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THE KETEBO PEOPLE AND THE BIRA LAND

OVERVIEW:

The term Ketebo should be differentiated from the term Bira. Bira is the land and the people living in Bira are called the Ketebonians. However, Bira is commonly known as the Ketebo land, and it is a region in the far eastern end of the Lango County in Eastern Equatoria State in the republic of South Sudan. It is a beautiful and fertile land which have not been explored by any foreign body. People in Bira are mostly peasants and local agriculturalists (Collins, 1973).

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Overview of the Bira land in the Republic of South Sudan 2.The Location of Bira 3.The Geography of Ketebo 4. The Ketebo Culture Today 5. The Ketebo/Bira Social Organization 6. The Population of the ketebo people 7. The History of the ketebo people 8. Armed Conflict in Perspectives in Bira 9. Consequenses of the civil conflicts and wars in Bira land 10. Approaches to Peace and Development in Bira land today 11. Human Development in ketebo 12. Effects of war conflicts in Bira land 13. Language, Ethnicity and clans of the ketebo people 14. References

1. LOCATION OF THE KETEBO PEOPLE AND LAND:

The sub region of Ketebo, is located in eastern end part of the lango County of South Sudan republic and it comprises of the following major sub clans, namely: • The Icome known as the Moliro clans • The Akorous of the Ibilianis clusters of Nakorongole rangers, • Ngimening/Naporians cluster of Lonyili clans, • The Ariotis highlanders of Nagul rangers, • The Hikoroms clusters, • The Lokutis elephants and main Landers’ clusters • The mainlanders of kilwahas, known as the honey bakers, and • And many others clans. The Ketebo land lies to the extreme eastern end of the Lango County and borders the Republic of Uganda. Ketebo land is partially a beautiful home to Kidepo Valley National Park of Uganda, and now Kidepo valley National Reserve Park in within the Republic of South Sudan, popularly known as the Bira land.

2. THE KETEBO GEOGRAPHY:

The region of Ketebo land extends over 15,000 square kilometers. The region is mostly semi-plateaus and mountains, and plain with harsh hot and wet scattered climates and a moderate semi annual rainfalls. It is largely tropical and the savannah type of climate, covered with heavy seasonal forestry grasses, throne plants, and occasional small scattered trees. The land looks flat with many plateaus within. The average elevation of the plain of Ketebo is around 1400 meters (4500 feet) above sea level. The large mountains; Mt.Lonyili, Mt. Akorou, and the Icome rangers, lying at the periphery of Ketebo land and have peaks reaching around 3000 meters (15,000 feet) and higher. Ketebo land is still undiscovered. Many explorers still visit the land but still doubt in its importance and its locations. It is on a strategic position and good wildlife inhabitations. The Ketebo land is known as the land of the greater rift valley of the kidepo reserve park of South Sudan.

3. KETEBO CULTURE:

The main livelihood activity of the Ketebo people is agriculture and herding livestock, which has social and cultural importance. Crop cultivation is the main activity in the land, since Bira is a fertile land and unfounded land for agriculture. The people in Bira knows about that and they own the land, and cattle breeding is undertaken only in areas where it is practicable, that is, to areas of cattle breading like Lotome, Lodeker and logir land and due to the arid climate of the land for cattle, the Ketebo have always practiced a sort of pastoral transhumance, where for 3-4 months in a year, they move their livestock to the neighboring land in search of water and pasture for their animals. The availability of food and water is always a concern and has an impact on the Ketebo's interaction with other ethnic tribes.

4.LAND TENURE:

Ketebo land in pre-colonial European gala era was common land, and any untilled area belongs to the first person or that family who tills lorem it, and this is passed on to sons and generations within that family. According to Ketebo customary believe, that land which had not been cultivated in the past could be tilled by any family, and, when once it had been tilled, the community regarded it as the property of the family whose ancestor first cultivated it. The Ketebo traditional land tenure is still widely used in rural areas. Bira has a wide fertile land not yet utilize.

