South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Awan Achiek
A leading member of the Aliab ethnic-Dinka community of Aweriar County in Lakes State are seeking compensation from the United Kingdom over the killing of more than 500 people by the British soldiers from 1919 and 1920.
Supreme Court Judge, Justice Ayak Kom Awan a member of Aliab community said in an interview with The Dawn on Wednesday, that his community are demanding compensation from the British government for those heinous crimes committed against their ancestors more than a century ago.
Awan said that they are demanding compensation from the UK government in the form of social services like schools, hospitals and feeder roads at village level and also veterinary services.
The people from Aliab community were killed during the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium rule in Sudan, and more than 20,000 heads of cattle were looted and houses torched to ashes including the abduction of 275 women.
Awan disclosed that besides agricultural support services, they are particularly wanting the UK government to build them schools for both boys and girls.
He said that some British officials in the embassy in Juba have been denying the atrocities committed by the government on the people of Aliab community.
“They said they cannot make compensation because if they open that road, many people will claim it. And then we said you were able to pay for the Kenyans and why not the Aliab people? But we have seen each other in the process of talking,” Awan said.
The British government in 2013 provided 20 million British Pounds as compensation for the families whose relatives were tortured and killed during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.
Awan said the state house commonly known as J-1 and the Central Equatoria State government secretariat was built using money earned from 20,000 heads of cattle looted by the British Administration from the Aliab Dinka community.
He disclosed that the current J-1 used to act as the residence for the governor of Equatoria region during the colonial period, adding the Central Equatoria State Secretariat used to be the office of the colonial governor.
The Aliab uprising erupted on 30 October 1919, when the police arrested Aliab men.
Over 3,000 Aliab strong warriors stormed a police station in Mingkaman and freed their kinsmen resulting in deadly violence between Aliab men and British police officers.
In response, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Finch White led several companies of Egyptian army Equatorial Battalion to address the situation.
The uprising was eventually suppressed in 1920 through a punitive expedition led by Colonel Robert Henry Darwall, which resulted in the deaths of 500 people, along with the capture of approximately 20,000 cattle.
