Reports

The Sudanese Human Rights Quarterly, Issue No. 3, April 1996
Brigadier (Re) Abdelrahman Khugali

I have been connected with the civil war of Sudan since December 1983 when I was arbitrarily transferred from the 7th Armored Regiment of Al-Shigara Area in Khartoum to Bahr Al-Ghazal Military Area at the beginning of
the 2nd rebel armed movement of the Sudan that occurred for political reasons.

On the 13th of February 1984, I arrived at my station in the Battalion Command of Wau. I worked as Commander of the 111 Infantry Battalion of the Rumbaik SAFs Command of Al-Buhairat (the Lakes) Province that was situated at the Malou Camp (i.e., the Brown Ox in Dinka language). I was then positioned as Commander of the Training and Operations Branch of Bahr Al-Ghazal Military Area.

My mission started in February 1984 and was further extended to September 1986. During this period, I experienced the bitterness of war in Southern Sudan with all its disaster and misery. It is a period memorable forever. I am fully convinced that, that war was and will continue to be a meaningless process. I always stressed that fact since war has no future or use for people of the same country. The only solution for them is to negotiate peacefully to reach a satisfactory solution for all warring parties.

At the start of my work in the Lakes Province, the size of my force and its actual military ability were far short of the vast boundaries of the area under my responsibility that embraced 200 sq. m. from Kowagina to the Port of Shompi on Al-Jebel River. Subsequent to a filed inspection of the area in consideration, I knew that my unit was empowered with only 30% of the capacity required in terms of men, ammunition, and supply. The Battalion was suffering from a great shortage of its military needs. It was not qualified at all to combat any counter attack. I therefore submitted a report to the High Command of the Region that, guided by a slogan of "Dig to live," decided I should continue to improve defense lines in the area.

In 1984, SPLA launched a massive attack on the area and succeeded in breaking through our defenses, attacking further the 114 Aweel Battalion with limited casualties on both sides of the warring parties. The SPLA recruited a great many people of the area then withdrew from the Lakes Province.

On their way out of the Province, SPLA kidnapped a group of foreigners at the Sag Bridge nearby Wau. My own Battalion was defaulted by the limited resources not to play any effective role to strop the enemy. There was no way available to improve our military situation in Bahr Al-Ghazal because the SAFs High Command was more concerned with the SPLA attack on the Upper Nile.

Within my commanding responsibility, we made a great effort to adapt ourselves to difficult environmental conditions in terms of the shortcomings of supply, scarcity of drinking water, malaria, and the unavailability of medical drugs. We used native medicine to treat our infected men such as ostrich ointment for gardia and certain leaves of trees for malaria or the biting of snakes and scorpions.

Over time, these conditions continued to worsen for the enemy mounted up military operations and planted lots of mines in the area. Battalion 111 paid dearly for the difficult situation it had to face without any means to waive it. There is no power ever on earth to compensate the losses of Battalion.

In 1986, when I was commanding operations in Bahr Al-Ghazal Military Area, the SPLA forces started to dispatch large troops in the Lakes province. These were the Shark, Twick Twick, and the Ranio battalions. Their first target was to break through our defense line in Yrol. We foiled the attack, with limited casualties on both sides. It was necessary, however, to compensate our forces to hold on before evacuating the area. It was decided that infantry troops be provided by the SAFs High Command with 2 helio and a buffalo for a rapid compensation and to heighten up morale of the force. But there were no possibilities attainable for any air force support according to agenda of the High Command. We prepared only two infantry companies in Wau amd had them sent to Bahr Al-Ni’am of the Lakes Province.

On their arrival to the area, the companies faced a great many SPLA forces that dealt them great casualties and took over most of their supply echelon. At that time, the Commander of Yrol Headquarters, Lieutenant-Colonel Bakheit Adam, decided to withdraw to the Tali Post then to Juba in Equatoria to avoid any further battles under such unfavorable conditions. With the withdrawl of Yrol Post, the Rumbaik forces fell under a serious threat of attack by large forces that were highly moralized with the occupation of Yrol without resistance, in addition to the supplies won from the dispersed companies of the Bahr Al-Ni’am. The Rumbaik forces were put under a strong pressure for which they withdrew to Waku 1 and Waku 2, then Maridi in Western Equatoria. Thus, SPLA achieved its biggest victory in the Lakes Province with respect to the SAFs great losses of men, equipment, and institutions.

The bitterness resulting from these armed conflicts is attributed to the human factor since many families inhabiting the area lost their dearest ones, the fathers, mothers, sibling and children. It is sure that such losses will never be compensated by any power in earth. The range of destruction and the volume of casualties were very high. The cost needed for restoring the region to its previous state before the war was even higher.

I have written briefly on the 111 battalion because it is one of SAFs units that did suffer a great deal from the dreadful horrors of war. To continue the war is to kill more people of the same country, to waste the national economy of the Homeland, and to make more destruction in the institutions and national wealth of the war-affected areas; hence, the voices loudly calling for an immediate stop of this wasteful war.

The Ambo Workshop initiated a campaign for peace making that was further strengthened by the Kukadam Agreement and the Al-Merghani-Garang Peace Agreement in November 1988. The latter was failed by a group of opponents who connived at the legitimate Authority on June 30th, 1989.

By seizing political power, this group adopted war as a religious Jihad that turned to be a blood thirsty war launched for ethnic cleansing to make of the Sudan a terrorist state against all its citizens and neighboring peoples. This group recruited militias for a popular Defense Force (PDF) for war, not for stability of the internal security of the country.

It became an ethnic-religious war in which there is no concern for the treatment of prisoners of war, according to the Geneva Conventions that had been narrowly violated in the past. Under the existing regime, the Conventions have been completely ignored.

The continuing war in Southern Sudan will tear apart the unity of Sudan because the slogans it has been raising complicated the problems of the country, increased religious and ethnic sedition, and exacerbated many existing political injustices.

It is a must to stop the 3war to restore democratic pluralist rule in the Sudan. These measures are meaningful to the peace and freedom of all people, regardless of their beliefs of ethnic origin. Also, they mean the insurance of peace, stability, and development for the whole country under a new world order that is based on freedoms and open door policies for the public to decide on the right system of rule, without patronage from any particular party.

In brief, I say that war is conducive to destruction of all aspects of life, whereas peace if meant for development and the free life of all people.