Gold: Sudan’s Curse
To begin, let us say that gold has existed in Sudanese soil for as long as the Sudanese person. Even the name of Nubia in northern Sudan is connected to the presence of gold. Gold is called nub in the Nubian language, and scholars say the word was gradually altered from nub to Nubia. The land of Nubia therefore means the land of gold.
The discovery of gold in that region goes back to a very distant period, from the age of the first Nubian kingdoms through the Turkish occupation of Sudan. Muhammad Ali Pasha is said to have remarked: ‘We want to occupy Sudan to obtain strong men for the army and to obtain gold.’
Gold is not limited to the north. It is also found in eastern Sudan, the Blue Nile, parts of Darfur, and the Nuba Mountains in Kordofan.
That is what history tells us about gold in Sudan. Well-known companies had been prospecting for gold for decades, such as Ariab in the Red Sea Hills. At the beginning of this millennium, artisanal mining began to appear in several areas of northern Sudan. The government encouraged it after losing southern oil following secession, finding in gold a way to close the foreign-currency gap. Artisanal mining expanded until it covered almost all of Sudan, encouraged by the state as I have said, and hundreds of companies entered the prospecting sector.
Within only a few years, millions of Sudanese turned to artisanal mining—or traditional or unregulated mining, as we might call it. Everything became confused, and suddenly the whole of Sudan had turned into a deep pit. Half the Sudanese people found themselves inside that pit, except those whom God spared: mining, selling, buying, or providing water, housing, treatment, and permissible entertainment—and sometimes impermissible entertainment—to the miners.
In a dramatic way, the entire Sudanese people, economy, and life became connected to this yellow metal called gold. Farmers abandoned their fertile land, herders left their livestock, and workers left their factories to travel to mining areas.
In the mining areas, miners caused the worst destruction of the land. Neither this ruin nor this devastation spared anything except the most fertile agricultural land and archaeological areas, especially in northern Sudan, where hundreds of archaeological sites were looted and damaged and hundreds of acres suitable for farming were levelled until some places looked as if they had been struck by a nuclear bomb.
There is agricultural land rarely matched anywhere in the world that has been bulldozed and dug in search of this cursed metal called gold. The Khairantoud project in Abri, in the far north, is an example: large parts of the project’s land were destroyed. Clay soil from Al-Qarira, among the finest soils in the world, was scraped away in the search for gold.
As I told them, if this soil were shipped to European countries, its value would exceed the value of the gold they are looking for. What happened at Khairantoud is only one example of the destruction and ruin affecting soil throughout Sudan.
Amid all this destruction of land, people, and animals through the use of internationally banned substances such as cyanide to extract gold, the chairman of the Gold Exporters Association tells us that Sudan produced 100 tonnes of gold during the year, while no more than six tonnes were exported through the Bank of Sudan. Is there a greater disaster or tragedy in this country?
We destroyed and poisoned the land with cyanide, abandoned farming, stopped raising livestock, closed factories, and left classrooms—all so the state could export six tonnes of gold out of a total production of 100 tonnes. Where did the remaining 94 tonnes go?
They went into the pockets of certain individuals, groups, or companies, whose throats and pockets swelled with billions of dollars. The gold is smuggled openly, either through Khartoum airport or across the borders into neighbouring countries, with the help of influential people in the state or security authorities whose duty is to protect security and prevent smuggling.
That is why I said in the title that gold is Sudan’s true curse. What have we gained from gold besides ruin, destruction, corruption, and the spreading of corruption? What did our transitional government gain from it, and what will it gain?
Yes, some people built palaces, rode luxury cars, and stored dollars in the world’s banks. But I am speaking about the ordinary Sudanese person who can barely satisfy his hunger. What did this person gain except the loss of the land where he farmed and herded, the loss of archaeological remains with which we once took pride before the world, and the pollution of the clean environment in which he lived, leaving him exposed to poisons that cause many incurable diseases? Gold needs many articles to reveal the hidden sides, corridors, and secrets of its world. What I have said is only a grain in that filthy ocean which destroyed Sudan’s land, youth, and men. Perhaps we will return to the subject if life allows.
Am I not right when I say that gold is Sudan’s curse? May God help us.