“Never Again” in Nuba

SOCIAL ISSUES AND SUSTAINABILITY

Shauna Leven

" Shauna Leven is the Programme Manager at René Cassin - a human rights NGO....."

3rd June, 2012

Thousands killed, hundreds of thousands more expelled from their homes, all in the name of ethnic cleansing in Sudan. Sound familiar? When people finally took notice of the genocide in Darfur, over two million people had suffered persecution, displacement, starvation, rape and mass murder. As Jews, we are all too familiar with these horrors. We remember the lives lost during the Holocaust and cry out “never again”. Indeed it is incumbent upon us to remember our Holocaust as well as the recent genocides in the Balkans, in Rwanda, and Darfur to name just a few; and to take action to prevent future loss of life that is now unfolding in Sudan against a group of people collectively known as the Nuba.

The region which houses Sudan and the newly independent South Sudan has long been delicately balanced between war and peace. While division of Sudan was celebrated as a major stride toward peace, it does not mark an end to the violence. In fact, border disputes are pushing the region to the brink of another war. Fighting is centralized in the state of South Kordofan, recognized internationally to be part of Sudan. Approximately 1.4 million people are currently trapped in this region, either forced to flee or killed before given the chance.

The people of South Kordofan are generally and collectively known as the Nuba, named for the mountain range located there. To the north lies mostly Arab, mostly Muslim North Africa; to the south, Animist and Christian sub-Saharan Africa.  This division runs coast to coast, and conflicts often spark along its route.  In the Sudans, it has resulted in the deaths of over two million people in two wars between 1956 and 2005. Although the Nuba are ethnically diverse, representing multiple distinct cultures and languages, they share at least one common feature: this group has seen some of the most devastating crimes against humanity in the modern age.

The scorched-earth tactic of bombing and burning villages, which was so effective in killing an estimated 300,000 Darfuris, was first used against the Nuba in the early 1990s. At that time Khartoum issued a jihad, or holy war, which allowed northern troops and Arab militias to kill even those Nuba who were Muslim.  The same ideological, political and religious racism that motivated Khartoum to purge black Africans in Darfur appears to be targeting the Nuba people again.

In fact, there is only one real difference between Darfur and Nuba: nobody is talking about Nuba. This is not by accident, of course. Khartoum is careful to close the Nuba region to international scrutiny, detaining journalists and threatening to expel diplomatic missions who speak out about human rights violations in the area.  The Sudanese government learned from Darfur that attention can spell the beginning of the end. It took thousands of photographs and first-hand accounts of systematic torture by Sudanese militia before the international community was stirred out of apathy. But this action did not begin with national leaders; it began with the people.

As was the case then, foreign governments now are hesitant to criticize Khartoum for fear of upsetting the delicate balance of peace so recently negotiated between the Sudans. Grass-roots lobbying from NGOs and the general public finally succeeded in securing commitments from governments around the world to take action in Darfur. The ability of the average citizen to enact change is surprisingly great. As Unites States’ Senator Paul Simon, who died in 2003, said after the Rwandan genocide, “If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different.”  Unfortunately, as was the case in Rwanda and again in Darfur, the attention often comes too late for hundreds of thousands of people. It threatens to be the case for the Nuba people as well.

Although there are differences between what is happening to the Nuba and what happened during the Holocaust, or in Rwanda, the Balkans or Darfur, and although this may be significant in some discussions, this is not the time to look for differences and distinctions.  What matters is that innocent people are being targeted and killed in large numbers in the Nuba region of Sudan, and that the world remains largely unaware that this is occuring.  We must act on, as well as speak, the words “never again”. Here is a good example of how we, as Jewish people, can use our voice to draw attention to genocide and persecution of others:

So how does one begin to effect the change?  First, get educated.  Learn the history behind what is happening to the Nuba people by visiting the Rene Cassin Website.  Then, get involved by joining us and supporting our efforts to raise awareness of the Nuba.

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Kim Larson contributed to this article