Journal Entries for May 25-28, 2004 on signing the Protocols between the Sudanese Government and the SPLM

May 25: It appears that "peace" is at hand, or to be more exact, that the final three pieces of the "general framework agreement" will be signed tomorrow morning in Kenya. The honchos told Powell this on Sunday when he called and the gang is gathering in Kenya. This is actually still a step or two from the final peace agreement & comprehensive ceasefire but it is a big hurdle passed, provided it happens. With Darfur still a problem, we won't do much in response....

Been taking it easy the last few days, even sunning myself in my garden. Following closely the government's new and improved approach to Darfur. Will have lunch here at home with the security/intell chief [note: Salah Gosh*] on Thursday. But then plan on smoking a peace cigar (in lieu of pipe) Friday on the shore of the Blue Nile and then cruising into our version of the Memorial Day weekend.

May 27: Yesterday, the Sudan government and the SPLM finally signed agreements on the last part of the framework for peace. It took a long time and there are still a few steps to go before a final agreement. In fact, I spent the day thinking about the remaining steps and also about the conflict still going on in Darfur. Didn't think to celebrate or anything. (Though I did tell the staff today -- it happened to be the day of our Embassy awards ceremony** -- that they could be proud of their efforts that contributed to peace for their country.)

On the way home, I passed a large gathering in the center of town. Stopped to take a look. It was an SPLM rally of celebration for peace. When they realized the American Charge was there, they invited me up to speak to the crowd and started chanting pro-USA slogans. The crowd was mostly southerners, a couple of hundred, and mostly students. The rally was organized by the SPLM Youth. The group had been underground until recently. I met the leaders when they declared their group openly several weeks ago. The leaders were earnest young men with Western suits. We all were sweating. I spoke briefly about the US support for southerners to be treated justly and equally and about continuing to work for a peaceful, democratic and united Sudan. They cheered. It only hit me then that for many people, the signing yesterday means peace. They want peace. They want to live normally and many just want to go home.

I had forgotten that all this diplomacy -- words, threats, promises, lies, truths, half-truths, hypocrisies, feints, etc -- was about something very real to lots of people, peace.

May 28: Sometime this afternoon while I was working in the office, a haboob came in. The skies are cloudy and the city is covered in a dust cloud. From inside my air conditioned house, it almost seems like dusk on a fall day. Except that it's well over a 100 outside and the weak light coming in through the windows casts a strange orange glow on everything. Not unpleasant as long as the sand doesn't clog the AC.

Off soon to have drinks with the Norwegian Charge and the guy who got us the pig. Imagine me sitting somewhere in an orange glow drinking something stiff and chatting about pork. When I've sunk deep enough into that reality, I'll go to the home of the assistant president for in-depth political analysis of post-peace agreement. He always has tasty sweets and good coffee to make up for the lack of booze. Finally, it'll be the Ethiopian Embassy to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the overthrow of the previous government. Probably no booze there either but by then I won't need any. Reality here is heady enough.

Spoke thrice with the Foreign Minister in the last 20 hours. On Darfur. Our relations may spike upwards with the peace signing.

Note: * The first time I met one-on-one with Gosh, he put his hand on my knee and informed me that he could have me killed and get away with it.  Indeed, in 1973 the US Ambassador and his deputy were assassinated by Black September folks never caught.

 ** A photo from our awards ceremony:

 

From a visit to Malakal in early May 2004

From the visit to Malakal on May 8th with the CPMT:

Malakal

 Burned Tukels

Popwojo

Nyilwk

From the Embassy Arabic Press Review for 05/13/2004

AL SAHAFA:


GALLUCCI: WE DO NOT LINK DARFUR TO IGAD AND WE FAVOR UNITED SUDAN

While the favor of speculations are rising on date of signing the peace agreement between the government and the SPLM, Dr. Gerard Gallucci, US Charge asserted this week will witness the signing of the agreement on the three conflict areas and the power sharing issues.

Gallucci was addressing a small group of press corps at the American Embassy premises yesterday. He added mid June will witness the signing ceremony in Nairobi.

Gallucci, who was talking confidently about the future of the peaceful process between the government and the SPLM, seemed committed to continue on line of constructive dealing with the “fundamentalists at the Republican Palace”. He said they have started since a time ago to enter into work relationship with them.

He added the US Administration will start complete normalization of relations with the Government of Sudan as soon as a peace agreement is reached and the phase of arranging for final comprehensive cease-fire. He was reserved at linking the IGAD-sponsored peace process to Darfur.
He affirmed the vision of the EU and the US Administration is identical in this regard.

Gallucci linked lift of the US sanctions from the Sudanese government to three issues: cooperation in the so-called international counter terrorism issue, reaching a peace agreement through IGAD and achieving more comprehensive progress in the human rights issue.

