The Innocent Always Suffer: Crisis in South
Sudan
(Originally published in Kenya's Daily
Nation, December 27, 1988)
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Living on the streets of Juba.
Photo by David Blumenkrantz |
By David Blumenkrantz
BACKGROUND
From
the outset of Sudan's independence (from
it's colonial overlord England) in 1955,
the country has been divided among cultural,
ideological and religious lines. In simple
terms, the Arab/Muslim north, which controls
the country out of the capital city Khartoum,
has been attempting to dominate the diverse
(though mainly Christian and animist)
peoples of what becomes sub-Saharan Africa
in the south. The potential for Big Oil
Money in the south ups the ante further
. . .
Sudan might be considered a particularly
egregious example colonial misrule-that
is to say when the crowned heads of Europe met in Berlin
in 1884 to "share" the continent amongst
themselves, the borders were drawn
with little regard for the compatibility
of the various tribes and races. Only
during the years 1972 and 1983 has there
been peace in Sudan. The rebel faction
Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA),
led by John Garang, has been leading an
escalating revolution against the central
government.
For the people in the south, the war has
brought the economy, particularly in the
rural sector, to a standstill. Rebel activity
has forced undetermined thousands to leave
their villages, and hence their farmlands,
and migrate to Juba where it is estimated
that some 90,000 people are crowded into
"camps" for the displaced, and many more
recent arrivals can be seen gathered under
trees and shop awnings in town. Many are
weak from hunger, lying prostrate in the
oppressive heat, or are suffering from
hunger-related illnesses. Random surveys
conducted in several of the supplementary
feeding centers throughout the camps have
indicated malnutrition rates as high as
15%. Several schools in Juba have had
to cease functioning in order to house
the incoming multitudes. Indeed, one of
the greatest needs apart from food is
shelter- at one camp, there were as many
as 30 people sleeping in one tent, with
many still outdoors.
The fact that the people have left their
farms has caused a major food shortage
in the Equatoria region. The usual harvests,
which supply food for most of the southern
region's people, are not there this year.
There is very little and often no food
in the shops and marketplaces these days,
bringing additional tension to both the
residents of Juba and the displaced. Aggravating
the situation is the fact that all roads
leading to Juba are blocked by "anti-personnel"
landmines, which prevents not only people
from returning to their homelands, but
also has virtually halted-- without the
escort of government troops and minesweepers--
the importation of food by road to the
town. The same holds true for most of
south Sudan-- the small town of Yei is
currently home to 65,000 displaced peoples
living in six camps. Several organizations
are involved in providing emergency relief,
but their job is severely hindered by
the insecurity on the roads.
The following article was inspired by a
visit to Juba, December 2-4, 1988, aboard
an emergency food relief airlift sponsored
by the United Nations' World Food Program.
It was written-admittedly from an idealist's
perspective-- as an expression of sorrow
for the thousands of innocent victims:
farmers and pastoralists, children and
elderly, who had been forced to abandon
their homelands and face a new life of
deprivation and hunger. There's no way
to soft-pedal the harshness of what can
fairly be described as an agonizing, all
too often fatal test of man's humility
and resilience. Consider the simultaneous
devastation of floods, famine, locusts
and civil war. Consider further that what
is happening today in the Darfur region
is only the latest chapter in south Sudan's
travails. Lastly and by necessity, the
article was meant as a look at the food
relief industry, and the effect that free
relief has on its recipients.
* * * * *
The gigantic Hercules C130 spins downward
at an improbable angle toward sun-baked
Juba, the largest town in south Sudan's
Equatoria region, carrying a precious cargo--
200 sacks of maize, courtesy of the United
Nation's World Food Program (WFP). Coming
to a halt on the sweltering tarmac, the
plane is immediately surrounded by locally
hired laborers who scramble on board to
unload the 18 tons. You notice and wonder
what the men kneeling under the open cargo
door are doing, frantically scraping the
ground with their hands. Then you realize--
this is Juba, a town caught in civil war,
and these men are scrounging for loose grains
of maize to carry home to their families.
