THE BACKGROUND
The Sudanese civil war has been fought off and on since before
Sudanese independence in 1956. Despite a ten-year period of
peace, the conflict rekindled itself in 1983. The war has
largely been fought within southern Sudan between several
Khartoum governments and the Sudan People's Liberation Army
(SPLA) led by John Garang. Perhaps one million Sudanese have
died as a direct or indirect result of the war. Millions more
have been displaced, and placed at risk of starvation through
a combination of the continuing conflict and drought.
Humanitarian relief to the affected areas of southern Sudan
is provided by Operation Lifeline Sudan. Operation Lifeline
Sudan began in 1989 under the auspices of the United Nations,
and with the approval and cooperation of the government of
Sudan. Operation Lifeline Sudan is a consortium of aid agencies
bringing together the UN Wood Food Programme (WFP), the UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF) and 35 other non-governmental organisations.
It seeks to bring food and humanitarian aid to those communities
in southern Sudan most affected by the fighting and drought,
communities within both government and rebel-controlled areas
of the south. Operation Lifeline Sudan is present in 69 locations
throughout southern Sudan. It has 355 international staff
members, who in turn are assisted by 2000 Sudanese employees.
Operation Lifeline Sudan has been unprecedented in as much
as the government agreed the delivery of assistance by outside
agencies to rebel-dominated parts of southern Sudan. As the
London
Guardian observed on 25 April 1998:
Most of the people affected live in areas controlled
by anti-government rebels and, until January this year,
they were reached by flights from Kenya. Governments involved
in civil wars usually refuse to authorise cross-border
feeding, but the United Nations last year negotiated a
unique agreement with the Islamic government in Khartoum
under which it accepted flights to rebel-held areas.
It is a matter of record that the Sudanese government has
agreed the increase of the number of delivery sites in the
south from 20 in 1993 to over 180 during the recent crisis,
the vast majority of which are within rebel-held areas - in
the full knowledge that perhaps more than half of such food
aid never reaches the civilians for whom it is intended, being
diverted by the SPLA for its own use. It is also a matter
of record that the United Nations has praised the clear commitment
of the government to Operation Lifeline Sudan over the years.
THE 1998 BAHR AL-GHAZAL CRISIS
That there is a humanitarian crisis in the Bahr al-Ghazal
region of southern Sudan is clear. In April 1998, the United
Nations has put the number of people at risk from food shortages
at 350,000. In July it was said to be over two million people.
The crisis was precipitated by a rebel SPLA offensive in the
area. In early 1998, Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, a SPLA commander
who had previously supported the Sudanese government's internal
peace process, led a rebel attack on the city of Wau, in Bahr
al-Ghazal. Wau is the second-largest city in southern Sudan.
This attack, and the rebel SPLA offensive within the Bahr
al-Ghazal area that followed, led to a drastic deterioration
of the security situation in that region. More than one hundred
thousand people fled Wau, and other towns such as Gogrial
and Aweil, as fighting intensified.
Kerubino's responsibility in large part for the crisis situation
was touched on by CNN reports in early April which stated
that "aid agencies blame Sudanese rebel who switched
sides":
Observers say much of the recent chaos has resulted
from the actions of one man, Kerubino Kwanying Bol, a
founding member of the rebel movement.Two years ago, some
SPLA leaders, including Kerubino, signed a peace agreement
with the government.But earlier this year.Kerubino rejoined
the SPLA. He aided rebel forces in sieges of three government-held
towns, which sent people fleeing into the countryside.
Newsweek also found Kerubino's involvement clear:
Aid workers blame much of the south's recent anguish
on one man: the mercurial Dinka warlord Kerubino Kuanyin
Bol.
THE QUESTION OF ACCESS
For clear security reasons the government restricted aid flights
going into parts of the area from 4 February onwards. The
SPLA has previously shot down relief airplanes, and other
civilian aircraft, in southern Sudan. The downing of these
aircraft had resulted in considerable civilian loss of life,
and led to air-delivered relief aid being suspended by aid
agencies to all but Juba, the capital of southern Sudan for
two years. It is also believed that the SPLA had received
ground-to-air missiles earlier this year.
