EARLY HISTORY
Flashpoint for Conflict
Encouraging Hostility
Rise of the Jallaba
Vivid Memories
"My Cousin Mohamed" - poem
Seasonal Migration
Dawn of Abolition
Darfur
BEFORE INDEPENDENCE - 1900-1956
Pacification & Closed Districts
"Sudanisation"
AFTER INDEPENDENCE - 1956-1986
The First Civil War
Abyei - A Premonition?
"Islamic" Law
Civil War re-ignites
The SPLA
Loss of Moral Authority
Uprising
During the "hungry season" of the year, the semi-nomadic Baggara traditionally migrate southwards with their cattle to parts of Northern Bahr al-Ghazal, leading to occasional, but often intense conflict with the pastoral Dinka tribes over the scarce resources of grazing land and water. Senior figures from both sides would periodically engage in conferences to resolve the worst of the conflicts and negotiate for the return of captives and slaves.
"Why are you after a soil as dark as the Dinka?
What do you want from
the dark soil of the Dinka?
You are a people who simply
go after grazing areas in the three months of the dry season.
How can a person of three months' residence dispute the land with the
settlers of all seasons?"
- Nazir Moneim Mansour to Nazir Babo Nimir at the Peace Conference
in Abyei, March 1965
(Dr Francis M. Deng, Dinka Cosmology, p.265)
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