Scenes like this are common in Juba these
days.
There are children on the sandy, bleached
playground of Juba One School, but they
are not students. School has been closed
down to make room for more incoming displaced
from the rural areas. The children climb
in and out of tents, swarming anxiously
around their teen-age siblings who stir
large oil drums full of maize porridge over
smoky fires. Inside tents, the eldest and
weakest can only lay prostrate-- mere skeletons.
On a tattered blanket, Veronica Foni sits
spread-eagle, sorting through some curious-looking
green and purple plants. In her 70's, Foni
wears only an old cloth tied over one bony
shoulder, revealing undernourished ribs
and a long-since shriveled breast. She explains
to her visitor that the plant is called
Jarigo, scavenged from underwater sources
to be eaten with her family's minimal ration
of the maize porridge. "We are eating this--
there is no other food," she complains without
much emotion. It was eight or nine months
ago, her son adds, that the entire population
of their farming village Jebelado was destroyed
by rebel activity. They walked the 24 miles
to Juba, where they have been moved from
one location to another, awaiting entry
to one of the more "permanent" camps for
the displaced. Holding her hand to her chest,
then to her mouth, Foni begs for assistance:
"There are no vitamins in the body."
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Photo by David Blumenkrantz |
War is an ugly phenomenon. It turns the
self-sufficient into dependants-- the healthy
turn sickly-- the haves are soon the have-nots.
In rural Africa, where fragile economies
are already at the mercy of the rains, the
vulnerability to war and the swiftness with
which one can lose all are alarmingly pronounced.
Caught between a "right and a wrong" that
most care little about save for their land,
families and traditions, countless thousands
have been uprooted in southern Sudan, their
villages burnt to the ground by indiscriminate
pillaging and the righteous ideals of zealous
leaders and their incited followers. Juba
today is a way-station for all of south
Sudan-- at least those fortunate enough
to make it there, as thousands have reportedly
died during mass exoduses out of the Equatoria
region, and still thousands more languish
in paralyzed isolation in satellite towns
like Yei and Torit.
Peacetime Juba, according to those who
have lived there since before the war restarted
in 1983, was a lively, scenic paradise of
sorts, with its share of nightspots, and
was an attraction to a wide variety of visitors
from Uganda, Zaire, and Kenya, as well as
a fairly large expatriate community of development
workers. As recently as this past October
there was hope that the town, its population
of 200,000 already heavily burdened by an
increasing displaced population, could remain
immune to the more extreme effects of the
war. But an escalation of violence made
road travel to and from Juba impossible
without army escort, (a situation which
deteriorated to the point where it was no
longer even remotely safe for lorry drivers
to deliver relief materials, let alone common
amenities), and by early November only a
handful of expatriates had resisted evacuation.
Wartime Juba features a different type
of ethnic collage: which crowds numerous
camps for the displaced; which has inundated
and forced the closure of several schools;
and which has turned downtown shop fronts
into shelters for the hungry, the lepers,
and the pathetically weak, who breastfeed
rib-cage babies, grind meager rations of
grain and extend fingerless hands to shake
those of a visitor. Other, more recent newcomers,
cluster under trees, their worldly belongings
in ragged tow while waiting for relocation.
These are, among others, the Pojulu from
the west; the Dinka from the north; the
Kakwa from Yei; the Mundari, who were the
first to arrive as displaced; the Kuku from
the Uganda border; the Toposa from the Kenya
border; and the Latuko from across the Nile,
in and around Torit. These people number
anywhere from 50-100,000. Once the owners
of land and livestock, today their passages
home are blocked by anti-personnel landmines.
An additional 65,000 are camped in Yei,
and a similar number or perhaps more survive
in Torit, according to estimates by relief
agencies-- reportedly the situations there
are even more desperate than Juba's.