Of twenty-two landing sites in Bahr al-Ghazal, relief aid
flights were initially only cleared for eight sites. As the
security situation stabilised, and following United Nations
requests, this partial restriction was lifted at the end of
March, when the government opened up all the relief corridors,
a decision conveyed to the United Nations Secretary-General
on 2 April.
On 2 April 1998, the BBC reported that the United Nations
had confirmed that they were able "to resume aid flights
to all areas of Bahr el Ghazal province in southern Sudan".
On the same day Reuters reported that:
Relief agencies.stepped up air support operations in
southern Sudan after the government granted them full
access to airstrips in the famine-hit areas, U.N. officials
said. The government decision allows U.N. agencies to
land at 50 airstrips in Bahr el-Ghazal region, 25 of which
are key to the relief effort, said U.N. World Food Programme
spokeswoman Brenda Barton.
The Reuters report cited a statement from Operation Lifeline
Sudan which stated that flights had resumed. The OLS statement
said:
This new clearance allows OLS agencies to fly in the
month of April to more than 50 locations in Bahr el-Ghazal
and to 180 countrywide.
The
Guardian recorded the resumption of aid flights.
The paper also quoted the World Food Programme's Nairobi spokeswoman
Brenda Barton:
We got permission to fly to more than 180 locations
throughout the south, all but five of those we requested.
Oxfam also stated that in its briefing on the situation in
southern Sudan:
As the severity of the food shortages has become clear,
the Government of Sudan has allowed access.to over 50
airstrips in Bahr el Ghazal and 180 airstrips throughout
the south, far better access than has been allowed in
the past.
The government is obviously not present in SPLA-controlled
areas. It has to rely on OLS assessments of problems and situations.
The United Nations would then make requests to the government
for greater access, requests which have been unconditionally
granted in throughout this emergency.
On 22 April the government agreed to WFP's request for the
use of additional air transport. The government also offered
the use of Sudanese airports such as those at El-Obeid and
Malakal from which to fly aid to the affected areas - a move
which would lessen transport costs as relief flights were
being routed in from Kenya. In a joint letter to the government
of Sudan dated 22 April, both the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees and the UNICEF executive director thanked the government
for its cooperation in humanitarian issues. On 25 April, Reuters
recorded that the United Nations "applauded a move by
the Sudanese government to grant clearance" for additional
flights. The report quoted Operation Lifeline Sudan as saying:
This timely approval follows a statement by the World
Food Programme that unless permission was received to
double or triple its airlift of food aid to southern Sudan
within a matter of days, the Bahr el Ghazal area would
face a catastrophe.
On the same day Associated Press reported that the Sudanese
government had "appealed to humanitarian organizations
to supply food and medicine to parts of southern Sudan facing
famine".
The Sudanese government's co-operation with international
agencies was also touched on in a 30 April letter to the government
from Philip J. Clark, the WFP representative in Sudan:
Let me take this opportunity to thank the Government
of Sudan for its co-operation in facilitating the efforts
of the United Nations to meet the urgent food needs of
thousands of people in Southern Sudan who require our
help.
The access issue was touched on once more by Brenda Barton
in a Reuters article on 2 May. The WFP spokeswoman said that
avoiding a crisis depended on three factors - the availability
of food, free access by more aircraft to affected areas and
the distribution of seed for this season's crop. She stated:
Of the three, the most perilous at the moment
is seed.
That access is not the problem was also confirmed by the British
aid agency, Christian Aid. Christian Aid's overseas director,
Jenny Borden stated on 1 May that:
Our problem is not access, as with airlifts,
but resources.
