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South Sudan Blog 7: The Story of South Sudan

by Hamish Wilson/

I spotted David Mayom in the third row of the conference hall. Even from a distance he radiated energy. He was tall and rangy, as are so many from the Dinka tribe, and he wore a languid, easy smile. Later, he was introduced as Commissioner for Awerial County from the state’s southern reaches. The presentation he gave of the challenges facing his people was compelling; his words spoken with a rare conviction and humility.

By chance, we met over coffee, and he shared his story in a soft voice. ‘In 1987, Colonel Garang ordered our people to send their children to school in Ethiopia.’ At the time, Garang was head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and involved in peace negotiations with the ruling coalition in Khartoum just as clashes with the north were intensifying.

‘We could not refuse, and as a Chief my father wanted to set an example by sending his eldest son. My brother refused and ran away and I haven’t seen him since. I told the army that I would go instead, so that my father would not be punished. I was fifteen years old.’

David’s homeland is nearly a thousand kilometres from Ethiopia, separated by dense bush, vast swamps, and at the time, extremely violent militia groups. I asked him how he travelled.

‘We walked.’ he said simply. ‘There were thousands of us, some as young as 8 or 9. Many got sick, some died. We slept in the bush and ate whatever the villagers would give us. Most of the time though they had nothing, so we lived on handfuls of dried sorghum.’ The hardship he and so many others had endured was difficult to comprehene.

In 1989, Colonel Omar Bashir staged a coup in Khartoum, imposing military rule over Sudan. The informal cease-fire with Garang’s army was broken soon after with brutal attacks on southern strongholds.

A year later, David was sent from Ethiopia to the front line. It was clear that he was too young at the time to fully grasp the horrors he was about to face, nor comprehend the political tumult into which he was being swept. In 1991 the southern army splintered into warring factions, with groups forming and then betraying alliances in a chaotic spiral of violence that tore the region apart.

For the next five years, throughout the height of the war, he lived as a bush fighter in Garang’s army, fighting for, as he told me, ‘the hope of freedom from the north’. His reality however was a maelstrom of civilian massacres, cattle raiding, and village burning that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

His war, and nearly his life, was ended by a savage artillery burst that left him badly injured. ‘I was saved by an NGO from Lokichokio (a kenyan border town, serving as base for humanitarian operations at the time), then sent to Uganda.’ There he was taken in by a refugee camp run by the United Nations.

His injury was in all likelihood his salvation, for at the time the war continued to worsen as neighbouring Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda became involved, sending weapons and troops to bolster the south.

David lived in the camp for five years, and slowly his wounds healed. In the meantime, and with the North suffering increasing losses, a succession of peace deals were brokered, first in 1997 with the rebel groups and then the 2000 Libyan-Egyptian Joint Initiative paved the way for further agreements in 2003 and 2004. From these emerged the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which charted the course to independance just three months ago.

In 2002 David returned to Awerial, 15 years after he had left as a young boy. ‘It was so dangerous for us to travel at that time, but I had to go back home. My parents didn’t know if I was alive or dead’. After 8 years volunteering with an international charity, the state governor appointed him commissioner of his county. An extraordinary journey.

‘It has been a terrible struggle.’ He said, and then he looked at me. ‘But you have to understand that my story is not so unusual. So many of us lived like this, for so many years. My story is the story of South Sudan.’

South Sudan Blog 6: Disarmament, the challenge for a generation

by Hamish Wilson/

“Security and development are two sides of the same coin.” Major General Daniel Deng, the tall, distinguished head of the Bureau for Small Arms Control told the gathered audience in his slow, forceful drawl. “But we cannot talk of security without speaking about the availability of weapons in the hands of the people.”

The people crowded into the cramped, humid conference hall had come from every corner of South Sudan’s Lakes State, They represented the state’s elite, its patriarchy, its decision makers and representatives for the hundreds of thousands of people sprawled across the vast region. They were county commissioners, chiefs of police, tribal elders, leaders of youth and women. They had come to discuss security for their people, and one particular topic carried the heavy weight of history – disarmament. Just three weeks earlier, the latest campaign had been launched by government decree.

