The Black Hole of Kosti: The Murder of Baggara Detainees by Shaigi Police in a Kosti Barracks, Sudan 1956

The Black Hole ofKosti: The Murder ofBaggara Detainees by Shaigi Police in a Kosti Barracks, Sudan 1956 S. F. Beswick Michigan State University In 1956, after five decades of British rule, the newly independent government of the Sudan was poised to prove to the world that Africans were primed for the challenge of self rule. No one, British or Sudanese, could have imagined that 35 years later, the reins of leadership would be manipulated by an independent government enacting gross human rights violations against the very people it purported to liberate. And yet, a keener scrutiny of the contemporary human rights catastrophe in the Sudan reveals that the germs of oppression were present even at the dawning of independence. It was an explosive period, with violent and angry unionists demonstrating in the streets by the thousands , with nationalism giving way to sectarianism, and ethnic hatred becoming unleashed. The Sudanese police, long a weapon of the government , had become a violent unconstrained force, acting independently in their provinces, assured that the Khartoum government would support their actions. Barely six weeks of independence had passed when tensions exploded; 194 Baggara detainees were murdered by Shaigi police at a barracks in Kosti. This incident was a key episode in recent Sudanese history, revealing the attitude of national government toward ethnic minorities, religious freedom, and class consciousness. The immediate incident that led up to the tragedy at Kosti was a battle which took place on a private plantation in the Southern region of the Gezira1 in 1956. My primary sources of oral information are from Douglas Beswick,2 the inspector of the plantation of Goda,3 where the battle took place, and his wife, Stella Beswick Boyd, who was then with® Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 2, No. 1 (New Series) 1995, pp. 61-83 62 62 S. F. Beswick him. This article covers the events directly preceding the Kosti massacre by describing the circumstances of the battle of Goda leading to the arrest and murder of the farmers. These facts were never reported in detail as the Beswicks were barred from talking to the press. The politics of Sudan, preceding and following independence in 1956, were dominated by two religious families: the Ansar, represented by Abd-al Rahman al-Mahdi of the Mahdi family; and the Khatmiyya, led by Ali al-Mirghani, which influenced the National Unionist Party." The two parties represented the religious aristocracy who commanded vast material wealth and agricultural interests, particularly in the Gezira.5 However the Ansar were the largest and best-organized sect in Sudan and, on the eve of independence, numbered more than 3 million. Their total obedience to their own Imam, both in religious and in political matters, presented a major obstacle to the emergence of real democracy in Sudan.6 Both groups appealed to religious and ethnic loyalties for mass support,7 and both maintained a system of political patronage that was ethnically based.8 During the Second World War, there was a boom in the prices of agricultural products. Therefore, new laws were enacted allowing for the acquisition of government land, tax exemptions, and other concessions in the Sudanese Gezira. These laws were intended to encourage private investors, nationals and foreigners.9 The Gezira Scheme10 had been founded on a principle of land tenure by which the purchase of land by persons other than local inhabitants or the government was prohibited." The scheme was run on a tripartite basis, the partners being the state, the tenants, and the British concession companies. In 1950 the Sudan Government nationalized the Scheme, and an independent body called the Sudan Gezira Board was born.12 The majority of the staff of the old concession companies became employees of the Board.13 For the government, increased cultivation was imperative, for land was the most easily accessible source of income for the impoverished administration. However, Sudanese entrepreneurs were scarce.14 There were also significant developments in the private sector in other parts of the Gezira contributing to a growing wealthy Sudanese community. Private pump schemes to grow cotton became increasingly popular along the White Nile, and came to number about 1,000, servie- The Black Hole ofKosti 63...