Tama people

The Tama people are a non-ArabHuman Rights Watch, p. 11 (i.e., "Indigenous African"{{cite web |url= http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/countryspecificasylumpolicyogns/sudan.pdf?view=Binary |title= Operational Guidance Note, Republic of the Sudan |publisher= UK Border Agency |page= 23 |date= August 2012 |accessdate= 14 September 2012 |url-status= dead |archiveurl= http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121011234558/http%3A//www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/countryspecificasylumpolicyogns/sudan.pdf?view%3DBinary |archivedate= 11 October 2012 }}{{cite book |url= https://archive.org/details/fightingfordarfu0000hami |url-access= registration |quote= tama non-arab african. |title= Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide |author= Rebecca Hamilton |publisher= Macmillan |year= 2011 |page= [https://archive.org/details/fightingfordarfu0000hami/page/13 13] |isbn= 978-0230100220}} ) tribe that live in Dar Tama in northeastern Chad and Darfur in western Sudan. They number 200,000{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=A0XNvklcqbwC&q=tama&pg=RA1-PA454 |title = Encyclopedia of Africa |author1=Anthony Appiah |author2=Henry Louis Gates |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 2010 |isbn= 978-0195337709 |page=454}}–300,000.Olson, p. 544 They speak Tama, a Nilo-Saharan language. Many of the Tama are subsistence farmersOlson, p. 42{{cite web |url= http://www.darfurianvoices.org/ee/images/uploads/darfur-col-eng-web_spreads.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110725220414/http://www.darfurianvoices.org/ee/images/uploads/darfur-col-eng-web_spreads.pdf |url-status= dead |archive-date= 2011-07-25 |author1= Jonathan Loeb |author2= Benjamin Naimark-Rowse |author3= Matthew Bowlby |title= Darfurian Voices |publisher= 24 Hours For Darfur |date= July 2010 |display-authors= etal }} who live in permanent settlements{{cite web |url= http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,45a5199f2,45a5f9d82,3ae6abe00,0,,,TCD.html |title= Chad: Tama ethnic group; language; population; political affiliations and rebel group support; traditional lands |publisher= Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |date= 1 November 1998 |accessdate= 14 September 2012}} and raise millet, beans, cucumbers, gumbo, and sesame. They also raise cattle, camels and goats. The majority of Tama are Muslims, but they also have some animistic beliefs.

The Tama are made up of a number of subgroups: Abu Sharib (approximately 50,000 people),Olson, p. 5 Asungor (60,000), Dagel,Olson, p. 135 Erenga (35,000),Olson, pp. 168–9 Gimr (50,000),Olson, p. 198 Kibet,Olson, p. 285 Marari (20,000),Olson, p. 372 Mileri (9,000),Olson, p. 396 and Tama proper.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=stl97FdyRswC&q=tama-speaking&pg=PA682 |author= Facts On File, Incorporated |title= Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East |publisher= Infobase Publishing |year= 2009 |isbn= 978-1438126760 |page= 682}}

The traditional home of the Tama is Dar Tama.Human Rights Watch, p. 14 All reside in Chad, except the Gimr and the Mileri, who live near Saref Omra and Kebkabiya in Sudan.Olson, pp. 198, 396 In 2006, due to violence between the Tama and the Zaghawa,Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, p. 25 1,800 Tama refugees fled to Mile and Kounoungo,Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, p. 26 United Nations-sponsored refugee camps.Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, p. 66

For centuries, the Tama were governed by sultans.{{cite book |editor= Dennis D. Cordell |title= Chad: A Country Study |series= Library of Congress Country Studies |url= http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/tdtoc.html |accessdate= 21 September 2012 |edition= 2nd |year= 1990 |publisher= Library of Congress |isbn=0-16-024770-5 |chapter= The Society and Its Environment |page=37}} Many of these were believed to be of Dadjo origin. In the 1800s they were a warlike tribe who was known for their use of the spear,Barth, p. 650 who had maintained their independence for the previous two centuries. On at least two occasions, they resisted the invasions from other tribes.Barth, p. 644Barth, p. 646