The issue of access was perhaps comprehensively addressed
by Mr Ross Mountain, the United Nations Assistant Emergency
Relief Coordinator designate, in a letter to the Sudanese
foreign minister:
We.gratefully acknowledge that since the lifting of
the flight suspension over Bahr Al Ghazal on 31 March,
the Government of Sudan has consistently responded positively
to all of the UN's requests for additional aircraft. We
were also very pleased to be informed by you of the Government
of the Sudan's willingness to grant approval for any other
aircraft needed to meet the humanitarian needs of Sudanese
populations whether in Government or rebel-controlled
areas.
Mr Mountain also touched on the issue of access during a press
conference held on 3 May in Khartoum:
I note in great appreciation that the Government of
Sudan has responded positively to all requests for authorisation
of additional aircraft which have been made by the U.N.
during this current crisis. I also welcome the Foreign
Minister Ismail's readiness to meet any other U.N. requests
for additional aircraft.
OPERATION LIFELINE SUDAN, THE WFP AND THE INTERNATIONAL
COMMUNITY: "OUR PROBLEM IS NOT ACCESS.BUT RESOURCES
As early as February 1998, the United Nations had appealed
to donors for US$ 109 million for the Sudan. Some US$ 43 million
of that appeal had been ear-marked by the WFP to buy and transport
25,000 tonnes of food for communities in southern Sudan affected
by the famine. By the time of the crisis less than 20 percent
of the funding deemed as essential had been raised.
In 1997, the United Nations received only 40 percent of the
US$ 120 million dollars it had sought for that year's appeal.
The UN stated that this shortfall had "seriously compromised
the ability to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis".
David Fletcher, WFP's co-ordinator for southern Sudan and
Kenya, stated that the current humanitarian crisis in Sudan
were a "culminative effect" of last year's lack
of money and described the 1998 appeal as a "minimum".
As of February, the 1998 appeal had only raised US$ 7.85 million.
This underfunding has continued into 1998. In June 1998, the
World Food Programme has stated that for the period April
1998 to March 1999, its Sudan operation had an overall shortfall
of approximately US$ 117 million.
It is perhaps for this reason that although the government
of Sudan gave the World Food Programme permission during February
for 14 flights, the WFP only sent two flights. Similarly,
although during the same period the government gave permission
to UNICEF for twenty flights to Bahr al-Ghazal, UNICEF sent
only three flights. Operation Lifeline Sudan officials have
themselves admitted these facts. A Reuters report on 2 May
stated that while OLS officials said that the initial flight
bans in February had exacerbated the current crisis:
They concede Khartoum has since approved every flight
request to Bar el Ghazal and that the organisation flew
to less than half the destinations they requested in April.
It may also have been the case that UNICEF and the WFP chose
to limit their own flights into the war-affected areas for
their own security considerations.
Throughout April the World Food Programme appeared to be handicapped
by its lack of funds. On 3 April the World Food Programme
noted that it had only received US$ 7.3 million out of a total
of US$ 58 million required to meet the crisis. On 21 April
Agence France Press reported that "the WFP is also plagued
by a lack of funds", and that "an extra six million
dollars is required to pay for the emergency food and logistics
for Bahr el-Ghazal". Commenting on the humanitarian situation
in Sudan, the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
also admitted funding difficulties, stating that "donor
fatigue" was making it hard to raise the necessary funds
that the specialised agencies would have to push harder.
On 28 April, Carl Tintsman, the co-ordinator of Operation
Lifeline Sudan, admitted that OLS relief operations had been
hampered by a lack of resources. On 1 May the World Food Programme
once again appealed for funds from the international community
for the affected areas. It appealed for US$ 65.8 million to
finance emergency airdrops.
The veteran British journalist Lord Deedes was visiting southern
Sudan at the time of the crisis. With the benefit of being
on the ground, on 27 April he also reported the funding difficulties:
Pressure on Operation Lifeline Sudan is intense just
now because the famine in Bahr el Ghazal threatening some
400,000 is worsening. WFP now talks of needing 22,000
tonnes of food in the next year at a cost of some 22 million
pounds. There is not the smallest hope of donors coming
up with that kind of money.
The situation has been confused even more as aid agencies
themselves have been presenting contradictory messages. The
World Food Programme's Brenda Barton stated on 2 May that
the WFP was not treating the situation in southern Sudan as
famine:
Definitely we are not saying there is a
famine.
