After decades of conflict with the ruling Islamic north, Sudan's southern provinces will on 9 July become an independent nation. Here, members of Britain's South Sudanese community reveal their hopes for the future
Leo Hickman .. guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 July 2011 23.00 BST .. Comments (6)
Martin Muortat wishes to return home to South Sudan. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Tomorrow, the Republic of South Sudan will become a newly independent nation. Last January, the overwhelming majority of its people voted in a referendum to break away from the rest of Sudan and establish an independent republic, marking the end – it is hoped – of two generations of conflict.
South Sudan, with its largely non-Muslim population, will now offer a stark contrast to the Arab, Islamic north governed from Khartoum by President Omar al-Bashir. It will be governed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the political wing of the rebel army that fought with the north before a peace accord was signed in 2005. Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the Southern Sudan region, must now try to rebuild a war-ravaged country, with the focus on constructing a functioning capital in Juba.
During the decades of conflict in Sudan, many people fled, citing either religious or tribal persecution. They ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries or found sanctuary further afield.
An 8,000-strong community of Sudanese exiles live in the UK, mostly in London. Here, six of them explain their hopes and fears for their new independent homeland – and recall the events that led them here.
Martin Muortat, 48, London
I fled from Sudan in the 1980s. The process was difficult: I walked to the Ethiopian border in 1984, then stayed in Addis Ababa until 1986 before flying to the UK, where some of my family had already relocated. I completed a university degree and have been a teacher in London for 15 years teaching maths in secondary schools. But I have been waiting for this moment all that time. I never thought that it would happen.
I'm very emotional. It's been a struggle. We have all grown up on stories of people sacrificing their lives for this moment. I have lost many relatives and this day was a dream for my late father. There are individual tragedies everywhere, but the nightmare is now ending.
You can forgive, but never forget as the memories are so strong. Some families have lost all their children and in our culture to lose a son is a huge tragedy. But we are looking to the future now. We are optimistic and want to make our own way.
I will move back, but I need to build a house first. I have children aged six and nine. They have mixed feelings about returning. We took them on holiday there last year, which they enjoyed. They loved the weather and the freedom. They chased chickens around and said the air smelled different to London. But London is still home to them and they have been affected by the stories of war. They would miss their friends here, plus the schools need improving.
Most of the men have already returned as they want to start improving things. There is a huge skills gap so many have taken up jobs as civil servants. But they are leaving salaries of, say, £40,000, and then earning far less. Some of them have property in the UK so it is difficult for them to abandon all this. However, their gut feeling is that they need to help their country. Many have large expectations, but they have to start from scratch. The change is difficult.
We still have lots of friends in north Sudan. I grew up there. In London, I meet up with my friends from the north. It is the government that has made it so difficult for everyone. They only have one direction and that is Islamic. There is no room for anything else.
Amina Dut, 46, London
I am a member of the Dinka tribe and I come from Rumdek in the south. I left in 1995 when the fighting was terrible. I was studying at university when the war started and was forced to flee to Khartoum with my uncles before making it to the UK, which is where I have lived ever since and where my four children were born. But my husband returned in 1997 to get involved in politics; I last saw him in 2009.
All my brothers were fighting in the war when it first broke out. Our village fell under government control and after trying to hide in cattle sheds we had to join a convoy. I was so scared and it was awful to see so many people dying.
So to hear independence is finally coming is so pleasing to me. Two million people died, but it is not in vain as we are getting our freedom and identity back. But a lot needs to be addressed first. The health and education system needs to be completely rebuilt.
My children want to stay in the UK because they have grown up here. They like going there, but we will have to see whether they could ever want to go permanently. I hope it will be in two to three years because the country needs us. We need to be there.
South Sudan is very different to the north. We are pure black Africans and mostly Christians. I am Catholic. I am not Arab like the people in the north. They came into Sudan much later than us. I cannot live under their sharia law. That's why we have to separate.
Kamal Kambal, 39, London
I come from the Nuba mountains on the border between the north and south Sudan and fled to the UK in 1998 when I became a target thanks to my joining the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
We continue to fight today even though peace first came to the country in 2005. The peace agreement does not answer our questions in the Nuba. The government in the north continues to violate the agreement and is killing our people in the villages. They want to replace us with Arabs. We still feel we're left in the darkness and we are worried. We are proud of independence day, but we are facing a bleak future. There are six million people of the Nuba, but only a million remain in the mountains. We want the international community and our brothers in the south to help us.
The main cause of the problem is the border. Politically, we are of the south, but geographically we have been placed in the north. We should be given a choice, but nobody asked us. We don't want to be Muslims or Arabs. Many of us are Christians.
We really want a no-fly zone over the Nuba mountains, but this is very difficult to achieve. The government bombs our people 30-40 times a day. The UN is there in small numbers, but that is not enough.
