ِAlert :- إلى منظمات حقوق الأنسان: قبيلة الشوابنه فى جنوب كردفان تواجه خطر الأبادة

Quote: Racial arrogance has a lot to do with the decimation of these indigenous people. The Nuba had been persecuted by the Turco-Egyptian marauders and their rapacious allies – that is, Arab settlers - greedy for slaves, wealth, resources-rich lands which they had lived on and dismissive of their right to life. Other spoils, which the occupying forces set to exploit in the Nuba Mountains, were the gold mines of Sheibun. It is worth noting that a few centuries ago, a group of riverain Arabs who were fleeing retribution by their local chieftains sought refuge in the Sheibun area causing a social engineering effect through intermarriages and concubine relations with the local women. The product was a population of mulattoes called Shawabna - that is, named after the area, who were then, and certainly today, characterised by an identity crisis. A typical example of this was the ill-thought and executed plot by Arab settlers and enslavers at Talodi in 1906 against the Condominium’s attempt to combat slavery in the Sudan. Ironically, these sons of ex-slaves, who were fugitives running away from their Hamar Arab masters, settled on plains around the Nuba hills. They became infamous for robbery and slavery too. Because these rebellious slavers were championing the wrong cause, they were resisted and defeated by local chieftains – both Nuba (Kadugli and Miri) and Arabs – who backed the authorities in their counter-insurgency efforts. Not only was the enslavement of the Nuba by this detribalised group and their Arab minders conceived as a means of economic source, but it was also retained by these offspring of ex-slaves to pander to their ‘inferiority complex’ of being the descendants of slaves. But instead of exacting their revenge on the perpetrators, they vented out their venom on the victims through the perpetual act of enslavement.(30) These demi-Arabs were later to be exploited by the central regimes as part of Arab militias against the embattled Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), executing the job with eschatological fanaticism, obsessive notoriety and unwarranted viciousness. There are some settled groups of Arabs in various parts of the region, in particular in the neighbourhood of Kadugli, and these people, while proudly claiming Arab blood, are intermarrying with the Nuba and becoming physically indistinguishable from them. In fact, they are adopting some of the Nuba cultures and social customs, such as wrestling, Nuba names and so forth. They shared with the Nuba their agrarian lands, water resources, pastures and commercial activities.