5. THE KETEBO/BIRA SOCIAL ORGANIZATION:

The dominant feature of Ketebo culture is their age growth in the system of culture, which is strictly based on generations to generations. As successive generations have an increasing overlap in age, this leads logically to a breakdown of the cultural system, which appears to have occurred after rules were relaxed in the nineteenth century among their close neighboring tribes, where their culture is closely related. However, the Ketebo cultural system is flexible enough to contain a build-up of tension between generations over a cycle of the 50 years pass or consequential. When this can no longer be resolved peacefully, the breakdown in order leads to a switch in power from the ruling generation to their successors and a new status quo. The next changeover is expected around 2013. (Dyson-Hudson, Neville (1966), (Politics, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Spencer, Paul (1998), and The Pastoral Continuum: The Marginalization of Tradition in East Africa, Clarendon Press, Oxford (pp. 99-119).

6. THE KETEBO POPULATION:

Bira populations is estimated as 14, 800 people alive and are inhabited largely by the Nilotic hamites ethnic group, which consists of the popular major areas: the Napeyase main village, Akilol central village, Longairo village, Arioti of Nagul Village, Nakoringole main gulf village, also known as the land of gulf plateaus and the Ateda plantations villages. Also, the Lotome dry hills and plateaus are found in Bira land and was used purposely for raring cattle/ or a place for cattle keepers and there are said to be a few of the original inhabitants/immigrants, the settlers or cattle keepers in the region, who today claims the land lotome to their ownership. This should be a land of disputes and it should be enacted to the Bira emblem and possession. Also, for your information, Arata and Lodeker should be enacted to Bira land, likewiese. The Bira land is a beautiful symbol of the lango County, neighboring Uganda and other tribal groups like Diding, Logir and the Acolis from the lower mountains of Lorum. Ketebo people are largely inhabited by the major clans named above. The rest of other clans are immigrants and cattle setters like the people in Arata,Lodeker, Lotome, Lorum, and Lofus due to similarities in language and culture. Significantly, numbers of the peoples of Ketebo belong to and attend both the Catholic and Anglican Churches. There are number of pagans who do not know where to pray. Also we see that, Baptist and other churches are also coming up in the area. There has been a small population of Muslim people for several years, particularly around napeyase village mostly from the military army but now we don’t have any Muslim in the area. New Incomers in Ketebo land are represented in all the above groups, if there is any. According to the recent South Sudan national population and housing Census, the population of Ketebo has grown at an annual average rate of 1.2% from the recent counts despites numerous tribal inter internal conflicts of 2002 - 2009 years. The predictions indicates that by 2020, the Bira population will raised to 35,000 people plus. It is expected that the Ketebo population will grow at a higher rate than other areas.

6. THE ECONOMY OF THE KETEBO PEOPLE:

Most Ketebo people practiced mixed farming type of economy. They kept cattle, goats, sheep and chickens, in addition to practicing agriculture. The main food crops included sorghum kapiri or obolo, white millet Osihe, red millet, simsim kanyim and a wide assortment of beans moro. They supplemented this with hunting animals to dietary economy.

7. HUNTING IN KETEBO LAND:

Hunting starts by one in a particular village spreading words of hunting, blowing a horn, dragging a special tree, and going from village to village. He relates the hunting words where the hunting will take place and where people will gather/meet to start. The Ketebo people practiced various types of hunting. The first of such types of hunting was “line up to round target”. This takes place during the dry season in month November through January. Another type was meja logeto tim. This take place in the dry season when there was no grass and this involved a lot of hunters. Hunters can spend two to four days in the bush hunting. The third type was lokineifa tyang. This was an ordinary type of hunt with spears and nets and it also involved a lot of hunters and dogs. But this type also requires highly experienced people to guide the nets and follow dogs closer to nets targets. Another hunting method is kolohak kulo wayahin. This is practice in wet seasons and near agricultural farming areas. Normally, there was little opportunity for hunting during the rainy season because no organized hunting could take place. During this period, only the trapper matego could go out after the animals. Their work was quite difficult because they worked alone. They used different traps according to the type of animal that was to be trapped. A pit or a hole dug in the game’s path to trap animals. The majority of the other traps were intended for smaller animals and birds.