While he noticed that the government is achieving progress in human rights issue, he added his Administration is waiting for lift of the state of emergency upon signing the peace agreement- according to President El Bashir’s promise.

Gallucci affirmed that most of the American aid will go to south Sudan after peace. He affirmed his government’s sympathy with south Sudan because the Americans sympathize with the weak!!
He was keen to affirm the challenges to maintain unity of Sudan- the United States and Egypt’s option. The Charge held the north Sudan the major responsibility in maintaining it.

The US Charge admitted that going far in sanctions against the government of Sudan would turn them into sanctions against the Sudanese people. He added if the peace agreement was signed next month, lift of sanctions will be before this year.

He revealed that his discussed with Sudanese businessmen resumption of commercial relations with his country and establishing Sudanese-US business council.

Gallucci seemed pragmatic toward dealing with the current situation data; he called for review of the total positive achievements realized through policy of constructive dealing with the Sudanese government; he committed that both, the government and the SPLM, will choose their allies to participate in the rule structure. He said that he encourages the Umma and DUP to work to speak through one voice. He blamed them for talking about figures and more disconnected.

Moreover, Petterson, USAID Administrative Assistance for Health declared a five-year plan- worth $5 millions US Dollars- to improve the health situation in south Sudan.
The State Department Population Refugees and Immigration Office allocated an additional $433 thousand US Dollar to International Rescue Committee to meet the Sudanese refugees needs in Chad.

Last week, the USAID started the first air relief dropping in Darfur within the context of four airdropping operations program.

WASHINGTON SEEKS TO PULL OUT MILLINGTON FROM NAIVASHA

Close sources to the ongoing negotiations in Kenya declared that Washington decided to withdraw its official of the Sudanese peace negotiations in Nairobi, Jeff Millington due to the wrong reports he has been sending to the US Administration in Washington.

The sources added that the IGAD Secretariat and the two negotiations parties- the SPLM in particular- have been resentful toward Millington’s inaccurate performance.
They added that Washington has depended in many of its resolutions regarding the peace negotiations on these inaccurate reports- including President Bush’s report before the Congress on April 21.

“Al Sahafa” learned that Michael Ranneberger, US officer for the peace issue in the State Department arrived in Naivasha yesterday.
Kalinzo Masioka, Kenyan Foreign Minister and Charles Snyder are currently visiting the negotiations venue to be acquainted with the obstacles impeding the two negotiation parties.

04 Khartoum 0468: Visit to Malakal, Upper Nile

04 Khartoum 0460: Meeting with Dinka, Messeria and Rezigat

04 Khartoum 0451: Sudan-Violence Creates New Flow of IDPs in Upper Nile

04 Khartoum 0342: Visit of Romanian Special Envoy

04 Khartoum 0108: Supporting Human Right and Democracy*

* The next three cables were overlooked earlier.

04 Khartoum 0196 - SPLM Surfaces in Khartoum

Back to Sudan: 03 Khartoum 1049 plus journal entry

From my December 8 journal entry: Well, on top of the historic visit of the (Christian/animist) SPLM to Khartoum now unfolding, Franklin Graham (son of Billy) is here to give out Xmas gifts. The Christians have landed. Just came back from dinner in his honor given by the (Islamic) government. Rev. Graham gave a very nice speech at dinner showing faith, cultural sensitivity and understanding. Very sincere man. I told him that I saw his father preach in Madison Square Garden many years ago. He said his father will give his last "talk" there next year. (Must mean he is retiring, not ascending.) Tomorrow morn, I go with him to the airport to see the big Russian plane deliver the presents. So far no one has asked me to actually pray.

03Khartoum 1013

The status of the Nuba Mountains remains unsettled.

Journal Entry for November 17, 2003

It's getting hard to keep things in perspective. I went from dealing with the serious issues left by the recent threat and meeting with embassy staff (American & local) to discuss this with them to a phone call from the Director General. You can bet on how I looked forward to the Ops Center connecting him to me. Sure enough, not good news. Not a late recognition of my deserving advancement or a word on how well I was handling the current crisis. No, he wanted to tell me that AID Director* thought he had not been treated well enough during his recent visit. Then I went to see the Egyptian ambassador for a scotch and a chat. I enjoy talking with him. Home for dinner and then after dinner, I discover the back lights are out. In the current context, makes me predisposed to paranoia. Then I talk to USAID Washington about a food shipment being held up by a rebellious Agriculture Minister. There is an open feud over this pitting the Minister against the Vice President (and "strong man") and Foreign Minister who told us last month that we could ship despite GOS concerns over GMOs. (Hardliners vs "moderates.") The senior USAID official (who was on the trip) told me we have only days before the food problem will lead to costly diversions. (But "no", he knew of no problem with Andrew.) Then the RSO calls me to tell me the government is already withdrawing police from our facilities including some from my residence. I'm beginning to wonder just what the early signs of coup would be here. I call the desk just to chat. They feel good because the peace delegations had a good meeting in London. (For all I know, they were talking to dead men walking.)