A TOWN LACKING SUBSTANCE:
Late afternoons in Juba's camps for the
displaced are eerie. By 4:00, when the sun
has reached well into its downward arc toward
the horizon, the stifling heat of the dry
season lets up just a notch, and the western
sky appears an ominous hazy red-- a dusty
warning that with each passing day, the
desertification of northern Africa is creeping
closer. There's a strange silence, which
envelops the high-pitched laugh or the whimper
of a child, and mutes the monotone conversations
of men and women discussing survival. This
falsely surreal tranquility is broken only
by the occasional roar of a plane bringing
relief food and supplies, (military maneuvers
were quiet during my stay-- only one jet
fighter took off), or the few lorries and
four-wheel drive vehicles operated by government
and non-governmental agencies, sputtering
down dirt roads in and around the camps.
Otherwise the singing of birds and the padding
of barefoot children towing water and firewood
home from the banks of the Nile and her
tributaries usher the evening in. Evenings
of little to eat, especially for those not
displaced long enough to have taken advantage
of the recently-ended rainy season to cultivate
dura and a few other subsistence crops.
There is no question that the food airlifts,
initiated by the World Food Program on October
26, have staved off what easily could have
become a catastrophe. Many of the displaced
are traditionally the farmers who provide
food for Juba's markets. Hence this season,
with the exception of "the intensification
of agricultural development inside Juba,"
(according to a representative of Catholic
Relief Services), there were no harvests--
the impact of which is being felt not only
among the displaced population, but the
town's residents as well. The evenings,
warm enough to sleep without a blanket,
reveal a Juba that seems half dead. Tea
shops still do a brisk business for the
locals, a mixture of Arabic jellibia-clad
northerners and the southern Nilotes. A
quick look through fluorescent-lit shops
presents a wealth of imported clothing,
watches, shoes and other items, but in comparison
to the little or no food found in the markets,
and the under stocked chemists, that abundance
seems a mocking paradox. Francis, a young
man who works as a housekeeper for one of
the relief agencies, when asked what would
have transpired had there been no food airlifted,
theorized that those who would be able to
move out would try to do so, but those already
"paralyzed" could only "remain and would
have to die."
The airlifts were begun as a last resort
in response to the increasing amount of
ambushes and lootings on the roads leading
to Juba (which are, especially during the
rainy seasons, in virtually impassable condition
already-- the 100 miles from Yei to Juba
can take three days or more). For some,
the airlifts were a welcome means of escape
from the isolation and strangulation of
Juba's siege mentality. The evacuation of
personnel, and the free return to Entebbe
of 22 lorries abandoned during the convoy
violence that saw eight Kenyan drivers killed,
continued until early December. Since late
October, WFP's three flights per day from
Entebbe alone have brought in nearly 3,000
tons of mostly maize and some beans. Other
organizations and governments have also
responded, and for several weeks airlifts
have been arriving from Entebbe, Nairobi
and Khartoum, bringing thousands of tons
of foodstuffs, blankets, tents, utensils
and medicines.
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Photo by David Blumenkrantz |
In most camps, where surveys indicate that
malnutrition rates among children are as
high as 15%, even a nominal amount of help
is a boon. At Lologo, one of the largest
camps (holding 24,000 people), residents
crowd around huge lorries that bring, without
warning, sacks of maize for the feeding
centers. Dario Ochilo, a one-legged man
on a crutch smiles broadly as he watches
the sacks being tossed into piles. This
remarkable man, a former schoolteacher in
Torit, tells how he and his 15 children
were forced to flee Torit three years ago,
because of the war. "They took all I had--
food, everything . . ." He explains that
his wife died "years ago," and that the
family had survived until now because the
children "go to the bush to collect firewood
to sell for food money." But since the roads
were closed and the markets dried up, as
another man put it, "it doesn't matter if
you have money or not-- there's little to
buy," and Dario is grateful for the food
relief. "It's better now," he says optimistically.
