Kadugli's Trio – Tragic Ends
The Choice of the Army as a Career for three
Sons of distinguished Kadugli’s dwellers
To many youngsters growing up in Kadugli of the Nuba Mountains in the sixties and seventies, application to the Military Academy was a second choice. If one didn't get higher scores for university then the military would be a handy second choice. After all, a military officer holds a decent social status and with relatively shorter period to graduation, the dream of an early salary and an early marriage was often too tempting to be declined. But, in comparison to the promise of a career in medicine, engineering, law or banking it remains a second best. However, for Kadugli’s trio, it never felt like that. They looked as if they were destined to it.
Hamad Abdel Kareem, the last survivor of the trio died in a landmine incident in the Nuba Mountains. Hamad is the son of late Khalifa Abdel Kareem, a well-known personality to Kadugli’s dwellers and beyond. Khalifa Abdel Kareem managed a suit-tailoring shop in Suk Kadugli (Kadugli Market). Kadugli has always maintained a vibrant buzzing market with its two sections, the Outer Market (Al Suk Al Berra) and the Inner Market (Al Suk Al Juwa). The two parts of the market are linked with a corridor street of about half a mile length. That is where you would feel the vibrancy of the place. The street is so crowded with people going up and down between the two markets. It is so busy, the locals say that you cannot walk the length of the street without stepping on someone else foot or get your legs tangled with something. If you were really short of luck that day, the encounter could be with a donkey. The Outer Suk is where local produce is brought to market from the surrounding hills and plains. There you would see the riches of the mountains and the variety of their gives. The Inner Suk is where the modern shops are, elevated off the ground with cement platforms, shinny and clean. Merchants were Greeks, Coptic, and Northern Sudanese. The merchandise on display in this Suk ranges from ready-made clothes to transistor radios to bicycles and lorry spare parts.
Khalifa Abdel Kareem’s shop, in the Inner Suk, acted as a high society café to the elites of Kadugli. Politicians, journalists and government officials, either resident or visiting all frequented Khalifa Abdel Kareem's shop in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Khalifa Abdel Kareem was a well spoken stylish educated or could be self-educated man. He used to entertain his visitors with his light sprit and knowledge, political or otherwise. The likes of Philip Abbas Gaboosh, Mahmood Haseeb and Nuba General Union MPs from the sixties Parliament were all visitors to the Khalifa’s shop. As kids we used to pass by the shop’s veranda hoping to catch a glimpse of those distinguished figures. Al Khalifa headed a big family. Many of his progeny are educated females. The eldest of his daughters is Malikat Aldar. She was a school headmistress until her death in the seventies. Hamad is the eldest of his sons. The family lived in Al Malakiya the biggest of Kadugli’s suburbs, if you like. Al Malakiya means the residential area for civilians, as oppose to another of Kadugli’s residential areas, Al Radeef, (RDF) meaning Retired Defence Forces.
In Al Malakiya, Khalifa Abdel Kareem’s family lived next door to his closest of all friends and the life-long companion, the man whom he shared adherence to his Sufi Tariqa, Al Ismaelia, and the man with whom he performed Madeeh (songs of praise to the prophet) Khalifa Al Tayeb, a well known and a highly respected figure in his own right. Khalifa Al Tayeb is the father of Bashir Al Tayeb, the military officer and the life-long associate of Hamad Abdel Kareem. I am not able to trace Khalifa Al Tayeb tribal or detribalised lineage. As for Khalifa Abdel Kareem, the locals suggest that he is from Sagoli, a few miles to the West of Kadugli, towards Mirri area. It must have been him at a younger age or his parents who went north, and that is where he learned his trade, style and Sufi Tariqa.
Both Hamad and Bashir, the sons of the two Khalifas went to local schools and the Military Academy, with them went Bakri Omar Al Khalifa, the son of Omar Al Khalifa, a well-known local merchant and the proprietor of Kadugli’s only Cinema House. Despite his salient Negroid complexity, Omar Al Khalifa is said to be from the North. His son Bakri’s mother is a local.
The three sons of the Khalifas grew up together in Kadugli’s Malakiya and went to local schools and into the main Sudan’s Army military academy, North of Omdurman. They also played football for the local football club, Al Mawrada, the team of Al Malakiya. The three of them were very skilled players. Al Mawrada football fans missed them a lot when their game had to be interrupted as they went to the military academy in the seventies.