 

What part of this do I take seriously? I don't think I can handle all of it. Think I'll concentrate on police guards.

*Note:  Andrew Natsios was the Director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), 2001-06.  USAID was a hotbed of USG support for the "Christian" African rebels (SPLM) fighting the Khartoum government in southern Sudan.  The SPLM boosters within the USG did not like the Embassy constantly raising the distracting issue of Darfur.  But Natsios also understood the need to be seen doing something about Darfur by sending food aid while the Sudanese government went ahead with its ethnic cleansing there.  (Natsios reportedly said in a 2003 interview that the total cost of rebuilding Iraq would not cost US taxpayers more than $1.7 billion.)

03Khartoum 0890

Journal Entry for trip south & meeting John Garang

October 6: Went deep into southern Sudan over the weekend. Flew to Rumbek, the capital of "New Sudan" ruled by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). For hundreds of years, people have been moving down the Nile Valley through and to Sudan. (Spoke to a Dutch archeologist last week who runs a dig at one of the oldest known sites with signs of modern men – 200,000 years old.) Over the last few thousand years, people moving north have met other people whose ancestors had moved north and beyond even longer ago. So long ago, they forgot where they came from, as we all do. The more recent movements north have been by "Africans" and they have met "Arabs." The people have mixed, fought and lived among each other. The Arabs preyed on the black Africans, taking them as slaves, treating them as animals. The Africans – found mostly but not all in the south – themselves are split into hundreds of tribes, big and small. Some farm, some raise cattle. They too have fought with each other. The largest African tribe is the Dinka, the Nuer next. They are split into further groups that have also fought with each other.

When the British left Sudan in 1956, they left behind an old boundary separating north and south Sudan. The south has been fighting the north ever since. This became a war for the independence of the south and the SPLM became the prime liberation movement in 1983. The SPLM represents the Africans. John Garang has headed it for most of its existence. Garang lived for nine years in the US and received a PhD in agricultural science from the University of Iowa. I went to Rumbek to meet Garang and to greet a retired US four-star general who also was arriving in Sudan to meet with him and the government.
 

Rumbek is around 500 miles south of Khartoum. It is deeper in the rain belt and it rained right after we arrived on Friday afternoon. Bringing rain in Africa is considered good luck. It had not rained for 12 days and the sorghum needed water to finish growing by harvest time at the end of October. It also cooled things off a good bit.

The British had kept the Arabs out of southern Sudan during the colonial period to protect the people there. But that is all they did. No development or investment of any kind took place. Southern Sudan today is almost totally primitive. No paved roads, no electricity, no plumbing, no modern medicine, no telephones, no TV, no AC. Simple mud huts, water from rivers and wells, brutally hot days, nothing but hard work, survival, family and friends. When we attended a large SPLM ceremony on Saturday, Garang told us they had nothing to offer the guests but the good free air but we could have all of that we wanted. (Nevertheless, our visiting ex-general was given the usual village greeting for an important person: he jumped over a big cow held on the ground and with its neck freshly cut. The village then celebrates with a feast.)

Garang is very impressive: thoughtful, quick, subtle and farsighted. Not bombastic and clearly able to tolerate a bunch of rowdy “sons,” the younger leaders pursuing their own ambitions and who have at times been with him, then with the government and then back again. We met twice. 
 

I stayed in a safari-type camp run by a South African company but with an American manager. They served bacon at breakfast and beer at the bar (under a tree). No sharia here. The Civilian Protection Monitoring Team uses most of the tent city to house the Rumbek team. Their job is to investigate possible abuses of civilians by the two opposing armies. The USG funds the CPMT and they flew me to Rumbek. I was apparently lucky the two nights I was there. With a fan blowing – the tents had electric power – I used a sheet at night and slept well. The days were hot. The CPMT also took me on a four-hour plane tour of the south. Took some good shots, including of a typical little village.

Note:  The death of John Garang in July 2005 was a tremendous loss for Sudan and South Sudan.  He had achieved a peace agreement and became 1st Vice President of Sudan before he died in a helicopter crash.  The SPLM leadership he left behind has proved unable to work together and the country has descended into civil war.  

03Khartoum 0870

Ali Osman Taha remained a vice president until 2013.  He was considered a relative moderate.

Journal Entries for visit to Nuba region (covered in 03 Khartoum 0861)

September 8: Writing here after a full day, not yet over, of touring the Nuba Mountains. It is rainy season so very green, and cooler than Khartoum. Fields full of sorghum. Met with people on both government side and SPLA side. Carried about in a big helicopter after flying in on an Antinov -- all flown by Russians.