No-one knows for sure how many weapons are in Lakes State today. But if you consider that each household has at least one or two, as many locals suggest, then it is reasonable to assume that there could be as many as 50,000 small arms – most likely Chinese made copies of the AK47 assault rifle – in the hands of the people.

South Sudan is one of the most heavily armed countries in the world, where guns have been a way of life for generations. This has led to a spiral of violence, for guns in the hands of poor people from tribal warrior traditions of pride, protection and self-determination lead to increasingly deadly clashes. ‘We have always been warriors.’ Santo, the state security adviser told me, ‘But with weapons such as these, we are killing one another more than ever before.’

One of the most pressing questions for a newly independent state, seeking above all a sense of national unity, is – what to do about it?

Disarming civilian populations in the wake of war is a highly risky undertaking. Few nations have ever managed it successfully – Rwanda, Sierra Leone, a handful of others. South Sudan’s own recent efforts however, have been disastrous.

The government’s approach in recent years of instructing its army to forcefully disarm the population was met with such violent resistance that the region nearly collapsed back into civil war. More people were killed in these campaigns over that period, than any other reason. So the people of Lakes have good reason to fear another attempt, and to prepare again to repel the government’s efforts to emasculate them.

Yet despite these fears, this does not seem to be happening. Three weeks into the latest campaign, the mood is almost universally positive. ‘We are a new country and people are sick of fighting. They don’t want to be killed. Even the youth in the cattle camps are giving up their guns.’ the Lakes State Governor Chol Tong told me through a mouth of gleaming gold teeth.

And this time, it seems the state may have learned its lesson. Rather than government troops forcing people to turn their weapons over at gunpoint, it is the traditional elders who have been asking people to come forward. Despite my instinctive cynicism, hundreds of weapons have been returned so far.

The real test will come in a few weeks, when it will be the turn of the troops to follow up with forced searches of those who are suspected to have kept their arms.

It is early days, and many questions remain; What is to be done with the returned weapons? How will the searches be conducted? Will communities bordering states who have not yet disarmed be attacked? It is also clear that no matter how many weapons are returned this time around, it will be a drop in the ocean.

But, if it is a peaceful process, and history tells us that this may be a big ask, then it will have been a positive start to what may take many years to wean people from their weapons. As the Commissioner for Rumbeck Central County, Dut Makoi Kuok put it; “The youth were born into war. We need to know how to take them from a culture of war to a culture of peace. This will take a generation.”

South Sudan Blog 5: The rock crushers of Jebel Mara

by Hamish Wilson/

I set off early, heading for the rocky summit of Jebel Mara.

The rising sun lit the vast granite outcrop overlooking South Sudan’s capital of Juba. The faint trail was engulfed in elephant grass, towering over me as I clawed and sweated my way upward.

I broke free momentarily of the jungle flanking the summit, and found myself face to face with a young South Sudanese man sitting back on his haunches, watching me silently. He was clad only in a pair of filthy shorts, and his muscled torso gleamed with sweat. About him lay a tumble of granite boulders, pitted with the fresh scars of his pickaxe.

We eyed each other for a moment, until his steady gaze broke into a wide grin. ‘I am Moses’ he announced in thick English. I sat next to him, thankful for the respite. The air rang with a rhythmic high-pitched ring of steel against rock, and I realised Moses was not alone.

‘This is how we make money.’ he told me as I peered at his crude tools. Just then the rumble of falling rocks startled me. From the bushes, two men, hard and lean like Moses, strained to roll giant boulders past us, blazing an earthen trail through the grass to the valley floor below.

‘We came to Juba to escape the war. Now we live in the caves.’ He told me simply, pointing to a distant hillside. His face was weathered, his hands gnarled and strong. As he continued I discovered that small bands of men like him lived rough, enduring rain, snakes and mosquitoes, spending their days dragging massive rocks from the face of the Jebel.

