A Flaring Stone Age Culture: Child abduction and cattle rustling in South Sudan

By Mayak Deng Aruei,California, USA

In Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly South Sudan, cattle rustlingthough an outdated economic hoarding practice is widely practiced in pastoral communities. Cattle raiding is alongstanding feature of many East African pastoralist societies (Wild, Jok, & Patel, 2018). The unregulated nature of things in South Sudan make criminals in the lawless and ungoverned territories to enrich themselves by taking other people’sproperties by force. Like rest of the developing world, authorities in South Sudan need to pay special attention to things that interrupt people’s lives. For quite a very long period, some pastoral communities in South Sudan have been engaged in cattle rustling. In remote areas of South Sudan, the nomadiccommunities, also known as agro-pastoralists in Jonglei state raids cattle and abduct children from their parents at gunpoint.Conflict in Jonglei, in the post-independence years remains multi-layered, and has perhaps only grown in complexity since the war period, with multiple intra-group, inter-group and international dynamics as well as political, economic and sociocultural drivers(Gordon, 2014). The poor young men would trek many miles to raid cows. This article talks about cattle’s raiding/rustling, child abduction, and ways to end this old practices across the country.

The problem of cattle’s raiding/rustling is an ancient practice that is subsidiary to the child abduction. Long before animal change ownership, a fight of a certain magnitude would take place, and losers of the battle have their cattle driven away by the invading warriors. The animals are lucrative commodities for pastoral communities; often use as an exchange of value, marriage bride price, and bartered for grains and other essential commodities. The indigenous African communities regards cattle as sign of social privilege and pride. The act of cattle raided existed in much of sub-Sarah African regions, and can be traced to the slave trade period. 

Cattle’s raiding has traditionally been considered one of the markers signaling a male youth’s transition from adolescence to maturity. In recent years, climatic changes compounded by the legacy of a civil war spanning three decades have resulted in a dramatic increase in both the frequency and the intensity of the violence associated with cattle raiding among pastoralists.

Historically, Arabs traders from North Africa and Middle reportedly had hands in child abduction and cattle rustling.Cattle raiding and rustling certainly is not a new phenomenon in most areas in Africa. Cattle’s rustling is a traditional activity among all the pastoralists, and have caused some serious problems in some areas than others .The literature on cattle rustling has been dominated by scholars from East Africa, largely due to the peculiarity of the problem to the area. Thepractice largely remained in the Eastern African nation of South Sudan and Sudan because of the two civil wars that lasted for 50 years. The pastoralist communities in central Sudan, the Misseriya also known as the Baggara have been raiding communities in northern Bahr El Ghazal and Unity state/Ruweng for many decades. The practice is prevalence in regions of Africa where modern way of life has not taken deeproots. In northern Nigeria, for instance, cattle’s rustling is a major internal security concern.

In South Sudan, cattle’s rustling is communal, and communities that herds cattle, and who lives side by side tends to engage in cattle stealing. The issue of cattle rustling is often connected to local politics, and there have been instances where mass cattle raiding has been tied to rebellions, and villages have been raced to ashes by militias who acted under the directions of their commanding officers. In the Greater Jonglei of South Sudan, the communities that are engaged in cattle’s rustling activity are the Dinka of Jonglei (Twic, Bor, Nyarweng and Hol), Gawaar Nuer, Thiang Nuer, Lak Nuer, Lou Nuer, and the Murle Tribe. Jonglei has long suffered from cycles of conflict over land and resources related to the cattle economy, bound up with ethnic dynamics, troubled relationships with the state, lack of services and livelihoods options and the effects of various external conflicts (Gordon, 2014). There is often tribal element to the practice, and politics tends to take rough toll on people in government and administrative units. In one incident, a Murle’ tribal militia killed at least 43 people in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, extending a spate of tit-for-tat revenge killings (Dumo, 2017).As witnessed throughout the centuries, cycles of raids and retaliatory counter-raids between communities sow the seeds of resentment that allow armed youth to be mobilized rapidly by political leaders (Wild, Jok, & Patel, 2018).

