Is Abyei Present Predicament a Fault of Ngok Customary Authorities or a Colonial Blunder?

WAS ABYEI PREDICAMENT A FAULTILY ON NGOK TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP OR A COLONIAL MADE – Part I

By Ustaz Jok Arop, Abyei, South Sudan

Sunday, March 07, 2021 (PW) — It is human being’s nature to be disappointed particularly when they are presented with a problem that its resolution seems to be impossible. This will make people look for avenues that will bring them out of the impasse. Being a student of history does not qualify me to be perfect when talking about the past. However, when history is well written, people take pride in their past and will work in the similar patterns to shape their present and foresee their future. History is not a matter of jotting down some few hundreds words and saying that is our history. No! It is horse work that entails a lot of soul searching for analysis.

As natives of this tiny border area, we all know what our ancestors have gone through since they put their feet on this gifted land in the early sixteenth century. They gave Abyei as a name to their acquired land. Through centuries of agonies and upheavals, our ancestors were capable of defending their land from any incursion from the North. They even provided protective roles to their brethren southwards. They did all these things through courage, wisdom, and diplomacy with different people and governments in space and time. They are considered by many scholars as the pioneers of guerrilla warfare against slave traders.

Our ancestor, Dau Kiir, from Anyiel section of the Ngok Dinka, is a living example. Through him, Arop Biong and Allor Ajing managed to strike a diplomatic deal with the Madibo of the Rezeigat in the mid nineteen century (Deng, 1995, pp. 255-256).

The Ngok traditional leaderships in the traditional and transitional periods were very much concerned about the well-being of their people and the neighboring communities to the South. They were always quick to respond whenever a crisis arose. This is evident in the Mahdi uprising when their neighbor to the north, the Missiriya Arab tribes took the south as a hunting ground for slaves.

The Ngok leadership took it as a challenge to protect the dignity and integrity of their people. That is why Arop Biong, Allor Ajing, Dhel Yak, and Mijak Kuol decided to visit Al-Mahdi after the fall of Khartoum on January 26, 1885 (Kuol, 2014, pp. 573-598). This is one version of the story. Another version indicates that the meeting took place in October at Abu Haras. This should be after the fall of al-Obied in 1883. Yet another version says the meeting took place midway between Kosti and Tandelti (Deng, 1995, pp. 260-261). In such confusion, one has to look for hints that may resolve the puzzle of Ngok Chiefs visit to Al-Mahdi.

All the versions at hand agreed upon one single fact that Arop Biong was subjected to a test when he claimed all the black people chained inside a fence, to be his people. The test according to Ngok oral history is said to have been that Arop Biong was given undesirable food to prove his claim to be the leadership of the black people. Arop passed the test and was given a good number of people who had been captured (Deng, 1995, p. 261).

However, what Arop drank was “kisra ab reh” which the Muslims usually drink before taking breakfast in the month of Ramadan. In addition, Abu-Rouf, a suburb of Omdurman seemed to be a distorted name of Arop. All these are prove that the meeting took place in Omdurman during the month of Ramadan in 1885 after the fall of Khartoum in the hands of Dervishes.

Back home, Arop Biong erected a fence that later became Mitrok—a suburb of Abyei town, and called all the Dinka Chiefs and other tribal Chiefs to the south to come and identify their people. Those who were not identified or nobody claimed them were assimilated into the Ngok Dinka community. This courageous role of the Ngok traditional leadership made the Southern Chiefs to regard Ngok of Abyei as their shield that protected them from any incursion from the North (Deng, 1986, p. 47).

However, in the midst of our predicament some vocal voices are putting the whole thing of our crisis on the Ngok traditional leadership, particularly late Chief Kuol Arop and his son late Chief Deng Majok; and some argued that: “If the Messiria Baggara welcomed the Mahdi into their midst and were readily joining the Mahdia army, the Ngok had to do the same” (Malwal. 2017, p. 45).