People have been killed right in front of the UN and nothing happens.I will have mixed emotions on 9 July. I am happy for our lost colleagues who dreamed of such a day, but we are only really at the very beginning of our struggle.
Hakeem Legge, 52, Wakefield
In the early 1990s, I was training as a chemist in Juba. The government decided all schools were to teach Arabic, so some students went on strike and destroyed some buildings. The government thought we were all to blame so they made us report to them regularly to prove we had not joined the rebels.
In 1993, I left Juba and travelled to Khartoum, but I knew I was under surveillance. My wife had just travelled to Sheffield to take up a university scholarship. Three days after she crossed into Uganda to catch her flight from Kampala, I was detained because they suspected I was a rebel due to her leaving the country. I was held for 10 days and I thought I was going to die. But I was saved when my wife faxed a note from Sheffield explaining her scholarship.
A few months later, the government nominated me as a minister of state for education. It was a tactic to win me round. They tried to soften me up by saying sorry, but I asked for time to consider. Then I met the deputy president socially one day and he quietly said to me that I'd made a big mistake by not taking up their offer. But it was a matter of principle for me not to serve them. These were people who amputated limbs as a form of punishment.
They then invited me to join the army. I agreed, otherwise they would have come for me. But, after I managed to defer my training for a short period, I made a break for it.
I did my homework and worked out that Syria was the only country that meant I didn't need to apply for an exit visa so I caught a flight from Khartoum to Damascus. I wanted to return to another African country, but I didn't have enough money so I applied at the British embassy to join my wife in Sheffield. Once in the UK I applied for asylum and later completed a masters in health promotion at Leeds. I have since worked for Barnados and the Terence Higgins Trust.
In 2009, I returned for the first time to see my mother and visit my father's grave. He was my mentor and my friend and I managed to keep him alive from cancer for a bit longer by sending him money from the UK for treatment. But I never saw him alive again.
I want to return again, but it is conditional on political stability. It's not safe yet. Our late leader John Garang was a true visionary but he died in an air crash in 2005. His deputy, Salva Kiir Mayardit, is illiterate and doesn't understand government. We now have 500 ministers and 2,000 members of parliament and yet we only have a population of eight million people. There is rampant corruption and nepotism. We should have called in the UN to help us set up a government. But the leadership has basically declared a state of emergency that puts all the power into the hands of the president. He is from the Dinka tribe, which is the largest, and he is trying to create an atmosphere where only another Dinka could replace him.
Africa is a continent where politics is very different from the rest of the world. The reprisals for my extended family could be severe for something I say. I cannot return until this all changes. I will not be celebrating on 9 July, or attending the parties. We are only exchanging one oppressive regime for another. There is no clean water for the refugees returning from eastern Africa because all the money has gone into private bank accounts. If I wanted to make my fortune I could return now, but what is the point when people are starving.
Some of my friends ask me why I am so difficult, but if I returned now my impact with regard to improving things would be like throwing a grain of salt into the Seine.
Sakina Dario, 47, Leeds
I come from Chukudum in Eastern Equatoria and belong to a huge extended family from the Dinka tribe. My father was a chief and MP in the area, but passed away at the beginning of the war. He had 10 wives and many children, but he was passionate about schooling and making sure women were educated. So I went to a women-only university to study psychology and teaching English as a foreign language. I graduated in 1989 and worked as a teaching assistant, but, due to my father's influence, I began to campaign for welfare reform. My political activism led to me being arrested and interrogated in Khartoum. The government tried to appoint me to a role in order to silence me, but I managed to flee to the UK in 1993. Originally, I tried to flee to Kenya, but I couldn't get an exit visa so I applied for a scholarship in the UK and US. I chose the UK and my uncle helped with the extra fees. On the plane before it departed, a colleague was arrested and taken away, but I just stayed cool and looked down. I was terrified.
It was a relief to leave, but I was sad to leave my family, plus I felt guilty for not being with my people. But the situation was terrible in Sudan for women. You could get arrested for the way you dressed and women were herded around like animals.
Due to my father's position, I am obliged and expected to go back home. I was nominated to become an MP, but my daughter is still at school here. The schools in Sudan are now worse than when I was a girl. A lot of people with children here like me now have to make this difficult choice about whether to return or not.
Most men have already left the UK and returned, but the women and children remain here. There are now no educated Sudanese women there because a lot of girls didn't go to school during the war. That is a big challenge for our country. But many women feel they need to stay in the UK to earn money because the men are finding it difficult to earn enough in Sudan.
We need to work out a way to ensure that women and the younger generation participate in the process of governance. The government needs to prioritise a better gender balance. The opportunities for women are just not there yet.