The WFP then went on to say that:
We believe we have all the food we need to meet the
immediate needs of the population of southern Sudan.
The British Disasters Emergency Committee, a grouping of fifteen
national aid agencies, stated on 1 May that it was not issuing
a famine appeal:
because for the moment there is enough food and other
supplies stored in (neighbouring) Kenya and elsewhere.
The British Disasters Emergency Committee then reversed its
decision. It is also clear that it is not only Sudan which
has been affected by this intransigence on the part of the
international community. CNN reported in early April that
parts of Ethiopia are also facing famine. In early April the
UN issued an appeal for emergency food aid, stating a need
to purchase 60,000 tons of food to avert starvation in affected
parts of Ethiopia. CNN reported that only Japan had responded,
offering funding for 2,500 tons of food. CNN quoted Khaled
Adly, the WFP's director of operations in Ethiopia as saying:
At this point, we've got less than 5 percent of the
contributions we need. Unless more comes in soon, we could
be faced with another crisis before long.
THE SUDANESE PEACE PROCESS
In its letter of 2 April to the United Nations Secretary-General,
the Sudanese government restated its belief that only a cease-fire
would help alleviate the crisis situation, and called on the
international community to bring pressure to bear on the SPLA
to accept such a cease-fire. The government accepted calls
for a ceasefire made during the peace negotiations in 1997.
Rebel leaders have stated that they intend to escalate the
war. The London
Guardian reported in May that:
Extraordinary as it might seem to those watching television
pictures of the malnourished people of Bahr el Ghazal
at feeding centres, the SPLA and its supporters are prepared
to continue the war even while the north appears to be
ready to sue for peace.
The SPLA once again refused to agree to a ceasefire, even
for humanitarian reasons, as called for at the May 1998 peace
talks in Nairobi. The government continued to support calls
for a ceasefire. In July 1998, under considerable pressure
from the international community the SPLA finally accepted
a three-month ceasefire to facilitate humanitarian assess
to parts of southern Sudan.
The present Government of Sudan came to power in 1989 with
a civil war already in progress. The present Government appears
to have accepted the need for a negotiated settlement of the
conflict from the beginning of its administration. On coming
to power, it began working towards a negotiated end to the
civil war. Since 1989, there have been over twenty rounds
of negotiations and peace talks, held in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda,
and Germany.
These negotiations have been complicated by the hostile intervention
of outside powers, and by the fragmentation of the rebel movement
in the early 1990s. Even so the Sudanese Government was able
to negotiate and sign the Khartoum Peace Agreement on 21 April
1997. It was signed between the government and Riek Machar,
representing the Southern Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM),
which was the largest of the rebel groups taking part in the
peace process. Other signatories were: Kerubino Kuanyin Bol,
for the SPLA/Bahr el-Gazal Group; Theophilus Ochang Lotti,
for the Equatoria Defence Force; Kawac Makwei, for the South
Sudan Independents Group; Samuel Aru Bol, for the Union of
Sudanese African Parties (USAP); and Arok Thon Arok, for the
SPLA/Bor Group.
The Agreement stated that there is to be a free and fair -
and internationally monitored - referendum in southern Sudan
after four years, to determine whether the people of the south
desire independence or federation. In the interim period there
is to be a southern government, the Southern States Coordination
Council, the president of which is Riek Machar. The Agreement
provides that Southerners shall be equitably represented in
all constitutional, legislative and executive organs at the
Federal level.
The significance of the Agreement is that it represents perhaps
the boldest and most sustained effort in Sudanese history
to bring about a just and lasting settlement to the Sudanese
civil war. In tandem with implementing the Peace Agreement,
the Government has drafted a new Constitution for Sudan, the
implementation of which is dependent upon approval by referendum.
