Yousif Kuwa

Yousif Kuwa Mekki (1945–2001) was a Sudanese revolutionary, rebel commander and politician.

Yousif Kuwa was born in 1945 at Jebel Miri, a locality in the Nuba Mountains of Central Sudan. A member of the Miri sub-tribe, he was named Kuwa after his father and Mekki after his grandfather. As with most rural Sudanese, his exact birthday is not recorded. Kuwa’s father was a soldier, and the family moved around the country, resulting in Kuwa growing up with little knowledge of his ethnic Nuba heritage.

Kuwa was raised a Muslim, and actually grew up believing he was an Arab. Although a brilliant student, Kuwa's Arab secondary school headmaster made a comment that changed the course of his life, saying, while justifying the unnecessity of education for Nuba children: "What is the use of teaching Nuba, who are going to work as servants in houses?" This racist comment made Kuwa aware of his identity as a marginalized Nuba, and inspired revolutionary ideas in him when he later studied political science at Khartoum University.

At the University, Kuwa was strongly influenced by the ideas of Tanzania's first president Julius Nyerere, the African history of Sudan and about the Nuba cultures. Together with other Nuba students he formed “Komolo”, a Youth movement to strengthen cultural and political awareness among the Nuba, in 1975. He then found work as a teacher after graduation, teaching in Darfur and in the Nuba Mountains, before being elected to the Southern Kordofan regional assembly in 1981.

Working amongst his people, Kuwa began to understand the real nature of the conflict in Sudan. Although a country with a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-language society, he judged that the politics of Sudan upheld a dichotomy between marginalized and the privileged. Branded a firebrand by the Khartoum government and unable to agitate for the rights of the suppressed Nuba people as a democratically elected representative, Kuwa joined the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLM/A) insurgency led by Dr. John Garang after reading the SPLA manifesto in 1984, as Sudan slipped into civil war.

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