To us who were at intermediate or primary schools when they went to the military, the trio were not renown for their academic excellence, but we certainly always looked up to their seriousness and footballing dexterity. Not surprisingly, they did very well in the military. By the time NIF officers took over in 1989, all of them were high rank officers in the army.
Bashir was in an influential position in an army Unit in Jabal Awleya, just to the South of Khartoum, when he was implicated and tragically executed along with other twenty-seven officers in the Ramadan military coup attempt in April 1990.
Bakri was the second in command with the forces in El Rank Upper Nile just before the coup in 1989. He was beginning to gather some notoriety as a harsh military commander, palpable to affected locals, but much appreciated by his fellow officers. I do not know yet what role did he play during the NIF-lead campaign in the nineties in what is now an oil producing area of Bahar Al Gazal and South Kordofan regions, or the role he played in his own region, in the Nuba Mountains, but I was certainly surprised to see that he was the commander of the Transport and Logistics for the whole army when perished in the aeroplane accident that killed the infamous Shamseldeen and a number of other high rank officers.
Hamad, who looked slightly older than Bashir and Bakri, did well in the army. He indeed reached the rank of Brigadier. He was one of the officers who were taken to the Islamic Centre in Soba prior to the NIF coup. He was decommissioned in the early years of the NIF rule along with tens of other officers. Those were the days when NIF military were constantly seeking to consolidate their position within the army. Whether that was a purposeful manoeuvre on the part or the NIF or otherwise, only time will tell. Hamad was soon reinstated in a civilian position in Kadugli and at one time was given the finance portfolio to the Province. He maintained an active quasi-military role, acting sometimes as a peace envoy delegated by the regime to bring other warring Nubas to peace and at other times featuring in Sahat Al Fidaa, the infamous propagandist television programme. Hamad died when the vehicle transporting him to the West of Kadugli towards mirri area succumbed to a landmine.
That brought to conclusion the lives of three of Kadugli’s sons who grew up together and made the same choice for a career only to face a premature death either in the service of Khartoum’s Islamic regime or in opposition to it.
The Choice of the Army as a Career for three
Sons of distinguished Kadugli’s dwellers
To many youngsters growing up in Kadugli of the Nuba Mountains in the sixties and seventies, application to the Military Academy was a second choice. If one didn't get higher scores for university then the military would be a handy second choice. After all, a military officer holds a decent social status and with relatively shorter period to graduation, the dream of an early salary and an early marriage was often too tempting to be declined. But, in comparison to the promise of a career in medicine, engineering, law or banking it remains a second best. However, for Kadugli’s trio, it never felt like that. They looked as if they were destined to it.
Hamad Abdel Kareem, the last survivor of the trio died in a landmine incident in the Nuba Mountains. Hamad is the son of late Khalifa Abdel Kareem, a well-known personality to Kadugli’s dwellers and beyond. Khalifa Abdel Kareem managed a suit-tailoring shop in Suk Kadugli (Kadugli Market). Kadugli has always maintained a vibrant buzzing market with its two sections, the Outer Market (Al Suk Al Berra) and the Inner Market (Al Suk Al Juwa). The two parts of the market are linked with a corridor street of about half a mile length. That is where you would feel the vibrancy of the place. The street is so crowded with people going up and down between the two markets. It is so busy, the locals say that you cannot walk the length of the street without stepping on someone else foot or get your legs tangled with something. If you were really short of luck that day, the encounter could be with a donkey. The Outer Suk is where local produce is brought to market from the surrounding hills and plains. There you would see the riches of the mountains and the variety of their gives. The Inner Suk is where the modern shops are, elevated off the ground with cement platforms, shinny and clean. Merchants were Greeks, Coptic, and Northern Sudanese. The merchandise on display in this Suk ranges from ready-made clothes to transistor radios to bicycles and lorry spare parts.