"The hunger."
Still the needs are overwhelming. Piolegge,
a spokesman for people displaced from Kwarijik
Luri, some seven miles away, wonders why
more sacks of maize have not yet been delivered.
"No feeding today, only for the children,"
he shrugs. He points to a canvas tent, built
to hold perhaps six people. "The problem
is shelter-- we have only eight tents for
1,000 people. We are sleeping 30 people
to a tent, and the rest are still sleeping
outside." Others complain that the food
relief being allotted "is not enough" for
their families, or that they are lacking
essentials such as oil and beans.
STOMACHS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?
To the outside observer, and certainly to
the pessimist, the relief effort in south
Sudan presents a myriad of problems-- a
quagmire of logistical complaints, contradictory
objectives and most importantly the unfulfilled
expectations of the beneficiaries. This
however, does not afford enough credit and
respect to those involved on a daily basis
in what is an extremely pressurized and
complex situation. Perhaps this is why,
as a veteran of World Food Program said
from Nairobi, "there are very few people
who stay in the emergency relief business
very long-- it is very hard work." Watching
the frantic pace and long, demanding hours
of those involved in south Sudan today (two
logistics monitors of the WFP airlifts from
Entebbe recently confided that they had
put in six straight weeks of 8-10 hour days,
without a break, and their man in Juba can
say the same), the above remark seems an
understatement of sorts. The problems crop
up fast and furious, and seem to multiply:
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Photo by David Blumenkrantz |
With little food available in the open
market, the population of Juba grew restless
while watching food donations from agencies
such as USAID, EEC and CRS arrive with "strings
attached"-- meaning that there were strict
stipulations that the priority for distribution
goes to the indigent, the displaced, the
disabled, and the feeding centers. An estimated
50,000 Juba residents, declaring themselves
to be as victimized by the war as the displaced,
have posed as displaced in order to receive
free food; resulting in a dilution of the
impact the airlifted food has had in the
camps. Others have joined demonstrations
and threatened to open storage places by
force. To quell the hungry masses, 180 tons
of food was released to the ERCU (Equatoria
Region Cooperative Union, a body established
to fend for the interests of the working
class), for distribution to the community
at large. This food was later restocked
for the displaced out of a donation of 300
tons of maize from the government of Kenya.
Other natural hindrances have arisen as
well, such as the pilfering of some of the
food from their burlap sacks, the delivery
of spoiled food to the feeding centers,
and uncertain allegations of "opportunists"
taking advantage of the crisis for their
personal gain.
Ed- It came to my attention
during subsequent visits that food relief
was commonly siphoned off to feed the soldiers
of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army
(SPLA), who have been waging a war of secession
with the north.
In early December, these issues and several
others were hammered out at a workshop held
at the Nyakuron Cultural Center, a covered
amphitheatre that was once part of Juba's
premier nightspots. The two-day event, convened
to sort out the many falsehoods that have
hindered the relief effort, as well as chart
the plans for the upcoming months, provided
a platform for group discussions and debate
between the various bodies involved: the
displaced, who were represented by their
senior chiefs; the Juba residents, represented
by the ERCU; and the eight non-governmental
agencies currently involved in providing
relief and operating feeding centers and
other development programs such as women's
support groups, medical and agricultural
assistance in the camps. The workshop was
sponsored by CART (Combined Relief Agencies
Team), who coordinates the efforts of the
various NGO's. The Sudanese government,
not immune to criticism, was represented
by the governor of the Equatoria Region,
Morris Lawiya.