September 9: The morning started before 7 today. It's now five pm. We traveled to the outlying sectors of the JMC area -- which is, as the commanding general points out, as big as Austria. We visited three sites and then came back to visit the market to see the development that happened since the ceasefire. We helicoptered around but it warmed up after the clouds went away. (It rained hard last night as I was falling asleep in my AC'd container. My head hurts because I keep hitting it on low doorways. But it was an invigorating day. I feel properly tired after a good day.)

Later. Ended a busy day as I did yesterday getting a briefing on the General's "veranda" while smoking one of his cigars. I visited a market today as well. Got some good photos. I feel overwhelmed by the work there is to do. But there are some good people trying to prepare for peace while taking advantage of opportunities to help the Nuba people make their ceasefire work. Off to bed under my mosquito net.

September 10: Flew the length of Southern Kordofan (home province of Nuba) to get to the capital of El Obied. Met the commander of the military central command. Spent around four hours in the air -- with stop in Dilling on the way -- to and from. On the way, read a bit of Churchill's River War. Read how 180 years ago yesterday, British General Hicks marched out of Khartoum toward El Obied with a force of mostly Egyptians and to his defeat and death at the hands of El Mahdi in the first big engagement of the war. The Sudanese commander today met me in the former British HQ of its Sudan camel corps. He recited his corps' history of battles -- which were all in the service of the British Empire. The living history here can give you whiplash.

September 12: Spent four days in the Nuba Mountains this week. Nuba is one of the three "conflict areas" in Sudan. These are areas outside the traditional south -- which the government and SPLA have been fighting over -- but where the SPLA has support among local black African groups. The Nuba people lived mixed with a group of black Arabs known as the Bagara. Some of the Nuba are Moslem, some Christian. The Nuba have for centuries been abused and hunted by the Arabs, who took them as slaves. The Nuban Mountains are piles of rock above otherwise flat plains. It rains in Nuba so crops can grow. But during the dry season, the land turns brown and the rivers dry. The only water is at wells and that is often not enough for everyone so there has always been tension between the Nuban farmers and the Bagara cattle and camel herders.

In 2002, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in the Nuba. This began the current peace process. The Joint Military Commission (JMC) was created to monitor the ceasefire. I visited the JMC.

The Nuba area is as big as Austria. It’s 1½ hours from Khartoum by air but at least two days by road. We got there on Russian-made planes flown by former Soviet pilots and got around on Soviet MI-8 (Hip) helicopters. Because it is rainy season in Nuba, everything is green. Many of the rivers have water in them and the roads are often impassable because they have turned into mud or riverbeds. Most of Nuba is exactly like the rest of Sudan, flat as a pancake. But there are stony hills that are mostly just 600-1000 feet above the plains. The blacks have traditionally hidden in the hills to escape the slave-traders and to hide from the government army. The SPLA controlled some of the mountains but almost none of the plains. The Sudanese military could not dislodge the SPLA from the mountains. Stalemate and eventually ceasefire. Really simple to understand. In some places there were piles of spent ammunition casings and at one camp, they had found four bodies (skeletons) while clearing fields.

I visited all seven JMC camps in various parts of Nuba. I also met with the chief of the SPLA for Nuba in his mountain HQ and with the General in command of the military for the whole region. We flew over a lot of country and you can see a picture of a typical village of round mud huts surrounded by mud walls. People have cattle or goats and mostly grow sorghum. I discovered that sorghum looks a lot like corn without the ears. It is related to corn but in this case, the tassel part grows into clumps of seeds that mature and then get ground into flour.

We visited the market in Kadugli, near the JMC HQ. It had grown from a few shops to a large collection of people selling most everything. In one place they had the people selling things they made from metal, including teapots (made from inside out tin cans) and knives. Food, spices, plastic containers, bikes and bike parts, cloths, shoes, it is like an outside Third World shopping mall without the AC. In fact the smell is incredible. It’s Africa, a combination of excrement, earth, cooking food, spices, coffee, animals, people and everything. Strong, pungent but alive. Once my nose was sensitized to it, I could smell it on the wind as the helicopter approached larger villages.

Outside the camp, it was the 12^th century. I sat at the end of the day watching little kids playing in the tall grass, women carrying loads on their heads, men walking their fields. No electricity, no running water, no relief from the heat other than the thick walls of the huts. I would not like to live that way, but in rainy season as the sun began setting, it was beautiful.

03 Khartoum 828

03 Khartoum 0861
(corrected version of 0822)

Note:  The JMC (see 03 Khartoum 795) monitored a ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains area, a predominantly non-Arab, African area north of the line now serving as a border with South Sudan.  The area is still in dispute.

JMC Patrol

Kadugli Market