Jonglei State: cattle issues disturb peace

By Philip Thon Aleu

March 14, 2009 (BOR TOWN) – The blessing of cattle has also become a curse in Jonglei state, as conflict over the prized resource has caused bloodshed and social problems, residents observe.

Dinka Bor, Nuer, Jieng, Anyuak, Kachipo and Murle communities in Jonglei State are pastoralists. During the south-north conflict that reached a climax between 1983 and 2005, inter-tribal conflicts were low but went unreported.

After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), all communities rose against each other as if the next civil war had been planned prior to 2005. Thousands of people are being killed in South Sudan villages yearly despite this accord reached in Kenya on January 9, 2005.

An elderly man in his 70s, Maluk Mach, resting before his dusty kraal attributed the upsurge in raiding to a poverty gap created immediately after the CPA.

“What can a strong man do?” he asked and rejoined “he has to think ‘where will I get riches?’ – and our wealth as pastoralists is cattle. Everything we do needs them.” He explained that the CPA resulted in the gap because “Others are rich because they receive a lot of money from the government and buy cattle.”

Bonds between pastoralists and cattle develop as early as at weaning. Children are fed on milk and spend most of their pre-teen years at the cattle camp looking after goats and sheep as well as calves.

Many elders, rural and urban youths and the community leaders share how cattle dominate socio-economic life in Jonglei State yet are unfortunately central in brutal killings and patterns of child abduction.

“We must convince our people that they are not poor… and that there are better ways of getting wealth,” said Governor Kuol Manyang Juuk. “Not only cattle raiding. Preach this message to end insecurity. We need peace and that is why we fought for 21 years,” he told a two-day conference for commissioners in Bor Town last year.

Kuai Deng, a young man in his mid-twenties, explained one social aspect of cattle ownership which he says is a summary that holds among elite and leaders of the people: “To purchase a woman of your choice – that is the most thing cattle can do.”

Criticizing the practice, journalist Manyang David Mayar singled out expensive dowries as the “foundation of Dinka Bor poverty.”

Mayar, who writes for a journalist for the Juba Post Newspaper in Bor Town, said “Shops owned by Dinka men in Bor Town close after marrying expensively. This so bad and is the foundation of Dinka poverty.”

A minimum bride price in Dinka Bor culture is 30 cattle (variable), 35 for Nuer, 45 for Murle as Anyuak, Jieng and Kachipo bride prices are arbitrarily close to these figures. Yet the dowries math was unset when some Dinka Bor settled a marriage at 200 cattle in one case registered in 2008.

Even Bor marriages settled at 30 cattle are not, however, expensive when compared with other Dinka cultures in Lakes, Northern Bar-el Ghaza and Warap States of Southern Sudan. In each case, competition for a girl disturbs the bride price. A father has to fold his arms and say “my daughter is on market” and hence he who raises more cattle is the bridegroom.

Love for cattle could hold in Jonglei towns and villages as long as marriage is an obligation.

“Cattle are the bank of an uneducated man…. and if you do not have enough, you will not marry a beautiful woman,” remarked Nhial Malet, a resident in Bor town. Dhieu Mayen, a student at Dr. John Garang Institute, disagrees with Nhial while prioritizing steps to end conflicts in Jonglei State at conference conducted here in February, 2008. “Unless we stop expensive marriages, insecurity will not end till Jesus comes,” he said winning laughter from participants among them cowherd men who view his approach as impossible.

Cowherd Deng Apar cleans his handsome ox for the early hours of dusk after taking off dung earlier. “This is the ox that I am keeping,” he says scratching his right hand at the back of the ox adding “There is nothing better than staying near it.”

Asked to what extent he would fight before losing this ox he replied “I will fight till I die before it is forcefully taken.” Deng cannot really imagine another way of life but agreed that perhaps he could be a farmer after getting a wife.

Elderly people also view milk as part of treatment forcing their children to obtain one by any means. “This sickness would never have stopped if I never came to cattle camp,” an elderly woman identified as Mary Achol said.

ABDUCTION

Former child abductees who prefer anonymity claim that children are sold to rich barren women. A man now in his early thirties was abducted in 1992 to Murle where he was sold to a mother of three daughters. He escaped in 1997 after marrying and is being there by a daughter and spouse. Several of these abduction cases are common but Murle argue that they also buy some children.

Jonglei State Legislative Assembly chairperson of Legal Affairs Maker Kur told Sudan Tribune that abduction attempts can be penalized with 5-7 years imprisonment. But lack of clear legislation, weak courts and insufficient lawyers mean that there is often no recourse to justice for wrongs done. Thus, the law is in the hand of the people.

DISARMAMENT

The wish of chief cattle keepers here is that neighboring communities are disarmed to avoid any losses. “Some [people] took their cattle to Central Equatoria thinking they are escaping raiders but we must remain here and protect ourselves,” said a man preferring anonymity.

Such conflicts have made news in South Sudan. Efforts made by South Sudan’s government to collect illegal arms are said to be fruitless as civilians overpower organized forces. Rather than forming part of the solution, the south’s security forces including a weak police and the former rebel army often abuse its power, claimed a recent report by the US-based Human Rights Watch.

“Soldiers and other security forces that commit human rights violations and other crimes against civilians are rarely brought to account,” noted the report, which described killings, torture, ex-judicial executions and arbitrary detentions by soldiers.

The road to safety for these rural communities is long, and potentially an obstacle to achieving the peace envisioned by Sudan’s 2005 north-south agreement.

(ST)