8. THE HISTORY TODAY:

The international observers assert beyond history that Ketebo are a creation of intermarriages between the Naporians of the Ngimening tribe of Uganda, the Acoli/ngikutio tribe of Uganda, the Didinga, Logir , buya, and Toposa. The Ketebo are unique in language and custom, similar to the tribes mentioned above. And are closely related to the Masaai of Kenya. They generally inhabit the Langa County in the Eastern Equatoria State. The history shows that the region was ruled by the British from 1916-1962, and included in the recent Chief Karlo leadership of chieftainships. This stage is still under covered research and developmental activities.

9. ARMED CONFLICT:

As peasants and people of hard work, conflicts are strongly interrelated. The integrated management of natural resources in Bira, the beauty of the Bira land and the Ketebo people, the civilized people and now the educated elites of the Langos becomes crucial issue. There are sensitivities of issues to draw rhetoric here.

10. POLITICAL SET-UP:

Politics in Ketebo is seen as a sensitive issue. Some see it as; divisive issue, selloff, and beneficial to the people or otherwise. Although the Lango tribes preferred to rank the Ketebo people as the educated elites, many wisely considered opportunist, and rulers of the county. The ketebo had a system of centralized government, governing themselves through chieftainship. They were organized under one chief, and each under a hereditary ruler known as Kabu or Lahitok lo kang. Until today, Kabu is a central figure and he had an executive, judicial and legislative powers. The chief security possessed things such as sticks, guns, spears, and stools. The administrative structures were not well stratified. The general political organization could be linked to that of the pre-colonial kingdoms of Buganda, Toro and Bunyoro in Uganda.

11. CONSEQUENCES OF THE CIVIL CONFLICTS AND WAR IN BIRA LAND:

The ugly, uncivilized, horrific and prolonged consequences of this conflicts have tremendously devastated the Keteboland, people and the society – the Ketebo culture that has been very rich and demanding is reduced to their findings and people are scattered in many ‘displaced areas of South Sudan and northern Uganda’, where many birian people languishing without assistance and protection. Their resources destroyed every decade. Their animals are being taken/raided every year. The war has also destroyed the culture and social fabric of the Ketebo culture. Large numbers of orphans, single parents (widows, widowed and etc) who struggled for themselves, survived for themselves and these purely illustrates these ugly tragedies that had occurred. Furthermore, some families have been abducted and forced to torture and kill. Thus, the late son of the land, a catholic priest Fr. Victor Okot Lodukamoe, a ketebonian born in his short article “the ketebo people” summarized some of the effects the inter conflicts and wars on keteboiland as follows: ‘Violent deaths of our people in the hands of neighboring tribal groups surroundings; arson perpetrated on mass scale migration in our land; disrespect of immigrant of logir and Didinga tribes in the Bira; ambushes, rapes and defilement of our women and girls; lootings of our property by neighboring wild tribes; frequent raid of cattle by the Dodoth, Didinga, Toposa, Logir and the Buya; the prevalence of a general atmosphere of fear and disenchantment amongst our people; mass displacement of our people in Uganda and in Sudan; creation of protected villages which have become breeding grounds for malnutrition and deaths resulting from cholera, measles, and unpreventable diseases amongst our people; and worst of all the destruction of our infrastructures and continuous decline in socio-economic growth.’(Fr.Victor, 2000).

The war has also destabilized other parts of the country and contributed to other regional conflicts in the lower parts of ikotos and logir. The multi-faceted and interrelated causes and consequences of these civil conflicts and wars should not, therefore, be seen as exclusively a Bira issue. Nor should the war be treated as merely a humanitarian crisis or intentionally or imposed and otherwise. It has many dimensions and related propositions:

 - political rhetoric, 
 - social issues, 
 - economic issues and 
 - Humanitarian facts. 

