SUDAN – Nuba: After Kuwa
Julie Flint
JULY 2001
Dancing
NUBA = NOOBER
(00.9) The Nuba people of central Sudan are proud of their African culture, a non-Islamic culture that is criticised and condemned by the fundamentalist generals who now rule Sudan.
Band
(AFTER "JAMAICA" AT 00.31) The Nuba delight in their music...
Body-painting
(00.39) Their body-painting...
Legs
And their body decoration...
Wrestling
(00.48) But above all: in their wrestling...
Close up of smiling
(AFTER CHEERINGS AT 00.56) ... a sport that is unfailingly good-humoured.
Seated group and lady with nose stud
(1.07) The Nuba are one of most tolerant, and one of the oldest, peoples in Africa.
African faces
(1.12) Some 50 Nuba tribes - Moslem, Christian and traditional believers - live in harmony just inside the Arab north of Sudan. For centuries they have been treated as third-class citizens by Sudan’s Arab rulers...
Dancers in a group
(1.23) ... told that their African culture is inferior.
Drilling pix
(STAMP SOUND UP AT 01:29. THEN:) In 1987, many Nuba took up arms alongside their fellow Africans in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army of southern Sudan to fight for a democratic, secular state and the right to be Nuba.
Legs
(1.42:) But they are few in number, and weak in firepower, compared to the government forces... and are fighting an uphill battle against Islamic troops and militias that denounce them as infidels and have declared a Holy War against them.
Mountain gv and whistle sequence
(1.57) Driven high into these mountains... and living now on rock... the Nuba have been forced to adapt to life under arms.
Mountain sequence
(2.08) But life in the mountains is hard.... Women often walk for hours to find water... and SPLA soldiers do not always manage to protect them against ambushes by government soldiers.
Man scrabbling
(2.26) It is difficult to cultivate on the thin and rocky mountain soil...
Kids at airstrip
(2.30) and Nuba children are chronically malnourished.
Plane g.v.
(2.34) Very few outsiders are able to see the truth of life in rebel-controlled areas. The government of Sudan has blockaded the Nuba mountains since 1989...
Crashed plane
... and flying in secretly is hazardous.
Pan to tomb
(2.49) Many Nuba have stayed on in the mountains – despite the difficulties and dangers of life here – because of their love for the man who led them into rebellion:
Yousif photo and soldier saluting
YOUSIF KUWA = YOO-SIF KOO-WER
(3.00) Yousif Kuwa. But Kuwa died in March after leading the Nuba’s s struggle for survival for 16 years. (SALUTE) He was the only leader these people have known and they were devastated by his death..
Two ladies crying
(NATURAL SOUND ONLY)
Men gardening
(3.17) Men and women still come every day to tend his grave... He gave the ordinary people a new belief in themselves and their African identity.
Pan to soldiers marching
(3.25) And he impressed on his soldiers the importance of respecting civilians... He combined armed struggle...
Human rights monitors’ meeting
(3.35)... with concern for human rights and was the first SPLA commander to allow human rights monitoring in areas under his control.
Yoanes Ajawin
= YO-HAN-IS AJ-ER-WEEN
(3.43) Yoanes Ajawin of the London-based organisation Justice Africa is the man in charge of the monitoring programme.
Sync Yoanes Ajawin
(3.50) Yousif to many in the Nuba and for that matter to many who knew him, he was a teacher, a leader, respected and not feared at all. And this to me is the biggest legacy of Yousif. A person in his position would have been feared and not respected. He was respected and not feared.
Abdel Aziz sitting
(4.20) Kuwa’s legacy presents a huge challenge to the man who has succeeded him -
Abdel Aziz close up
= ADBEL AZEEZ ADAM EL-HILLU
(the "h" is aspirated as in "hotel)
(4.25) Abdel Aziz Adam el-Helo, one of the SPLA’s most successful military commanders. Cmdr. el-Helo is not a Nuba.
Pan down to bags being carried into hut...