At various times they have been subjected to the sultans of Wadai on the west and Darfur on the east, but have always had their own sultan.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrA8AAAAIAAJ&q=dar+tama&pg=PA85 |title= A History of the Arabs in the Sudan: And Some Account of the People who Preceded Them and of the Tribes Inhabiting Darfur |volume= 1 |author= Harold Alfred MacMichael |publisher= CUP Archive |year= 1922 |page= 85}} For example, they were part of the Sultanate of Darfur in the early 1800s.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=HQxYJWkO7EEC&q=dar+tama&pg=PA74 |title= The Darfur Sultanate: A History |author= Rex S. O'Fahey |publisher= Columbia University Press |year= 2008 |isbn= 978-0231700382 |pages= 74–75}} Turkish-Egyptian Sudan governed the area in the late 1800s.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=l4xeh4JcMTwC&q=dar+tama+turkish&pg=PA125 |title= In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa |author= Said S. Samatar |publisher= The Red Sea Press |year= 1992 |isbn= 0932415709 |pages= 125–6}} During the French colonial period, France really only governed southern Chad,{{cite book |editor= John L. Collier |title= Chad : A Country Study |series= Library of Congress Country Studies |url= http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/tdtoc.html |accessdate= 21 September 2012 |edition= 2nd |year= 1990 |publisher= Library of Congress |isbn= 0-16-024770-5 |chapter= Historical Setting |page=17}} and therefore not the Dar Tama region, but a figurehead sultan was put in place to govern the area.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=_OzBMl-gW2oC&q=dar+tama&pg=PA21 |title= Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide |author= Gérard Prunier |edition= 3 |publisher= Cornell University Press |year= 2008 |isbn= 978-0801475030 |page= 21 }}

During the Sahelian drought of the 1980s, the Zaghawa migrated to Dar Tama and displaced some of the Tama.{{cite news |url= http://wow.gm/africa/chad/ndjamena/article/2007/8/27/chad-fighting-between-presidents-and-defence-chiefs-ethnic-groups |title= Fighting between president's and defence chief's ethnic groups |date= 27 August 2007 |accessdate= 14 September 2012 |publisher= WOW, Gambia News Gateway}}

With the migration of the Zaghawas, armed horsemen began to raid the Tama livestock and commit robberies and murders, a situation that worsened after the rise to power of Déby, who favored his ethnic group in high government and police positions in Dar Tama. The new Zaghawa elite did little to protect Tama civilians from the looting and raiding of these bandits, and even took part in them. This abuse of power was the main reason that led to the establishment of the National Resistance Alliance (ANR) in 1994, an armed organization from which the FUC would later split.

At the time of the Chadian civil war the rebel group United Front for Democratic Change (FUC) largely consisted of Tama. The Zaghawa felt the Tama supported this rebel group that opposed the Chadian government, which was led by President Idriss Déby, a member of the Zaghawa tribe,Human Rights Watch, p. 25 though there was little activity of any rebel group on the community level.

A 2006 robbery of a Tama man and an ensuing gunfight that caused 20 deaths and 9 serious injuries was cited as the event that triggered increased violence.Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, pp. 28–9 After that, the Zaghawa increased the frequency and violence of their theft of Tama cattle.Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, p. 32 In 2006, dozens of Tama were killed by Zaghawa militants and thousands of Tama were displaced after Zaghawa attacks on Tama villages.

In August 2006, 3,300 Tama civilians fled from Dar Tama to Sudan because some Zaghawa accused a Tama man of raping one of their women. In October, 1,800 refugees fled to Mile and Kounoungo, UN-sponsored refugee camps. Human Rights Watch could not corroborate allegations of Tama attacks on Zaghawa civilians.Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, p. 28 The Chadian government and police did little to investigate or condemn the increasing violence.Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, pp. 34–5

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{cite web |url= https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/chad0107webwcover.pdf |title= "They Came Here to Kill Us": Militia Attacks and Ethnic Targeting of Civilians in Eastern Chad |author= Africa Division of Human Rights Watch |editor1= Leslie Lefkow |editor2=Georgette Gagnon |editor3=Aisling Reidy |editor4=Andrew Mawson |publisher= Human Rights Watch |date= January 2007}}
• {{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BgobAAAAYAAJ&q=tama&pg=PA650 |title= Travels and discoveries in north and central Africa, 1849-1855, Volume 2 |author= Henry Barth |year= 1857 |publisher= Harvard University}}
• {{cite web |url= https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/chad0707webwcover_0.pdf |title= Early to War: Child Soldiers in the Chad Conflict |author= Human Rights Watch |publisher= Human Rights Watch |date= July 2007 |accessdate= 14 September 2012}}
• {{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=MdaAdBC-_S4C&q=tama&pg=PP9 |title= The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary |author= James Stuart Olson |publisher= Greenwood Publishing Group |year= 1996 |isbn= 0313279187}}

{{Ethnic groups in Chad}}

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Category:Ethnic groups in Chad

Category:Ethnic groups in Sudan