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Back Cover Letter from Payuer
August 3rd, 2005 -- Harun Uthman Abakir’s cows are grazing in Payuer, an impoverished Dinka village in SPLA-controlled territory on the east bank of the White Nile, for the first time since 1983. Although the Comprehensive Peace Agreement the Sudanese government and the SPLA signed in January theoretically opens front lines that have been closed for more than 20 years, Harun and his fellow Fellata — Sudanese Muslims of West African origin — are understandably a little apprehensive. Many Fellata fought in the government militias that devastated this part of Northern Upper Nile, and the Dinka know it. The Fellata have been welcomed by the authorities here — chiefs even slaughtered a cow for them — but they are still viewed with suspicion by many people. To ease their way, the Fellata are bearing dates, a luxury not seen here for many years. The last time I was in Payuer, two years ago, it was a terrible place: Dinka displaced by government attacks on villages around the Adar oilfields were living in stone-age conditions — eating leaves, sleeping without blankets or mosquito nets and dying, like flies, of malaria, kala azar, diarrhoea and respiratory infections (not to mention wounds suffered in ground and air attacks). Things are a little better now: there’s a small market and a clinic run by the charity Medair, but there’s still not enough sorghum, the staple crop, and little money to spend in the market. So the dates are welcome, as good an ice-breaker as any. But dates are not all the Fellata have brought. They have also brought news of the Dinka villages in government-controlled territory north of here, where a consortium operated by the state-owned China National Petroleum Company is drilling. “Everything is burned,” says Haroun as we all chew on dates. “Only the area around Paloich is not burned.” One of the tests of peace will be what happens now to Paloich, the place where oil was most recently discovered — a massive two billion barrels of it — in CNPC’s Northern Upper Nile concession. The signs don’t look good. Harun reports that Paloich market was burned in March, a full two months after peace was signed, and Southern traders there have been displaced by Northerners. Dinka living in Paloich have been told to leave the town and move to a place called Beny, where the government has built a mosque and an Islamic school. But the Dinka are refusing to move: not only are they not Muslims, but the only water Beny has is the swampy water that comes when the place floods, which it has a habit of doing. “Even the people who live in Beny don’t like it and want to move somewhere else,” an old Dinka man says glumly. “It’s low-lying and sandy, like the desert. There’s nothing to build with. Paloich is the best place. It’s high.” But all the indications are that the government of Sudan is still set on displacing Southerners from oil areas like Paloich, offering neither compensation nor even materials to build with. Almost five months after the CPA brought Africa’s longest-running civil war to an end — officially, at least — government militias have not been disarmed and Dinka displaced from oil areas are unable to return home. Most are impatient. Many are angry and getting angrier. “We want to go back to our villages,” says Paramount Chief Deng Nuor. “We will fight the militias to settle in our villages. We have asked the SPLA for weapons, but they have told us they don’t want fighting. They say there’s peace. But there will only be peace when we can return to our villages.” Fellata are not the only Northerners who have crossed to Payuer since the CPA was signed — and the government signed away half its oil revenue. Scores of Southerners who fought in government militias have also crossed, and have also been welcomed. They don’t think the displaced will be returning home any time soon. “The government of Sudan doesn’t want peace,” says Munjok Deng, a Dinka who until two months ago was a commander in a government militia. “The government will use the militias to make Southerners fight each other because it wants to keep the oil. You foreigners made this peace. Now you must take the militias to Khartoum!” |
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