Up to now the issue has not been resolved and the post remains vacant.
Such a ploy to position the most useless and rejected Nuers in high position of Government has been used again and again by the Regional Government to keep out competent Nuers. The current impasse on the Vice Presidential post is part of that trick. Also the Nuer guy whom Nykaw claims to have joined the GPLM during transition was a walking dead due to chronic alcoholism. He was hardly walking when he was recruited as Nuer representative. The GPLM leaders knew he was hopeless, that is why they did not kill him when other educated Nuers including his cousin, Deng Dung, were murdered. Such useless Nuers are the one usually paraded as Nuer representative and revolutionaries by the Regional Government. By so doing, the Regional Government kills two birds with one stone. While it effectively keeps out the Nuers from the Government activities, because those selected usually don’t care much except for their salaries and their addictions (usually alcohol), it at the same time thwarts criticisms and questions arising with regards to Nuer representation. This is a cruel tactic that even the colonialists did not use. But the Nuers seem to have learnt a good deal, the hard way and have now refused to be taken for a rough ride again.
One of the reasons usually given by the Regional Government to neglect the Nuer areas is insecurity. There is no doubt the violence in South Sudan sometimes spills to the other side. The Nuer areas are particularly prone to attack by Lou Nuer tribes and Murle from across the border. But it’s the Regional Government together with the Federal Government who has the responsibilities as well as the capacity to stop these attacks. What we have seen in the last few years however is the Regional Government denying insecurity when there is, and claiming when there is none. For instance they always divert development funds meant for the Nuer areas sighting insecurity when there is in-fact a relative calm. But when a real insecurity occurs and the victims or their representative’s appeal for assistance, they decline saying it’s a lie, there is no problem. A typical case is the Akobo Woreda’s issue, in which more than 20000 people have been displaced for the last two years but denied of assistance saying there is no problem. So insecurity is the main tactics use by the Regional Government to deny the Nuer areas development. This scenario reminds me of an Amharic proverb which says, “When they wish to eat a vulture, they call it a guinea fowl”.
In order to justify what his kinsmen are doing on the ground, the writer shopped around and came up with unrelated incidences allegedly committed by what he termed “ethnic Nuer Sudanese refugees”. He also went further to suggest an International dimension to the conflict. I totally reject those notions. The clan fighting from across the border suggested as one reason for the Anuak-Nuer conflict is irrelevant for the current conflict. It has nothing to do with the Anuak community. Only the Nuer community is affected so far. But then the writer’s motive is far more sinister than that. He appears to prove the point that, his kin’s action is in revenge for atrocities (incidences) allegedly committed by ethnic Sudanese Nuers as far back as 1980s. That would of course explained why the Sudanese Nuer refugees are also targeted in this conflict.
Nonetheless clashes between refugees and local communities are neither rare nor confined to ethnic Nuer as alleged by the writer. We have seen them in Ethioipia as well as in other countries. For instance, between 1984 and 1987 there were series of clashes between the SPLA forcers and local Ethioipian Nuers in Akobo and Jokaw Woredas that killed more than two thousand civilians. Like wise the same forcers clashed with local Anuaks in Pinyudo in 1990, killing more than 70 civilians. The commanders and the bulk of the SPLA forces were and are still none ethnic Nuers. Similar scenarios had been witnessed between refugees and local communities in Serralion, Guinea-Conakry and Sudan. I would also think the writer is aware of the recent clashes between Asian immigrants and local Britons in Birmingham. So I don’t see any specific reason to single out any particular ethnic group, be it the Nuer or others to be branded as evil. Due to many reasons refugees and local communities can clash and it’s up to the host Governments to make sure everything is okay.
But then Nykaw should have been in a better position to understand the reasons why refugees clash with locals because he once had a taste of it. In 1980s while studying at Addis Ababa University, under UNHCR program as Sudanese refugee, the writer provoked a fight with local Piassa boys at a drinking bar. He then took to his heel for the safety of the University compound leaving behind Cham Akuay, a brilliant fourth year law student at the time, studying under same program, to be beaten to death. Was it not for the action of the writer, this boy would have lived today and perhaps assist the two communities to find a solution for the current conflict since he was half Nuer, half Anuak.