Ngok are not sheep or goats to be directed by the shepherd according to his will. They are an adult race and their Chiefs are considered to be extraordinary chiefs (Henderson, in Deng, 1986, p. 49). Nevertheless, some of these voices come out as a result of anger or disappointment.

Honestly speaking, and as a student of history, mistakes were made, but they are justifiable. Let us take for example the historic transfer of southern areas into the north, Kordofan province in 1905 as a good exercise through colonial policies in Sudan. At the inception of their administration in Sudan, the colonial government put much efforts to consolidate their administration first in the north, and Southern Sudan was left for the slave traders to loot. The Arab slave traders sent their slave raids into Ngok land and Twic between 1903 and 1904.

This pervasive act prompted Arop Biong to send runners to the nearest condominium post which was at Fashoda. At the same time, the Twic spiritual leader Deng Cyer sent his nephew Sheikh Rehan Gorkuei to Kodok which he reached on 26th February 1905. Immediately, E. G. Matthews the DC of Fashoda took him to Khartoum to meet the Governor General of Sudan. It was under these circumstances that the Governor General of Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate, issued an administrative order in March 1905 taking those areas affected by slave raids to the North, Kordofan province (SIR No. 123, 1905, pp. 2 and 3).

Thus, it is the British colonial policy that regards Southern Sudan communities as savage living in the real Sudan by dancing, marrying, fighting, and dying (Churchill, 1933, p.7), which is to be blamed for the misfortune that Southern Sudan had endured for more than fifty years.

No prior consultations with the indigenous of these areas were made. However, in between 1912-1931, British colonial administration carried out many border changes. Twic area and Panaru were reabsorbed back to Bahr al-Ghazal and Upper Nile respectively, leaving behind the Ngok Dinka in Kordofan (Johnson, 2008, pp. 1-19).

Why did the colonial administration leave the Ngok area in Kordofan and kept seeking Ngok traditional leadership opinion? This is the legitimate question we should ask and dig deep to find an answer. In the past, I was sharing the same opinion with those who put the blame of our misfortune on the Ngok leadership. However, as time passed, I came to know the reasons.

When they consulted the late Chief of the Ngok Kuol Arop in the 1930s, it was through the good office of Dinka Chiefs. The colonial administration used the southern Chiefs office to persuade Chief Kuol. However, Chief Kuol Arop as a gifted man of nature declined the offer on the pretext that the Arab may claim his ancestral land; and later on informed his brother Chief Giir Thiik (Deng, 1995, 271).

What Chief Kuol Arop feared most was the manner in which colonial administration was changing the border areas between the North and the South. In 1922 British colonial administration evacuated the whole inhabitants of Kufia Kinji out of their ancestral land on the ground to separate Africans of the South from Arabs of the North. Again in 1924, the governor of Darfur P. Munroe and governor of Bahr al-Ghazal M. J. Wheatley signed an agreement that gave the Rezeigat 14 miles access south River Kiir (Greenidge, 2011).

These developments in the colonial administration policy seem to have been exacerbated by two different events that occurred at the same time but in different places. The first was the famous Nyala incident which occurred in September 1921. A certain Abdullah al-Shayne proclaimed to be the awaited messiah and gathered around him a good number of Supporters. He then marched to Nyala post and killed the DC of Southern Darfur Mr. Tenet McNeil. However, his revolt was subdued and Abdullah was executed.

The second development was the Ariendit (Bol Yol) movement in Bahr al-Ghazal. Although his movement was peaceful, his divine activities had frightened the colonial administration; and J. W. Sagar, governor of Kordofan sent a company of mounted infantry to River Kiir to watch the activities of the Arab tribes as well as to help, M. J. Wheatley in dealing with Ariendit (Collins, 1983, pp. 28-35).

TO BE CONTINUED….