12. APPROACHES TO PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT IN BIRA'S PERSPECTIVE:

The Ketebo people are people of peace and they generally believed that;It is a Universal formula that development and peace exist only at interpersonal level, community, organizational, local, national, regional and global levels. Establishing sustainable peace and development only at the national level is not possible. The instability of one region affects the developmental activities in the entire region or regional territory of another. However, various methods can be applied to resolve or bring about ever lasting Development and Peace inside the Ketebo land. These are based on (Lampton E. (2009/1, PhD, Thesis and dissertation on Governanc, Atlantic International University, USA, 2009, Stated: 1. Collective approach bases: that is, political stability, security, rule of law, governance, human rights and development come under this approach, 2. Participatory methods: that is, everyone living inside the specific territory of that Ketebo land ought to participate in all socio-cultural and political activities collaboratively to feel pride, and people should feel local ownership in conflict resolution, 3. Human security approaches: everyone should enjoy seven dimensions of Human Security (economic, food, health, environment, personal, community and political securities). Everyone wants to be free from fear, want and injustice. 4. Local approach: that is, no peace-building model is universal and it does not fit equally in all places. We should be innovative in understanding the local context and use that for conflict resolution and management philosophy in the area of Ketebo development. 5. Multi-disciplinary method: that is, here, we can address the problems from psychological, political, cultural, economic, sociological and interpersonal perspectives. This topic still comes to effect of conflicts in the area of Bira ( Still under R&D). 6. Empowerment method: Here, all canonized and marginalized clans, irrespective of caste, education affiliations, sex, etc. should be included in the clans’ apparatus and planning.

Therefore, peace is an action to identify and support structures which tend to strengthen and solidify development. On the hand, developmental activities can be launched effectively or easily to uplift the economic growth of the region as demanded. And so, in order to implement developmental policy in Ketebo land, inter cattle conflicts in the area must be mitigated. Thus, every small clans within the ketebo people should positively address the inter conflicts first. Then the nexus between development, governance and security will gains internal strength.

We are aware that, peace, development, Bira democracy, and environmental injustice, etc. are determinant ingredients which can not allow people to live peacefully. We’re also aware that Peace, conflict and development are the key major challenges in this modern era. Everyone wants to feel free from fear and unwanted. A huge numbers of the ketebo people are still not able to enjoy their economic potentials, politics due to their political inequalities, social and cultural development in people’s civilizations. We’re still vulnerable people because we still believed and disagree that we can not create a civilized culture that can attract the external developers.

The world is globally interconnected and the agenda of peace and development cannot be an issue for one person, one clan group or a people, one politician, one religious cult, one area or one chief of the area. Our people are not free due to our inter clans differentials’ or developmental crises. Therefore, peace, development and conflicts in the area is a holistic approach and should be pass to the grass root levels.

13. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:

A major conflict in ketebo land has been the present of cattle possessions by many people in the area since back 1910s – 1970s. These domestic animals/cattle attracted the neighboring wild tribes like the Didinga, Dodoth, Toposa, and the Logir to view the land as a demanding land to raiding in order for them to settle their traditional marriages and prestige belongingness. Conflict is a social organized war. It is a conflict because it is an organized armed and dangerous. In a social understanding, actions in conflict are wars. War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption of land, economy, development, stability and/but it is usually a high mortality of a cruel revenge. The set of techniques used by people/tribe/group to carry out war conflicts is known as tribal warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace and development "American Heritage Dictionary: War" . The armed conflicts we see in the ketebo land is a conflict called asymmetric war fare conflict. According to many types of conflicts, asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two tribes/populations of drastically different levels of different understanding and capability or size and knowledge. Asymmetric conflicts often result in guerrilla, and arm bush tactics being used to overcome the sometimes vast tribal gaps in technology and force size developmental activities of that area.

