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SOUTH SUDAN / FARMERS CATTLE
STORY: SOUTH SUDAN / PRE-MIGRATION CONFERENCE
TRT: 2:56
SOURCE: UNMISS
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / DINKA / NATS
DATELINE: 24 FEBRUARY 2018, TALI, SOUTH SUDAN / 25 FEBRUARY 2018, TALI, SOUTH SUDAN
25 FEBRUARY 2018, TALI, SOUTH SUDAN
1. Various shots, cows and grass
24 FEBRUARY 2018, TALI, SOUTH SUDAN
2. Med shot, conference
3. Med shot, cattle herder speaking in the conference
4. SOUNDBITE (DINKA) Cattle Owner, David Achiek Machar:
“Sometimes, when we get to the host community, our cows eat the greens of the farmers not knowing that these are for humans. It causes many problems and we are forced to pay a heavy fine – usually a cow or two. The farmers also slaughter our cattle as revenge.”
5. Wide shot, two men shaking hands with cows in the background
23 FEBRUARY 2018, TALI, SOUTH SUDAN
6. Wide shot, chopper landing
7. Wide shot, delegation walking towards chopper
8. Wide shot, Governor getting off chopper
9. Wide shot, cars driving off with UN APC in view
24 FEBRUARY 2018, TALI, SOUTH SUDAN
10. Various shots, Conference
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Charity Micah Dawich, Secretary-General, Joint Border Peace Committee:
“It’s only the cattle keepers who are having arms and are making the farmers afraid of them. But for the farmers they are the losers because whenever these cattle camps come to the areas and destroy their crops, so they also cattle keepers harass them with their arms so they cannot say anything.”
12. Wide shot, crowd celebrating
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Charity Micah Dawich, Secretary-General, Joint Border Peace Committee:
“The way I am seeing them and understanding maybe sooner or later they will understand more then they start to drop arms because they know now they are just destroying themselves alone with their arms.”
14. Close Up, Cattle herder speaking at the conference
15. SOUNDBITE (DINKA) Cattle Owner, David Achiek Machar:
“They collect the arms but you still see those arms making their way back into the hands of some cattle keepers and you wonder why.”
16. Various shots, kids playing
In South Sudan, cattle are everything. Millions of people rely on them for their livelihood.
The preferred form of currency is not cash, but cows.
Yet, with the seasonal movement of these precious beasts to find grazing pastures and water, comes problems.
Violent clashes between farmers and semi-nomadic cattle keepers, and between cattle keepers themselves, competing for scarce water and grazing resources, have become more frequent.
David Achiek Machar, a cattle owner from Tali said that before the war, the land belonged to everyone, but now things have changed.
SOUNDBITE (DINKA) Cattle Owner, David Achiek Machar:
“Sometimes, when we get to the host community, our cows eat the greens of the farmers not knowing that these are for humans. It causes many problems and we are forced to pay a heavy fine – usually a cow or two. The farmers also slaughter our cattle as revenge.”
The ongoing civil war has exacerbated the problem by disrupting traditional cattle migration routes and patterns.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) facilitated an Inter-state Pre-migration Conference in Tali, a small pastoral village some 200km north of the capital Juba, where local authorities, cattle owners and farmers from the five bordering regions of Terekeka, Amadi, Gok, Eastern and Western Lakes met to reach an Agreement that regulates cattle migration to prevent conflict, identifies water resources and grazing lands and sets out compensation rules for the destruction of crops and beehives by cattle as well as theft or killings of livestock.
State governors from the region formally handed over the authority to settle disputes between cattle owners and farmers to a recently formed Joint Border Peace Committee.
A member of the Joint Border Peace Committee says that a growing concern is the increasing number of small arms owned by cattle keepers.
SOUNDBITE (English) Charity Micah Dawich, Secretary-General, Joint Border Peace Committee:
“It’s only the cattle keepers who are having arms and are making the farmers afraid of them. But for the farmers they are the losers because whenever these cattle camps come to the areas and destroy their crops, so they also cattle keepers harass them with their arms so they cannot say anything.”
The ongoing civil war has contributed to the proliferation of arms, leading to local authorities trying to disarm civilians.
SOUNDBITE Charity Micah Dawich, Secretary-General, Joint Border Peace Committee:
“The way I am seeing them and understanding maybe sooner or later they will understand more then they start to drop arms because they know now they are just destroying themselves alone with their arms.”
David hopes for the best but has doubts about the effectiveness of the ongoing disarmament process.
SOUNDBITE (DINKA) Cattle Owner, David Achiek Machar:
“They collect the arms but you still see those arms making their way back into the hands of some cattle keepers and you wonder why.”
He believes that collecting arms from civilians will not stop all violence related to cattle migration, but it will help reduce the number and severity of clashes.
The annual migration of livestock during the dry season remains an integral part of the South Sudanese social fabric.
It is hoped that the guns will slowly leave the hands of civilians and that peace will return to these communities.
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