The stakes were high; hence it was mostly
a no-holds-barred workshop. As passersby
would stop to peer in and listen through
the chain link fence that surrounds the
venue, speaker after speaker attempted to
clear the air of misunderstandings that
had accumulated up to that point. At the
same time it was obvious that the participants
were dedicated to finding the necessary
solutions to help those in need-- both the
officially displaced as well as the local
community. The urgency of ironing out the
differences was underscored by a series
of testimonies. The Paramount Chief of the
displaced people, an Arabic-speaking wobbly-legged
graybeard, made it clear in a speech that
was alternately authoritative, angry and
imploring, that his people, suffering as
they were, were "not satisfied with all
the methods of relief being offered." Equally
adamant was the speaker for the ECRU, who
asked, "Who are the victims of war?" insisting
that the aid should be extended to other
victims, who have also been affected by
the floods and desertification. In light
of the chaos that has engulfed the countryside,
he claimed, "everyone's `displaced,' and
everyone is affected by the war."
Egil Herdan, a representative of WFP who
has been organizing the airlifts from Entebbe,
stressed the unavoidable logistical problems
inherent in emergency relief situations.
He warned of the side effects of relief--
passiveness, dependence and a migration
to relief areas. He, as many others did
throughout the workshop, expressed hope
that all the parties involved would soon
be able to turn their efforts to development
rather than relief, "to teach people to
earn rather than to give them bread."
Constructive criticisms and debates aside,
several self-evident truths came forth in
the workshop. It was agreed that relief
efforts should continue for "as long as
the war exists, and after the war a rehabilitation
program should start." It was also made
imperative that relief efforts be extended
to the rural areas, and should include medicines,
fish, beans, salt and other high-protein
relief for malnourished children. A representative
of CRS, an eight-year veteran of Juba's
ups and downs, outlines two possible scenarios:
"If the war stops, the first thing will
be to get the people out of the camps and
back to their homelands. For the farmers,
the first needs will be shelter, food, seeds
and tools for agriculture. For pastoralists,
who have lost their livestock, it's a more
difficult question, as it's harder for them
to resettle." Should the war not end quickly,
"it will be a more desperate situation.
Efforts to cultivate Juba will need to be
increased, as will shelter so that the schools
can resume." He cites an urgent need for
boreholes, utensils and other relief supplies.
Although the officials in Juba, who are
carrying the burden of this and the next
generations, understand that the problems
of Sudan's people are intertwined with political
and economic decisions made in that country,
they are grateful for the outpouring of
concern from "our brothers throughout the
world." When the war will end, nobody knows.
Even as solutions to the web of problems
were being discussed, it was reported that
four more people were killed in an ambush
on the road between Yei and Juba. In spite
of the risks involved, WFP is planning,
assuming they can guarantee their drivers'
protection, to resume relief convoys in
mid-January, when the roads are drier. Partly
to reduce the exorbitant airlift costs,
and mainly to gain access to the besieged
remote areas-- the lorries should be able
to help an "urgent need" that airplanes
cannot reach.
Urgent need. Urgent need. Above the heads
of destitute children still oblivious to
their fate, those words swirl with the dust
of the encroaching desert. Elders look to
those same heavens for a sign of an end
to their plight. For the tens of thousands
of south Sudanese whose lives are being
threatened by circumstances beyond their
control, let's hope that airplanes full
of food will not for long be their only
salvation.
* * * *
Links:
SOUTH SUDAN: A HISTORY OF POLITICAL DOMINATION - A CASE OF
SELF-DETERMINATION by Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Hornet/sd_machar.html
CRISIS IN DARFUR: SOUTH SUDAN TODAY: The conflict in Darfur began in February 2003 when two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rose against government military installations in the region in retaliation for economic and political marginalization. They also accused the government of arming the Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, to drive out African farmers from their lands in a campaign of ethnic cleansing which the US congress has now called a “genocide.”
http://www.gng.org/sudan/darfur.html
January 09, 2005: South Sudan peace deal signed
http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2005/01/_south_sudan_pe.html
Amidst Sudan's on-going civil war, Arab militias armed by the Sudanese government raid black African villages and abduct civilians as chattel slaves.
http://www.iabolish.com/today/background/sudan.htm
United Nations’ World Food Programme
http://www.wfp.org/
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