DARFUR = DAR-FOOR
(4.34) He’s from Darfur in Western Sudan. But he was born, raised and educated in the Nuba mountains... (LEANING OVER BAGS) As well as being a close personal friend of Kuwa... (WIDE OF PHOTO) he was Kuwa’s deputy in the mountains for many years... (CLOSEUP OF PHOTO) He was the man Kuwa wanted to succeed him.
Welcoming family
(4.53) Soon after his arrival in the mountains, Cmdr. el-Helo showed his commitment to the Nuba by bringing his family into this war zone from the safety of their home in Uganda... Three children including a five-month-old baby and his wife: Fatma.
Camels and crashed plane
(5.12) Life in the blockaded mountains - without cars, shops or electricity - is a very different life to the life they’ve been used to...
Donkey sequence
(5.24) The children took to it like ducks to water. Unlike Nuba children, they had never before ridden on a donkey. And for a while at least they were blissfully unaware of their parents’ (FATMA CLOSE UP) concerns.
Sync Abdel Aziz
(5.40) I decided to bring my family to the Nuba mountains because I want them to be near to me. Also we want to share the experience with the rest of the people in the Nuba Mountains. If there is happiness we share it. If there is suffering we share it together with the people. This is why I brought them.
Samaritan’s Purse
(6.14) A delegation from the American charity Samaritans Purse flew into the mountains 24 hours after Cmdr. el-Helo’s family. Their arrival coincided with the start of a government offensive in which many villages were burned, food stores destroyed and all airstrips were closed by shelling. (BRING UP NATURAL SOUND AT END: "... GETTING BOMBED IN HERE".)
Sync Ken Scott
(6.30) When we landed the airplane we unloaded the five tons of food that we’d brought in and the plane took off. Twenty minutes after that the airport was shelled and we started walking away from the shelling. There were six or seven rounds that came in... The humanitarian situation right now, particularly in regards to food, is drastic. If access is denied there will be a famine here. We’re going to see people dying, starving to death. Even if there are some points of access – if one or two airstrips for example are open you’re still going to see a lot of suffering. There’s no way that we’re going to be able to bring in the food that these people need and have asked for.
Father and son sequence
(7.12) Hunger is not the only problem facing the people of the Nuba mountains this year. In recent months, the government of Sudan has launched an unprecedented campaign of aerial bombardment.
Sync AA
(7.25) These holes are prepared and intended for the protection of my family from Antonov bombardment. Because usually the government of Sudan send high-altitude bombers to bombard the area without differentiating between the military camp and the civil population residents. This is why we prepared them for the members of my family to protect themselves in case of any aerial bombardment.
Nurse going into no. 9
(8.02) Most of the victims of government attacks are civilians. Some are adults...
Close up of young man
(8.07)... like this porter wounded at the airstrip on the day Samaritan’s Purse arrived... (NATSOUND UP: "SO I’T’S INJURED HERE. FROM HERE TO HERE YOU CAN SEE.")
Close up of child
(8.17) But many are children.
Women outside outpatients
(8.20) This is the only hospital in rebel-controlled areas – where a quarter of a million Nuba are refusing to surrender despite military defeats in Yousif Kuwa’s last years.
Sync Abdel Aziz
(8.32) I will not be able to fill Yousif’s shoes but I will live to the ideals he devoted himself to and he died for. I will do my best and do everything I can on the military side at least to recapture some of the lost areas and also to continue the struggle and the liberation up to the achievement of the New Sudan – up to the achievement of freedom and justice for all.
Crowds in front of tomb
(9.17) When Kuwa died, there was concern that Nuba in rebel-controlled areas would lose heart and cross to the government side.
Abdel Aziz dancing with the ladies
(9.28) But this has not been the case. Morale in the mountains is high and the new commander has already established himself as a man of the people, just like his predecessor.
Abdel Aziz turns
(9.43) The government says these people are held by the SPLA as human shields... But the truth is that soldiers and civilians in rebel-controlled areas are happy... and united in their determination to fight for the right to be Nuba – (PAN DOWN TO FEET STAMPING) refusing ever again to be crushed underfoot.