Amid all these violence however I have always been wondering what is that, that makes the Anuak elite so bitter about the Nuers. There is no apparent convincing reason at the moment. They control the Regional power and its resources and if any body has a grudge, it should have been the Nuers who have not benefited from the new dispensation in Ethiopia so far. Then I found one reason tugged in one sentence of the last paragraphs of Nykaw’s article where he declares, “A decade is too short for ethnic Nuer to gain control over large territories as far as Naser, former Anuak heart land in the Sudan”. This sentence more than any other, explains why things are like that in Gambella. I don’t want to go to the argument as to why and how Anuaks’ and Nuers’ east ward migration occurred in the last century, but surely if the current violence in Gambella is meant to get back land abandoned by Anuak ancestors 100 years ago, then we are in for a much bigger problem yet to come. Personally however, I don’t think it would be possible, for many reasons to turn back the clock of history.
On the other hand if the Anuak’s intention is to stop the Nuer migration to semi-urban centers like Gambella and Itang, then this is not the way to do it. History teaches us that no Government in the World has ever succeeded in stopping completely rural to urban migration. But there are always ways one can slow it down and in this case one way of doing it is by making the Nuer areas livable by providing security and social services. Here, the role of a responsible Government is indispensable. Unfortunately the current Anuak dominated regional government dose not think that way. It instead unwittingly exacerbates the problem by completely neglecting the Nuer areas. This of course is forcing more and more Nuers to move to certain areas where there is relative security and social services such as schools and health institutions. A typical example again is Akobo Woreda where the people have been displaced for the last two years and now live scattered in Jokaw, Itang and Gambella. They have been literally begging the Regional Government to assist them with security and food in order to return home. The response has always been a flat no. Incredibly a few days before the onset of the current conflict, these same displaced people were served urgent order by the regional president to vacate Itang Woreda. Again their request was, provide us with security and food to return home. Again the reply is a flat no. If any body can argue that it’s not the responsibility of the Government to protect its citizens, then one must be living in another world, not the same world we are in today, where the USA has to go several thousands kilometers to hunt down al-Qaida in revenge of it citizens killed in the World trade bombing.
Constitutionally the Regional government is the first line to protect its citizens, but if that comes beyond its capacity then it can make the Federal Government to intervene. Currently the regional Government is not making any effort in this respect. It neither willing to resettle these displace people in their original places, nor does it wish to assist them temporarily where they are at the moment. But when pressed hard, it gives a flimsy excuse saying it has no information of the situation in Akobo. I wonder who can provide them with such information. This is just another lousy way of the regional Government to trying to push away its own responsibility thinking other people would believe it.
Reading between the lines of Nykaw’s article, I can sense for sure that he is on to something bigger than what is currently happening in Gambella. Utterances like “Gambella is under Ethiopian occupation” and “Gambella was a British Colony” are surely prelude to claims of succession. If that is the case however, I want to lend a piece of advice to my friend Nykaw Ochalla. We Nuers hold 40% and you 30% of the regional vote. In the last eleven years we have seen what you people are capable of doing. So we are not too keen to join you in any adventure be it democratically or otherwise. May be you should take a look at this factor before embarking on any adventure.
In conclusion the problem in Gambella is bigger than individual failures. It’s about a secretive well-organized side trying to get ride of others using Government resources it controls with absolute monopoly. Last year they instigated violence with Majangier that resulted in the death of many innocent civilians. This year is their turn with the Nuers and the conflict is causing many lives and breeding hatred that may last longer, there by pulling the two communities further apart. Who knows next year may be the turn of the smaller ethnic groups like the Opo and Komo or even worst, the highlanders themselves because these extremists are so obsessed of making Gambella an enclave of one “pure ethnic group”. It’s therefore, in the interest of all including the Federal Government to stop this madness. If we can’t stop it now, I am afraid it may spiral out of control and probably harm the National interest as a whole. In this whole mess, the pity is that, the elite in their safety of towns instigate the violence, while the poor rural folks bear the brunt.
[Opinions in this article are solely that of the writer.]