Khalifa Abdel Kareem’s shop, in the Inner Suk, acted as a high society café to the elites of Kadugli. Politicians, journalists and government officials, either resident or visiting all frequented Khalifa Abdel Kareem's shop in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Khalifa Abdel Kareem was a well spoken stylish educated or could be self-educated man. He used to entertain his visitors with his light sprit and knowledge, political or otherwise. The likes of Philip Abbas Gaboosh, Mahmood Haseeb and Nuba General Union MPs from the sixties Parliament were all visitors to the Khalifa’s shop. As kids we used to pass by the shop’s veranda hoping to catch a glimpse of those distinguished figures. Al Khalifa headed a big family. Many of his progeny are educated females. The eldest of his daughters is Malikat Aldar. She was a school headmistress until her death in the seventies. Hamad is the eldest of his sons. The family lived in Al Malakiya the biggest of Kadugli’s suburbs, if you like. Al Malakiya means the residential area for civilians, as oppose to another of Kadugli’s residential areas, Al Radeef, (RDF) meaning Retired Defence Forces.
In Al Malakiya, Khalifa Abdel Kareem’s family lived next door to his closest of all friends and the life-long companion, the man whom he shared adherence to his Sufi Tariqa, Al Ismaelia, and the man with whom he performed Madeeh (songs of praise to the prophet) Khalifa Al Tayeb, a well known and a highly respected figure in his own right. Khalifa Al Tayeb is the father of Bashir Al Tayeb, the military officer and the life-long associate of Hamad Abdel Kareem. I am not able to trace Khalifa Al Tayeb tribal or detribalised lineage. As for Khalifa Abdel Kareem, the locals suggest that he is from Sagoli, a few miles to the West of Kadugli, towards Mirri area. It must have been him at a younger age or his parents who went north, and that is where he learned his trade, style and Sufi Tariqa.
Both Hamad and Bashir, the sons of the two Khalifas went to local schools and the Military Academy, with them went Bakri Omar Al Khalifa, the son of Omar Al Khalifa, a well-known local merchant and the proprietor of Kadugli’s only Cinema House. Despite his salient Negroid complexity, Omar Al Khalifa is said to be from the North. His son Bakri’s mother is a local.
The three sons of the Khalifas grew up together in Kadugli’s Malakiya and went to local schools and into the main Sudan’s Army military academy, North of Omdurman. They also played football for the local football club, Al Mawrada, the team of Al Malakiya. The three of them were very skilled players. Al Mawrada football fans missed them a lot when their game had to be interrupted as they went to the military academy in the seventies.
To us who were at intermediate or primary schools when they went to the military, the trio were not renown for their academic excellence, but we certainly always looked up to their seriousness and footballing dexterity. Not surprisingly, they did very well in the military. By the time NIF officers took over in 1989, all of them were high rank officers in the army.
Bashir was in an influential position in an army Unit in Jabal Awleya, just to the South of Khartoum, when he was implicated and tragically executed along with other twenty-seven officers in the Ramadan military coup attempt in April 1990.
Bakri was the second in command with the forces in El Rank Upper Nile just before the coup in 1989. He was beginning to gather some notoriety as a harsh military commander, palpable to affected locals, but much appreciated by his fellow officers. I do not know yet what role did he play during the NIF-lead campaign in the nineties in what is now an oil producing area of Bahar Al Gazal and South Kordofan regions, or the role he played in his own region, in the Nuba Mountains, but I was certainly surprised to see that he was the commander of the Transport and Logistics for the whole army when perished in the aeroplane accident that killed the infamous Shamseldeen and a number of other high rank officers.
Hamad, who looked slightly older than Bashir and Bakri, did well in the army. He indeed reached the rank of Brigadier. He was one of the officers who were taken to the Islamic Centre in Soba prior to the NIF coup. He was decommissioned in the early years of the NIF rule along with tens of other officers. Those were the days when NIF military were constantly seeking to consolidate their position within the army. Whether that was a purposeful manoeuvre on the part or the NIF or otherwise, only time will tell. Hamad was soon reinstated in a civilian position in Kadugli and at one time was given the finance portfolio to the Province. He maintained an active quasi-military role, acting sometimes as a peace envoy delegated by the regime to bring other warring Nubas to peace and at other times featuring in Sahat Al Fidaa, the infamous propagandist television programme. Hamad died when the vehicle transporting him to the West of Kadugli towards mirri area succumbed to a landmine.
That brought to conclusion the lives of three of Kadugli’s sons who grew up together and made the same choice for a career only to face a premature death either in the service of Khartoum’s Islamic regime or in opposition to it.
1 comment:
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