WAS ABYEI PREDICAMENT A FAULTILY ON NGOK TRADITIONAL LEADERS OR A COLONIAL MADE? PART 2

By Ustaz Jok Arop

Continuation…

The second time British colonial administration sought the Ngok leadership opinion was in 1951. However, it was not the British colonial attempt. The whole idea was a personal initiative from Ustaz Lewis Nyok Kuol who approached Mr. Donald Boyle DC of Gogrial to do something about Abyei as the colonial administration was preparing to leave the country. On his side, Donald Boyle approached Richard Owen, the provincial governor of Bahr al-Ghazal. All the DCs in Southern Sudan and Governors of neighboring provinces in Northern Sudan, attended that conference.

In this conference, Chief Deng Majok maneuvered the conference by suggesting the notion of fact finding tour to the southern Chiefs courts. Owen accepted the suggestion and when he was back in Wau, sent cars to Abyei in 1952. However, when the Ngok Chiefs returned from their tour, the conference that was supposed to hear the final decision of the Ngok did not take place (Arop, 2018, pp. 123-128).

Nevertheless, Chief Deng Majok after they returned from the tour, gathered the Ngok community and related to them their findings. According to Matet Ayom, one member of the Ngok fact finding tour team, Chief Deng Majok told the Ngok:

“You people of my tribe, if you say you want to join the South, then a chief is only one man, you can pull me along and I shall go with you. If you do not want to go to the South, then tell me so that even if something formidable should confront you in the future, you will not blame me.”

All the Ngok tribe said they want to join the South except the Alei section of the Ngok (Deng, 1986, p. 226).

But as mentioned above, the conference was never held again. However, in 1954, the Ngok in concrete acceptance of Chief Deng Majok agreed unanimously to reabsorb their area to Bahr al-Ghazal. Two gentlemen were sent to Provincial Headquarters to deliver Ngok final decision, but were arrested in the middle and Ngok final decision did not reach the provincial Governor as the country was taken over by the northern elites who obstructed the Ngok final decision (Deng, 1995, p. 301).

Back to our question as why the colonial administration in the Sudan persistently sought the opinion of Ngok leadership regarding the fate of their area, bearing in mind that they were the one who took it to the north. It seems to me that British colonial policies in the Sudan are well understood by the Ngok traditional leadership as it is evident in the way they declined the colonial offer.

The reasons mentioned above are sufficient to let Ngok leadership to decline the offer, in addition to other reasons below. We as South Sudanese, Ngok included, have suffered a lot as a result of well not defined policies of the Condominium. We fought for more than fifty years as a result of the southern policy that Robertson abolished in 1946, and as a result of Juba conference in which southern Chiefs’ decision was changed by al-Shinqiti plot overnight on June 13th 1947 when Clement Mboro declared that the best way for the South to protect their interests is to go to Khartoum (Daly, 1991, p. 240).

In the same token, the Ngok traditional leadership has taken decisions that have saved their area not to be like Kufia Kinji. Put it differently, Ngok traditional leadership decided on what they thought to be for the best interest of their people as Clement Mboro, supported by James Tambora, did on behalf of the whole south in 1947.

As a student of history, the geographic proximity between the Ngok land that is similar to Upper Nile niche, and the Missiriya Arab land to the north did not escape my mind, and it is one of the reasons that made it difficult for the colonial administration not to demarcate the Ngok area that they transferred to the north in 1905 out of fear lest it may create them a problem with the Missiriya.

In addition, as they were consolidating their grip in Sudan, the colonial administration followed the appeasement policy to woo the loyalty of northern tribes. And since Abyei was the only survival means to Missiriya animals, it became hard for them to take Abyei back to the south.

Moreover, the easiness of collecting taxes and the peaceful neighborhood the colonizers observed to have prevailed between the two neighboring tribes, should be added to the reasons that prevented the colonial administration in Sudan not to issue an administrative order to reabsorb back Abyei to the South.

TO BE CONTINUED….

If you want to submit an opinion article, commentary, or news analysis, please email it to the editor: info@paanluelwel.com or paanluel2011@gmail.com. PaanLuel Wël Media (PW) website does reserve the right to edit or reject material before publication. Please include your full name, a short biography, email address, city, and the country you are writing from.

About Post Author