The only obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the war is the
continuation of violence by one faction of the Sudan Peoples
Liberation Army/Movement, a grouping led by John Garang. Garang's
political record is a questionable one. He was a
protégé
of the bloody Mengistu regime in Ethiopia until that
regime
was toppled and his movement has been responsible for systematic
abuses of human rights and wide-scale atrocities in the course
of the civil war. His commitment to peace has been ambiguous
and it has been claimed that the SPLA is being encouraged
by the United States to continue its war as part of Washington's
pressure on the government of Sudan.
The peace process is mediated internationally by the regional
Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional
grouping of heads of state. The government has confirmed its
willingness to abide by the outcome of the IGAD peace process,
accepting the IGAD declaration of principles as a basis for
negotiation in July 1997.
The last round of negotiations in Nairobi in November 1997
were disrupted by new and contradictory demands by the SPLA.
Indeed Garang was quoted by the BBC as saying that: "We
intended not to reach an agreement.This is what we did and
we succeeded in it ." The international community must
bring pressure to bear upon the SPLA to negotiate for a peaceful,
negotiated and just settlement of the conflict.
THE SPLA AND FOOD AID DIVERSION
The government's concern about rebel diversion of international
food aid is well founded. Such diversion merely strengthens
the insurgents, and in so doing prolongs the war. Under Operation
Lifeline Sudan food and humanitarian aid is delivered to rebel-controlled
areas of southern Sudan, in effect to structures controlled
by the Sudan People's Liberation Army. It is a matter of clear
record that the SPLA has long been associated with the systematic
deliberate diversion of food aid in the course of the Sudanese
civil war.
At the height of the 1998 famine crisis in southern Sudan,
for example, it was revealed that the SPLA was diverting international
food aid away from starving communities in Bahr al-Ghazal
and using it to sustain the rebel movement. An Agence France
Presse report on 21 July 1998, entitled 'Aid for Sudan ending
up with SPLA: relief workers', stated that:
Much of the relief food going to more than a million
famine victims in rebel-held areas of southern Sudan is
ending up in the hands of the Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA), relief workers said Tuesday.Estimates start
at 10 to 20 percent and range upwards, with the Roman
Catholic bishop of the southern diocese of Rumbek, Caesar
Mazzolari, putting it at 65 percent.
The organisation presented by the SPLA as its 'humanitarian'
wing, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA),
has been revealed to be both totally controlled by the SPLA
and to have been closely identified with the planned theft
and diversion of emergency food aid intended for famine victims
and refugees.
The SPLA has repeatedly used food aid, and its denial, as
a weapon in their war against the Sudanese government. In
so doing it has been at least partly responsible for the famines
that have resulted in the deaths of so many Sudanese civilians.
In its premeditated efforts to deny food to those areas of
southern Sudan administered by the Khartoum government, SPLA
forces have shot down civilian relief airplanes, threatened
to shoot down other airplanes delivering food aid, and attacked
both overland food convoys and relief barges coming down the
Nile. The SPLA regularly attacked trucks delivering emergency
food aid by road. On one occasion, for example, SPLA gunmen
killed 23 relief workers, drivers and assistants in such an
attack.
In addition to denying food to communities associated with,
or dominated by, the government of Sudan, the SPLA also diverted
food aid and relief supplies from civilians under its control
to sustain its own military operations. The human rights organisation
African Rights has reported that:
On the whole, SPLA commanders and officials of the
Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA, its
humanitarian wing), have seen relief flows as simple flows
of material resources. The leadership has also used aid
for diplomatic and propaganda purposes.
African Rights further documented in relation to the SPLA's
previous record of food aid diversion that:
A large proportion of their consumption was food aid.
Sudanese who were in Itang during that period later reported
they routinely saw trucks being re-loaded with food at
the camp stores: at times on a daily basis. Often they
were just going to the nearby training camps, but relief
supplies were also sometimes sold, or used on military
operations in Eastern Equatoria and Upper Nile. The SPLA
'taxed' the supplies for the refugees, reselling substantial
amounts of food on the market and earning millions of
Ethiopian Birr. This income.was used to purchase vehicles
and other equipment for the SPLA.Much relief was sold
in Ethiopia: traded for cash, clothing, cattle and other
items. By 1990, the Itang camp manager was even managing
to raise enough revenue to buy vehicles for the SPLA,
and was publicly commended by John Garang for doing so.
