Dave Eggers - What Is The What

— This man before you, a chief from Nuba, will illuminate how despicable are the methods of Bashir and his army. Perhaps he will convince the rest of you to follow the courageous young man who has already volunteered. Kuku Kori Kuku was a powerful and respected man. But he made a mistake: he allowed himself to trust the government of Khartoum. He's here to tell us the results of that demonstration of trust.

— Thank you, Commander Santo.

— Tell them the treachery you experienced.

— With your permission, Commander, I will.

— Tell them the deception and the murder you witnessed.

The chief opened his mouth to speak but did not get the chance. Not yet.

— When you're ready, please tell us. Take your time, Santo added. Finally the chief waited, his hands on his cane, eyes closed. When he was satisfied that Commander Santo would not interrupt him, he opened his eyes and began.

— Boys, I was the chief of a village called Jebel Otoro. As you know, we in Nuba were the victims of repeated attacks from the government and the murahaleen. I lost my son in one of the attacks; he was burned in our home while I was traveling to another village to mediate a dispute. And as you know, thousands of Nubans have been sent to the 'peace villages,' the internment camps you have heard about.

At this point I took notice of Achor Achor, who was sitting near the front. Watching his face became more interesting than watching the words come from the mouth of Kuku Kori Kuku. Already, from the man's first words, Achor Achor was rapt.

— This way, the government can watch us, and make sure we cannot fight against them. And these camps have attracted many Nubans who want no part of the conflict. There they are kept under the watch of soldiers, and are fed poorly. At these peace villages, the women are repeatedly abducted and raped. The government has made clear that if the people of Nuba do not bring themselves to live in the peace villages, they are therefore taking the side of the SPLA and are thus the enemy. Like you, the people of Nuba had suffered for some time and we longed for a way to end this.

Achor Achor's tongue extended from his lips, as if he were tasting the air for the next turn to the story.

— We were happy, then, when the government asked for a meeting. Bashir was said to have personally requested a meeting with all the chiefs of Nuba. And I must admit that this affected our pride; we were very impressed with ourselves. We were called by Khartoum for a meeting and we went willingly, like fools. We trusted, and we should not have trusted. Will we ever learn a lesson from this war, from the history of this country? We trusted! Our grandfathers trusted, and their grandfathers trusted, and look where it's gotten us.

The chief's voice was rising, and when it did, it cracked and wavered. I remembered the story of the chiefs who had originally agreed to stitch southern Sudan together with the north, a mistake most knew enough to regret.

— So yes, we were proud and so we went. All sixty-eight Nuban chiefs arrived for the meeting at the appointed day. Many of the chiefs traveled many days to get there, some by foot. When we arrived, we realized that we had not been brought to meet with representatives from Khartoum. It had been a trick. All of us, the chiefs of dozens of villages, were herded onto trucks and taken to a new prison, in a former hospital; I had been to the hospital as a young man. They held us in two small rooms for two days, with little food or water. We demanded that they free us. We thought that perhaps this was the action of a rogue group of government soldiers. We imagined that the government, who had organized this conference, would be outraged by this action and would soon intervene on our behalf. But not all of the chiefs were this optimistic.

I looked around me, and the faces of the boys in the room seemed already to know the fate of the assembled chiefs. Already they were ready to fight. Achor Achor's face was twisted into a terrible frown.

— We tried to plead with the guards, explaining that we were tribal chiefs who had committed no crime. You are enemies of the government, and that is crime enough, one guard said. That is when we knew that our future was in question. But we thought the worst they would do would be to keep us in a sort of peace camp for chiefs-perhaps more severe, perhaps just separated from our people. We expected that we might be detained there for years, even, until the end of the war. But the government had different plans. That night in the early hours, they roused us and pushed us out of the hospital prison and into the night. We were loaded onto military transport trucks, and as we sat in the back of these trucks, finally we were scared. They had tied our hands behind our backs, and we felt very helpless. In the truck, we tried to assist each other, tried to undo our bindings. But the truck was traveling up a rough mountain road and it was very dark. We could see nothing in the truck, and we were thrown about by the winding and poorly made road. Also, many of these chiefs were old men, you must remember, and not very strong. So there we were: we were the leaders of Nuba, and we had no way to help each other. It was humiliating. Achor Achor was shaking his head slowly, tears in his eyes.

— Soon the trucks stopped. Get them out! the officer of the soldiers yelled. We stepped out of the truck one by one, and soon the soldiers lost patience. They threw the last chiefs from the trucks and those chiefs, one very old man, fell hard on the road, for his hands were bound. We all stood on the road and they made us march. The moon was half full and bright. We saw the faces of the soldiers, and among the soldiers saw one Dinka man. I remember looking at him for a long time, trying to see what had happened to him. I assumed he had become a Muslim, and then had been convinced that we were the enemy of his country and his faith. Still, though, I thought I saw him look away from us. I thought that perhaps he was ashamed. But I could be imagining all that. I wanted him to be ashamed but perhaps he was as committed to his task as were the rest of the soldiers.

Achor Achor was the picture of barely suppressed rage.

— We were taken to a ridge on the mountain, and they lined us up. There were twenty soldiers with automatic rifles. One chief attempted to run down the mountain. He was shot immediately. At that point the soldiers began to shoot. They shot each chief, in the back of the head if they could. A few men tried to fight with their feet and they were shot in the chest and face and anywhere else. It was the worst thing I have ever seen, to see such men fighting for their lives, kicking and jumping with their hands bound. This was no way to die. It was a terrible mess, all of it.

— This took some time, the executions? the commander asked.

— No, no. It was all over very quick. It was over in a few minutes.

— But they didn't shoot you. Why not?

The chief snorted.-Of course they shot me! They shot me with everyone else! I was a chief, and I had to die! They shot me in the back of the head, yes, but the bullet went through and came out my jaw.

Some of the boys in the room did not believe this and the chief took notice.

— You don't believe me? Look at this.

He revealed a jagged scar at the corner of his jaw.

— That is where the bullet left me. And here is the bullet. From his pocket he brought forth a rounded and rusted thing, looking nothing like something that could have penetrated a man's skull.

— It didn't hurt. I thought I was dead, so I felt little pain. I lay on the ground, wondering at the strangeness of my sight and my thoughts. I was dead, but I could still see. I was seeing the body of another man, another chief, and I could hear the boots of the soldiers. I could hear the truck starting again. And all the while I wondered why I was hearing all this. I did not expect to see and hear after death like this.