Cattle raiding/rustling is a major problem in most South Sudanese pastoral communities regardless of ethnic alignment/grouping. In Bahr El Ghazal region of South Sudan, especially in Warrap and Lakes states, the herders have been engaged in raiding activities, and the issue got worse during the South Sudan’s civil war 2013-2019. Unlike communities in Jonglei states, Central and Eastern Equatoria states, the communities in both Lakes state and Warrap state are Jieng/Dinka’s subtribes, yet heavy fighting over cattle have been reported over the years. Between 2014 and 2019, communities in Lakes state experienced unprecedented cattle raiding displacement due to inter-communal fighting. In Central and Eastern Equatoria, cattle-rearing communities undergo the same problem. The hot spot where cattle rustling poses a serious threat to people’s livelihood is Eastern Equatoria. In this regionof South Sudan, cattle raiding fits the Lotuho tribe against Lopit, Pari against Lotuho, Boya against Taposa, Didinga againstTaposa, Logiri against Didinga, and Dodoth against Didinga. The cycle of cattle rustling/raiding is a major security threat in the region.

Across South Sudan, domestic politics plays significant roles in the magnitudes of violence. The South Sudanese Government has not been able to contain the problem, and that has a lot to with how the Governments see the issue as a minute problem that can be addressed by the local communities themselves. Just like other African countries, lack of government presence in certain areas in South Sudan constitutes a trigger for criminal operatives to operate with impunity. The regions of South Sudan that pretty much affected, and that account for the majority of the conflict-related deaths in the whole country are: Central Equatoria states, Eastern Equatoria states, Lakes state, Warrap,and Jonglei state. The problem of cattle rustling has taken a huge toll in the Greater Jonglei, and there has to some measures put in place to end the back and forth destruction of people’s livelihood. Like the inhabitants of southern Swaziland, cattle rustling in Jonglei can be handled through the existing legal framework when cross-border cattle thieving became a serious problem.

Cattle’s rustling is a banditry that requires a full commitment from governments, and cooperation from the local communities. Banditry in this case refers to the incidences of armed robbery or allied violent crimes, such as kidnapping, cattle rustling, and village or market raids. It high time that leaders in South Sudan make strategic progress with how to tame communities that engages in cattle rustling. The areas where cattle rustling takes place are so volatile, and there is little hope for investment that kind of environment. As a matter of fact, cattle raids pose a significant threat to the health and wellbeing of pastoralists and to their communities in the form of mortality for young male warriors, decreased nutrition due to loss of herds, and decreased access to arable land and watering holes (Wild, Jok, & Patel, 2018). Cattle rustling has been proved as a major security breach that interrupts economic activities, and somewhat keeps communities in absolute poverty. Often, there are cross bordercattle rustling activities in East Africa region because raidershave been extending their activities into neighboring communities that lies in other countries. For example, conflicts in northern Uganda often spill over to Northern Kenya, and destabilize socioeconomic stability of the community living along the borders.

Just to recount on the earlier points, cattle rustling is one of the many challenges facing the pastoralists in Africa. The what would be commercial cattle farmers are faced with rampant cases of cattle theft. Cattle raiding and cattle rustling have a long history as an aspect of the traditional pastoralist culture(Wamuyu, 2017). In 2012, there was a deadly attack on 42 Kenyan police officers in Suguta Valley, Samburu District. The officer were trying to rescue cattle who rustlers who stormed the village in northern Kenya (Greiner, 2013). The escalation ofviolence in Kenya said to relates to more general shifts in the political landscape that are part of Kenya’s troubled nation-building process (Greiner, 2013). This is pretty the same situation in South Sudan. The cattle raiding and rustling seen in South Sudan has much to do with political turmoil; communities have been engulfed in revenges killing and cattle stealing, and politicians and loose warlords are partially responsible for escalation as some of them have been accused of arming civilians. For quite sometimes, David Yau Yau of the South Sudan Democratic Movement-Cobra Faction (SSDM-Cobra)oversaw a ruthless militia of all time, and his militias have beenengaged in killing, cattle rustling and child abduction. The activities of Cobra Militias extended as far as western Ethiopia, and Ethiopia’s army entered South Sudan to search for over 100 children abducted by a South Sudanese militia by the Murle tribe in their usual cross-border cattle raid. Livestock raiding is a major form of violence common in arid and semiarid lands where people practice pastoralism or agro-pastoralism (Ember, Skoggard, Adem, & Faas, 2014).With the introduction of small arms to the region, cattle’s rustling has become a deadly practice accounting for much loss of human lives. The Great Lake region and Horn of Africa are both severely affected by the scourge of small arms and light weapons.

South Sudan has provided a somewhat similar picture. Both during its war for independence and during the ongoing struggle for power among factions of the SPLM, there have been multiple reports of all the armed factions either directly rustling cattle, acting as middlemen, or of purchasing stolen cattle, usually in a barter deal for weapons or ammunition.