The SPLA's capacity, in conjunction with the then Ethiopian
authorities, for deception in relation to foreign aid within
SPLA-controlled refugee camps in Ethiopia has also been placed
on record:
Huge refugee programmes were implemented with almost
no assessment or monitoring. When relief workers or donors
visited the camps, it was by appointment only and under
tight government (and, more discreetly, SPLA) control.
Former camp residents described how a visit would be prepared
in advance. Weapons and other obvious signs of military
presence would be hidden. Signs of relative prosperity.would
also be concealed. Sometimes a few refugees would be specifically
instructed to wear sack-cloth. No refugee was allowed
to talk to a foreigner except in the presence of a fairly
senior SPLA official. Then the conversation would be through
a translator, who could distort and censor what was said.
SPLA supporter Bona Malwal's 1991 article 'Questions the SPLA
can no longer ignore' mentioned the SRRA's close identification
with the SPLA:
It has become evident that the humanitarian wing of
the SPLA, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association
(SRRA) has failed to achieve much of its agenda primarily
because of its close attachment to the military aspects
of the SPLA.
African Rights also reports that there was no evidence that
funds made available to the SRRA from the money raised by
Bob Geldof's Band Aid consortium ever resulted in relief being
delivered.
That this systematic and deliberate diversion of food and
humanitarian assistance continues to this day has been confirmed
by a member of the SPLA/M's executive. Dr Peter Nyaba, a current
member of the SPLA/M National Executive Committee, is well
placed to describe SPLA policy in respect of the diversion
of food aid from civilians to the SPLA. He had previously
served as a SPLA military commander on the ground in southern
Sudan. In his 1997 book
The Politics of Liberation in South
Sudan: An Insider's View, Nyaba reveals that:
(S)ince humanitarian assistance is only provided for
the needy civil population, the task of distribution of
this assistance fell on specially selected SPLA officers
and men who saw to it that the bulk of the supplies went
to the army. Even in cases where the expatriate relief
monitors were strict and only distributed relief supplies
to the civilians by day, the SPLA would retrieve that
food by night. The result of this practice led to the
absolute marginalisation and brutalisation of the civilian
population.
Nyaba's comments appear to be confirmed by a relief worker
interviewed at the height of the current humanitarian crisis.
The aid worker stated that the SPLA recovered food from civilians
to whom it had been given:
Probably more than half the food we distribute goes
to the SPLA. The rebels go from family to family demanding
it.
The
Financial Times reported in May 1998 that the SPLA
was instrumental in obstructing food aid delivery to areas
believed to be sympathetic to rival southern Sudanese leaders:
The SPLA has repeatedly stopped food getting to areas
controlled by Riek Machar, a faction leader who split
from John Garang, the SPLA's leader, in 1991. Its local
bosses regularly prevent aid organisations moving into
areas outside their remit.
The British newsletter
Africa Analysis recorded that
in late 1997 at least 37 trucks of food and fuel, supplied
in large part by USAID and the Norwegian Church Aid for displaced
Sudanese refugees, disappeared while under SPLA control, near
Gulu in Uganda. The food was said to have been sold in Gulu
and other towns in the area. It was one more example of corruption
in the rebel movement.
An additional aspect of food aid diversion was documented
in May 1998. An independent consultancy commissioned by the
Norwegian government to investigate Norwegian People's Aid,
a channel for vast amounts of Norwegian government aid funds,
concluded that Norwegian relief funds were being used to support
SPLA soldiers, and thus prolonging the conflict. Norwegian
People's Aid, which worked outside of the Operation Lifeline
Sudan programme, was said to allowed the SPLA to sell emergency
aid destined for hungry and sick southern Sudanese in order
to purchase weapons of war. Norwegian aid funds were also
diverted to buy the SPLA food, houses and cars, and was also
used to organise schooling for the children of SPLA officers.