Wol Ariec, 49, London
I am the chargé d'affaires for South Sudan in the UK and the director for political, cultural and community affairs. We have two diplomatic staff in the UK at present based in an office in King's Cross, but we hope to move to an embassy soon because the UK recognises our government.
We have been set up now for two years and are very interested in encouraging British businesses to come and invest in South Sudan. Historically, we have very strong links with the UK. We have a huge potential for oil and mining. We need this income to build our roads, hospitals and schools and we want British businesses to invest. Some foreign investors have already made millions of dollars since the end of the war, but so far very few British companies have got involved.
We are keen not to make the same mistakes seen elsewhere in Africa. We don't want to commit ourselves to debt. We don't want to be a liability. Investment capital is what we really need, not loans. It will be the people who decide how our oil revenues are spent. The north is still an important partner for us so we have to maintain a relationship. We have no choice. Khartoum needs to understand this. We all still have family connections in the north.
We also have to maintain our national unity in the south. Our leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has kept us all united. We cannot deny that we have challenges, though. Everyone has a gun now, whereas before it was just spears and sticks. We are a nation of warriors and have a culture where men must prove their manhood and show they are stronger than others.
But people also want peace. They are so tired of war. We are a democratic country with an elected government.
We are very grateful to the UK for welcoming us during the war. But we must return home now and enjoy the fruits of South Sudan.
Somali famine: Fighting in Mogadishu after aid delivery 28 July 2011 Last updated at 09:12 GMT
The weak interim government controls only parts of Mogadishu
Heavy fighting has broken out in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a day after the UN World Food Programme airlifted in its first famine emergency aid.
At least four people are reported to have been killed as government forces, backed by African Union troops, attacked Islamist insurgents.
The BBC's Mohamed Dhore in Mogadishu says the clashes are in northern areas and unlikely to affect the aid effort.
Thousands have arrived into government-controlled suburbs in search of food.
Correspondents say if the pro-government forces manage to gain more ground this could enable aid agencies to increase the areas where they can deliver food aid to victims of the severe drought.
The WFP delivery is the first airlift of food aid since the UN declared a famine in two southern areas of Somalia last week.
Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda linked group which controls much of Somalia, has banned the WFP from its areas.
Our correspondent says the fighting started just after dawn when the government and African peacekeeping troops launched an offensive on an al-Shabab stronghold in the north of the city, about 7km (four miles) from the airport.
Government officers told the BBC they had gained some ground and were now trying to dislodge al-Shabab from Mogadishu stadium.
Our reporter says it appears to be an attempt to push back the insurgents just ahead of the holy month of Ramadan which starts over the weekend - a time when al-Shabab has often launched attacks including suicide bombings.
Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, a spokesman for the 9,000-strong AU force in Mogadishu, said 41 al-Shabab fighters had surrendered during the clashes.
The weak interim government controls about 60% of Mogadishu, including the airport, the port, the presidential palace and areas around the city's largest market.
Tens of thousands of Somalis have fled areas controlled by al-Shabab to Mogadishu and neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia in search of assistance.
The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that some 100,000 people had arrived in Mogadishu and settlements around the city in search of food and water in the past two months.
Earlier this week, Somali Foreign Minister Mohamed Ibrahim warned that more than 3.5 million people "may starve to death" in his country.
The WFP aid delivery came in by plane on Wednesday because sending it by boat would have taken months.
Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman for the WFP, said the 10 tonnes of Plumpy'nut, a peanut-based paste high in protein and energy, would be enough to treat 3,500 malnourished children for a month.
Given the demand for food aid in Somalia, the delivery is just a drop in the ocean, says the BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Somalia is thought to be worst-hit by the crisis, but Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti have also been affected.
More than 10 million people in the region are thought to be at risk from the worst drought in 60 years.
Esper says ‘no decisions’ have been finalized on AFRICOM changes
"AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa "
By: Aaron Mehta January 22
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speaks to the press during a press conference at the Pentagon Briefing Room in Washington on Jan. 7, 2020. (Army Staff Sgt. Nicole Mejia/DoD)
Speaking to reporters Wednesday while travelling to Florida, Esper noted that “everything you do has some type of folks questioning and having concerns” and did not seem concerned by the pushback, which included the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
"We haven’t talked to them yet in detail… frankly, no decisions have been made,” the secretary said. “I’ve talked to members of Congress several times and once we get through the reviews, I will update Congress as well.”
The chairmen followed criticisms from earlier in the week by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., as well as Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del. A bipartisan group of 11 congressmen, led by HASC Vice Chair Anthony Brown, D-Md., also sent a separate letter to Esper .. https://anthonybrown.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=749 , warning the move is a “shortsighted action that both diminishes our overall national security posture and our ability to lead with American values and influence.”