In addition to cattle raiding; child abduction has been noticed in the literature as something that has existed in the traditional societies of Africa. Cattle, child abduction and grazing land have been the causes of conflict among the communities in greater Jonglei (Garang, 2019). Unlike other pastoral communities in South Sudan, the Murle tribe has been engaged in cattle’s rustling and child abduction to the detrimental of their neighbors. The children who are taken from their biological relatives are put into forced adoption, making practice a modern day slavery. Young children are taken from their parents by forces; parents are killed by the invading cattle raiders. The practice of child abduction evolved around forced adoption and child trade. In many instances, wealthy old people would offer many heads of cattle for a child, and the child would be member of their family for life. Over the years, the surges of violence in Greater Jonglei since 2009, and where 1,000 people were reportedly killed in a single incident. The race in the cattle rearing communities of South Sudan has taken a huge toll on the civil population, and has kept thousands of former refugees from returning home. 

How cattle raiding/rustling and child abduction can be ended?

There is more incentive to adopting to modern way of life, letting go an ancient practice that endanger communities and create more insecurity between communities. The Government and local authorities need to come up with framework that work better for the society as a whole. The other tested modalities such as disarmaments and demobilization under the hospice of the United Nation Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) have been scams for people to make living off the revenge prone communities. Imagine, if South Sudanese were paid to wage a liberation struggle against successive Khartoum governments, would they have succeeded? The answer is absolutely not. The South Sudanese must be very serious about developing the country, and that will requires eliminating things that undermine progress. The volunteers from all walks of life in South Sudan need to speak in one voice, start sanitizing communities, preaching peace, offering literacy program. The South Sudanese activists who are active on social media can do a lot more things to local communities who appears to know their way of the cycle of violence. Of the many possible ways; the youths who are jobless for the most part need technical skills such that they make independent decisions;  training on sanitation, disease awareness campaign, and importance of citizenry collective responsibility. There is a lot more work that educated South Sudanese need to do in order to disengage youth from being involved in cattle raiding.

Changing the way communities see themselves

There should be measures put in place by the government, with inputs from the citizens to change the way common South Sudanese view their surroundings. Some of these ought to include urging citizens to adopt a business mind; being proactive in term of creating small businesses, forming cooperatives, and investing in activities that add values to the wellbeing of the society as a whole. The communal way of doing things in South Sudan has contributed to extreme poverty, and often make individual’s problem a community’s problem. In the series of unresolved communal conflicts, tribal based antisocial and self-proclaimed politicians cook fogs of runup problems, andsideway, those become some forms of rebellions. Along the same line, groups of dissatisfied politicians and disgruntled army officers flock to their villages to recruit young men to fight for their political interests. The paramilitary factions that always use to suppress political opponents need to be denounced. The damage caused by Mathiang-Ayoor and White Army in the period of 2014-2016 when the SPLA was fighting the SPLA-OI should be a lesson to all South Sudanese. Had people learned how to mind their own businesses, there would been no war after the independence of South Sudan. The scarce resources have been used to fight senseless conflicts, and rebellions without objectives.

Prioritizing rule of law

In order to preserve the sovereign of South Sudan, the nation must be governed according to the rule of law. The rule of law is a premise that the country must be governed based on existing laws rather than based on arbitrary or discretionary rules. For the past 14 years, people in Government have not lived up to the laws of the nation. For example, the Government’s officials have been abusing their positions, and more than often, those whose relatives in high positions in Government or the organized forces got away with serious crimes, the aggrieved people have been on the revenge campaign, often very important people being killed to pay for a crime committed by person from the victim’s clan or tribe. “I was very uncomfortable after hearing that prisoner detained with charges connected to murder had escaped from jail. I ordered the arrest of two senior police officers but later on they told me that the prisoner who escaped had been found and now is arrested again waiting to face justice.” All of these amounts to political gimmick and tribal mishandling of national affairs. No matter how minute these things are, they contributes to social, economic and politicalunderdevelopment.

Conclusion

The South Sudanese Government may want to settle for less, and take a real charge for the country. The lawlessness seen throughout the South Sudan has a lot to do with lack of accountability, and too much powers concentrated in the hands of few. The society as a whole must response positively to the high demand of literacy, and shift from animal based economy to a more modern way of life where the youth should spend their times learning new technical skills, trades, and making of clean money. There are more economic opportunities out there than being engaged in cattle stealing. There is more damage to the people’s livelihood than the gains that marauding raids gain when they raid cattle and abduct children. The bandits displaces residents from their homes; communities are involves in back and forth runoff, and economic cost is unbearable on the society as a whole. The African continent where cattle rustling still exists in some parts of the continent must rise against that socialnuisance once and for all.

References

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