In June 1998 the British Secretary of State for International
Development, Ms Clare Short, stated that her officials, who
had returned from a visit to affected areas in southern Sudan,
had informed her that SPLA gunmen were closely involved in
controlling food aid even at the height of the acute humanitarian
crisis in Bahr al-Ghazal. She stated that food aid was clearly
"feeding the fighters".
CONCLUSION
Despite the confusing and contradictory claims of several
of the international aid agencies about the situation in Sudan,
several important aspects of the 1998 humanitarian crisis
are now emerging.
Firstly, it is now clear that the partial safety restrictions
on flights into the Bahr al-Ghazal war zone imposed by the
government in February were relaxed in March. By the end of
March all 22 sites in Bahr al-Ghazal were open. By 2 April,
OLS confirmed that it was given access to 50 locations in
Bahr al-Ghazal. The United Nations then requested additional
flights to additional locations. The government agreed, and
additionally offered the use of additional airports within
Sudan itself, an offer belatedly taken up by the UN.
It is also clear from the relief organisations themselves
that the government of Sudan has opened up access to all of
the affected areas from March onwards. Flights to over 180
locations have been authorised for some time. Both the World
Food Programme and Christian Aid have stated that access is
not the problem facing the aid agencies. It is additionally
a matter of record that the WFP and UNICEF were unable to
use the access they had been given in February and April.
Relief flights had been authorised but not used by Operation
Lifeline Sudan.
It is also clear that the United Nations food and emergency
relief programme for Bahr al-Ghazal had in fact been significantly
hindered by serious funding problems. The crisis began to
unfold in February, and the World Food Programme's southern
Sudan co-ordinator has placed on record that the famine situation
in Bahr al-Ghazal was the "culminative" effect of
the international community's lack of response to WFP appeals.
Both the UN Secretary-General and Lord Deedes have placed
the United Nations' funding difficulties to meet the crisis
on record.
These facts somewhat contradict the statements by Clare Short,
the British International Development Secretary, that "the
problem is not lack of food supplies or money, but delay caused
by the government of Sudan in permitting access". That
access has been there for weeks.
Despite the difficulties associated with the running of an
operation involving the government, several United Nations
agencies, and 35 other non-governmental organisations, the
Sudanese government's commitment to Operation Lifeline Sudan
is clear. The task of OLS was to provide food aid and humanitarian
assistance to war and drought affected communities in southern
Sudan.
Ms Short's claim that despite the Sudanese government's obvious
commitment to Operation Lifeline Sudan over the past several
years the government then chose to attract international criticism
upon itself by arbitrarily deciding to use food aid as a weapon
at precisely the time of critical peace negotiations, at the
time of the unveiling of a new constitution, and as a southern
government is established in Juba as part of its internal
peace process, simply does not ring true.
It is also obvious perhaps that the media has had a role to
play in exacerbating how the situation was seen outside of
Sudan itself. In the first instance the first images of the
Sudanese men, women and children affected the food shortages
were filmed by journalists who arrived in on relief flights
that had been authorised by the government following the government's
lifting of security restrictions.
The somewhat simplistic media spin put on Sudan's humanitarian
crisis, that the problem was caused by the government's refusal
to allow relief flights has taken hold, despite clear and
obvious evidence to the contrary as seen by the lifting of
restrictions, authorised flights in February, March and April
(most not taken up aid agencies who had requested them) and
the fact that agencies such as the World Food Programme appear
simply not to have had the funding and food available to assist
fully at the time.
It is a matter of record that even a reputable news agency
such as Associated Press was still reporting as late as 2
May that "Khartoum is severely restricting relief flights
into the southwestern Bahr el Ghazal region, where the threat
of famine is greatest". This report, in the face of all
the evidence to the contrary is irresponsible and sensationalist
journalism at its worst. It is also perhaps in microcosm a
reflection of the international community's misjudgement of
Sudan and the Sudanese government's response to the Bahr al-Ghazal
crisis.