14. EFFECTS OF CONLICTS IN BIRA LAND:

These conflicts have taken this area back in developments. “The country customarily measure the ‘costs of war’ in that area in terms of money invested, human/capital resources, the security, lost production, animals and property in the area, or the number of people killed or wounded and displaced people, and hence the human suffering is an effect too. These cause fear to the government to allocate more security personnel in the area. Many of these conflicts/wars in the area have been accompanied by significant depopulations, along with destruction of infrastructure and resources, which had lead to constant famines, sicknesses and diseases, and death in the civilian population). Example, the history tells us that the population of the ketebo was estimated as 15,000 people, but now because of these constant wars and killing, it might lower drastically. Civilians in these wars may have been subjected to war atrocities such as accidental genocides, while survivors may still suffer the psychological aftereffects of witnessing the killing and the destruction of wars scenarios (Alan M, 2003).

Bira land is that far from many major cities where jobs and employment are available. Transportation is that poor due to poor infrastructures. Local people travel footing a 65 plus miles distance to buy sugar, salt, clothing and other foot items from poor Ikotos local town. Human services, some living conditions and quality of life of the people in Bira have declined considerably due to various factors such as environmental issues, insecurity, some minor internal marginalization, illiteracy, poor health and poor infrastructure. No body can solve these issues of Ketebo people but only from the Ketebo educated/working class and their ultimate sacrifices and their developmental strategies and philosophy overview of the Bira land. In the main bira, longairo, nakoringole, lotome, ateda, lofus, lorum, madiel, and lodeker are poverty stricken areas. Poverty is increasing and according to the UNICEF documentary facts, the main factors responsible for poverty include persistent poor harvest as a result of dry spells and abrupt droughts, inter tribal conflicts/cattle rustling and insecurity, lack of human proper water, poor farming practices, ill health and disability, high bride price for marriage, lack of skills and unemployment, limited sources of income because of no jobs, poor chieftainship/leadership/governance and idleness of many people (spla/m/Unicef, 2001/2).

15. LANGUAGE, ETHNICITY AND CLANS OF KETEBOS:

The Bira land is largely part of the Ketebo Cluster of Nilo hamites tribes (also known as the Ketebo Cluster, like the Masai connections). The language is the same as word connections, but mutually intelligible with Ketebo lives. The ethnicities of the Lofus are not entirely certain of their origin, but they are regarded as essentially Nilotic immigrants from Acoli and the ketebos exile (if mixed) and same sound language is regarded as Lorwama plus Luo dialect mix. They were mixed and came with word of food items mixing between food tafaa together with meat tyang in a hunting scenario and hence came with term rwama. Hence, the place became known as lorwama, not the people. Essentially, these are the Ketebo origin directives. Some few basic glossaries with some common words spoken are:

English Oketeboi syllabi: Hello! Ojir? Hello! (response) Ojir – noo!. Thank you Kwama naitok(lit. I am happy) How are you (father/mother/child)? Aja (apaa/iyang/kito)? Good-bye! Kwama deumo! What is your name? Karani nino ngai? Do you go to school? Ikena isi aji? Yes Inyi na (pronounced "Eh") No! Akee na’ (pronounced "Maam!") God Jok or lobanga(from acoli connections) Water kivii Fire kima Goat kine White person/people Galani laikwe

16. REFERENCE:

- spla/m/Unicef, 2001/2. The Nairobi CPA of 2005 and the people in New south sudan. The new sudan discovery 1955/2005.
- collins, O robert (1973/5). The Southern Sudan in Historical Perspective. The Shiloah center for Middle Eastern and African Studies Tel Aviv, Isreal.

- "American Heritage Dictionary: War". Thefreedictionary.com. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/War. Retrieved 2011-01-24. - "Merriam Webster's Dictionary: War".2010-08-13. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war. Retrieved 2011-01-24. - Late Fr. Victor okot Lodukamoe: The ketebo people and the Torit diocese. - Dr. Lampton Erinayo (2009). PhD Thesis on Governance; Atlantic International University(AiU), USA 2009/10.