Esper’s proposed cuts would most likely focus on the several hundred troops now deployed in countries like Niger, Chad and Mali. If so, that would be a fraction of the 6,000 to 7,000 American troops in Africa, and it would appear to exclude the 500 special operations troops fighting alongside local forces against al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group based in Somalia.
When Esper returns to the Pentagon Friday, he will have another meeting with AFRICOM on the potential changes. Esper will also be discussing the start of a review of U.S. Southern Command soon.
Why is America there? Mixed motives. Could a world ever be without countries operating without mixed motives? Nope.
Russia is not alone in exploiting Africa Tracey Lindner says the scramble for Africa is largely about securing resources that are crucial for military and civilian digital technology. Terry McGinn shines a spotlight on the US Letters Sat 15 Jun 2019 01.36 AEST https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/14/russia-is-not-alone-in-exploiting-africa
10 years ago Moeller said there are terrorist groups in Africa. As we all all know there still are.
Terrorist Attacks Increase in Africa’s Sahel, U.S. Warns State Department points to risk of fleeing fighters finding a new haven in semiarid belt south of the Sahara The State Department recorded 150 terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso in 2018. Here, smoke rises after a suspected attack last year. Photo: str/EPA/Shutterstock By Jessica Donati and Courtney McBride Nov. 1, 2019 3:27 pm ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/terrorist-attacks-increase-in-africas-sahel-u-s-warns-11572636479
If you really want to fight terrorism, start by fighting child poverty Poor people have no stake in nations and economies that ignore them – governments must recognise residents of slums as full citizens, not squatters Kennedy Odede co-founder, Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) Fri 21 Aug 2015 19.37 AEST Last modified on Fri 6 Oct 2017 23.14 AEDT “I grew up with men and women in Kibera with enough energy, intelligence and entrepreneurial zeal to be a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs,” says Kennedy Odede Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP P -Poverty feeds terrorism by eroding a basic human need: the need to belong. This may seem like an unlikely place to begin a conversation on terrorism, but after growing up in one of Africa’s largest urban slums for most of my life, I am certain that nurturing a sense of belonging in young people through economic opportunity and the cultivation of community is essential for curbing the spread of terrorism. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/aug/21/terror-groups-africa-recruit-children-from-kibera-mathare-slum-poverty
Most everybody agrees extreme inequality is an ever-increasing problem to be addressed. Within and between nations. Something tells me though that question is not so important in all peoples' minds.
Isis claims sub-Saharan attacks in a sign of African ambitions This article is more than 7 months old Move points to effort to become platform for Islamic extremist groups after fall of ‘caliphate’ Jason Burke Africa correspondent Thu 6 Jun 2019 22.20 AEST Last modified on Fri 7 Jun 2019 03.50 AEST Members of the Congolese national army move near where the ADF militia group operates in North Kivu province. Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham/EPA P - Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two attacks by militants in sub-Saharan Africa in less than 24 hours, suggesting the continent is central to the terrorist group’s strategy of expanding a global network of extremists after the loss of its territories in Iraq and Syria. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/06/isis-claims-sub-saharan-attacks-sign-africa-ambitions-islamic-extremist
Then there are these guys.
Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections.
By WEIYI CAI and SIMONE LANDON APRIL 3, 2019
[...]
An analysis by The New York Times of recent terrorism attacks found that at least a third of white extremist killers since 2011 were inspired by others who perpetrated similar attacks, professed a reverence for them or showed an interest in their tactics.
The connections between the killers span continents and highlight how the internet and social media have facilitated the spread of white extremist ideology and violence.
In one instance, a school shooter in New Mexico corresponded with a gunman who attacked a mall in Munich. Altogether, they killed 11 people.
[...]
“I think that Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish,” said J.M. Berger, author of the book “Extremism” and a research fellow with VOX-Pol, a European academic initiative to study online extremism.
“He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do.”
Shortly after the Norway massacre, a prominent American white supremacist named Frazier Glenn Miller wrote on a white supremacist forum that Mr. Breivik had “inspired young Aryan men to action.” Mr. Miller opened fire on a Jewish retirement home and community center in Kansas a few years later, killing three.
Mr. Breivik was not the only mass killer to inspire copycats. The Christchurch shooter also paid tribute to a Canadian man who opened fire inside a Quebec City mosque in 2017, writing his name on one of the guns used in his attack.
That Canadian gunman read extensively about Dylann Roof, the American who killed nine worshipers at a black church in South Carolina in 2015.
At least four white extremist killers made statements online praising Elliot Rodger, a racist and misogynist who targeted women in a 2014 spree, before carrying out their own attacks.
All these attacks occurred amid a surge of white supremacist and xenophobic terrorism in the West that has frequently targeted Muslims, immigrants and other minority groups, the Times analysis found.
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