Sudan: Final Words

The break-up of Sudan, aided and abetted by the United States, can be seen as another example of ill-conceived outside interference in an internal conflict in the name of democracy and human rights. The record for holding together the multi-ethnic states left behind by Western colonialism and former empires, without autocratic and often brutal centralized rule, is slim. This is a hard truth. And once such states are broken, they do not heal themselves. 

The full piece on my final thoughts on the string of Sudan entries may be found on TransConflict: http://www.transconflict.com/2016/05/what-lesson-from-sudan-035/

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 0483: Meeting with Dismissed Vice Chancellor*

* From my Journal for May 11:  Just had dinner with the nice man fired last month as Vice Chancellor of Khartoum University. Was at his house. Simple food and no AC. I am amazed that people can live without AC here. Was still 111o when I left.

Last night it was a group of businessmen at my house. When you are rich here, you have LOTS of money. Went well and they appreciated gesture of US reaching out to business community.

04 Khartoum 0468: Visit to Malakal, Upper Nile

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

Journal Entry for January 24, 2004: Trip to Juba

Just back from visiting Juba. Juba is the furthest south of Sudan’s Nile cities, about 800 miles as the bird flies and a good distance further as the river flows. Juba is also the edge of the north’s furthest reach. Juba itself is less than 100 years old but each empire that has tried to rule Sudan has put an outpost in the vicinity. The Turks, Arabs and the British have done it. The Juba area sits at the point where the White Nile enters the plains after dropping down from the Mountains of the Moon (the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda). The empires have all wanted to control it in order to control the gateway south and north. But the outposts have always been too far from the north and too difficult to defend. Juba sits well south of the Sud, the great swamp that chokes the White Nile and has always presented an almost impassable barrier to going up river. The border between Arab Sudan and African Sudan is another 300 miles north of Juba but the government and the SPLM have fought most bitterly over this one city and the province – Equatoria – of which it is the capital.

Juba is closer to Uganda and the Congo than to Khartoum. It took our US Air Force C-12 just under three hours to get there. It is dry season but it was clouded most of the time. Rain sprinkled us as we were touring the military hospital. Juba is not really a city but a very humble and over-crowded town. The government has 12,000 troops to control the town and a bit of the surrounding territory. (They seem in no hurry to leave.) About 500,000 people live in government-controlled territory. Most of the 2 million southerners who live in the refugee camps of Khartoum come from Juba. (My cook and houseboy come from there.) Even though with a ceasefire, the countryside – fields for crops, roads – is heavily mined and unusable. In an area that could feed itself, most everything – food and fuel – has to come from Khartoum. The barges can only use the river during the dry season and the town has electricity only for the 3-4 months a year that fuel can reach it by barge. Food costs four times the monthly wage; that means those with jobs can feed themselves from their pay only one week out of the four. Then they “make do.”

The SPLM repeatedly attacked Juba because they wanted to make it their capital. But the government used all of its resources to hold it. They have several towns in the south but the SPLM controls the countryside. This stalemate has made both sides willing to try a peace agreement. The people of Juba have been so brutalized by the war and by oppression by the Arabs that they don’t believe in peace even now. I met with the auxiliary bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Churches. They have carried alone the weight of helping their faithful survival. One told me that every day that people survived made them thankful but they could never tell about tomorrow. Imagine waking up facing the job of finding work, shelter, the next meal while also being afraid that if you complained or said or did anything that the security people didn’t like that you would disappear and never be found. And the next day, if you survived the night, the same thing all over again for 15 years. The Catholic Bishop spoke of the people having been traumatized and I could see in his eyes what it had done to him. They were glad that the US had not forgotten them. I brought my USAID person with me and we listened to them tell us that they needed help. The people of the US know nothing, nothing about all of these places where other people have nothing, not even hope.

Juba is dusty, dirty – filled with that scourge of mankind, plastic bags – and very poor. But it also is indisputably Africa. The mud huts with straw roofs, the chickens, goats and dogs running loose. The smiling faces, all the children waving and wanting us to take their pictures. That wish to have their picture taken always makes me wonder. They’ll almost certainly never see them. It is that somewhere, somehow they want their lives to be recorded, remembered by someone outside? I always feel at home in Africa. We stayed at the USAID compound, now occupied by the International Red Cross. The ICRC team includes doctors and nurses who run the local hospital. They work 18-hour days, six days a week. The Sudanese staff won’t help them because they don’t care about the local people. The Red Cross people, mostly Europeans, are the most dedicated I’ve ever met. Rough living in Juba but they all can’t stop what they are doing.

I had 15 minutes between meetings – that included with the local army commander, who gave us dinner – and took a swim [in the USAID pool]. Reminded me of Harare. In the evening I sat alone by the pool for a bit and smoked a cigar. I watched the smoke disappear into the night sky and thought of paradise.

04 Khartoum 0119 -- Trip to Juba

04 Khartoum 0075 -- Darfur Policy Recommendations

03Khartoum 1013

The status of the Nuba Mountains remains unsettled.

03Khartoum 0993

03Khartoum 0987

Note:  SBU means Sensitive But Unclassified

03Khartoum 0971

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.