I learned that while the men scale the rocky ridges in search of boulders, their women work in the valley below. Their daylight hours are spent breaking the stone down into saleable chunks, painstakingly growing the piles that now line the tracks. It is relentless and backbreaking. Their children scamper amongst the rocks and muddy streams, quick to inspect any passing hawajas (white people) like me.

Moses told me that each pile sells for about one hundred dollars. This seemed to me a reasonable sum, until he mentioned that it takes at least two weeks to gather enough stone into a pile. And it might take up to three months to sell a single pile to any of the local businessmen – who sell the stone onto foreign construction companies at a hefty margin.

It dawned on me that this was truly a sentence of hard labour. There are no welfare programmes in South Sudan. No support for people displaced by fighting. No pension schemes, and very few jobs. If a family’s granite doesn’t sell, their only option is to head back up the hill and keep digging. Snakebite, malaria or injury would leave them with few prospects.

I realised that this is the nature of livelihoods in South Sudan. For some, this is what it now means to ‘earn a living’. Many of these same families survived years of conflict, constantly moving, living in the bush. The men no doubt carried weapons and most likely took some part in the war. And as I descended from the summit of Jebel Mara later that day, I wondered if perhaps some of them would rather still be there now.

South Sudan Blog 4: Roads

by Hamish Wilson/

It is difficult to grasp just how much we in the developed world take our roads for granted. Growing up in rural Australia, endless stretches of blacktop shimmering in the heat haze were an unquestioned necessity.

This is not the case in South Sudan. Roughly the size of France, it has a total of around 4,000 kilometres of hard-packed dirt road, in conditions generally ranging from poor to diabolical. There is a mere 100km of paved road, shared across the country’s three largest towns.

To put this into perspective, France itself has just over one million kilometres of road. (1,000,960 to be precise). All of it paved. Which is almost exactly ten thousand times the amount of tarmac in South Sudan.

Comparisons such as these can often mean little. But for any average South Sudanese farmer, living in just about any village in the country, it means an awful lot;

A road means he might be able to get his crops or his cattle to market without having to walk for days. This eases the burden on his family, especially his children who otherwise have to fetch water, tend the cattle and forage from a young age.

It means a greater chance a school can be constructed in his community, and staffed with trained teachers who are able to live in areas previously out of reach. This means it is more likely his children will receive an education. It means his wife has a better chance of delivering their next child in a medical clinic, rather than risking her life to give birth alone.

It means it more likely that a police post will be built in the area, which means that marauding attacks by cattle raiders or rebel groups will be less frequent, and less bloody. It means that he is more likely to actually meet those officials who represent him in the government. And he is more likely to have a say in the decisions they are making on his behalf.

You get the point. Roads are no panacea. But they do improve security, extend governance and reduce poverty. The UK think tank ODI recently reported that rural road construction provided widespread benefits to poor communities; expanding markets, improving access to education, strengthening livelihoods, increasing opportunities for women, and more.

The benefits have not been lost of the South Sudan Government. Kuol Manyang, Governor for the South Sudan’s largest state of Jonglei bluntly told me recently “In this state, roads are more important than schools. Without them we perish. And this government will perish also.”

Yet there are excellent reasons behind the virtual absence of roads in his state. Forty years of war aside, they are extremely difficult to build, and massively expensive.

Most of Jonglei is swamp. The rest is made up of the dreaded black-cotton soil, benign and forgiving in the dry, but turning into an evil sludge with the consistency of treacle the instant rains fall. Any road therefore has to be surfaced with gravel. Unfortunately this gravel, known as ‘murrum’ is only available in a handful of areas across the country. Every shovel load has to be painstakingly hauled over desperately poor roads that deteriorate further with the passing of each truck. Out here the circle is vicious.

This means that the average cost per kilometre of dirt road becomes anywhere between $30,000 to $200,000 depending on its remoteness. At close to one million dollars per kilometre, tarmac is not even an option.

I met Patrick Ivo, a South Sudanese engineer working in Jonglei. He told me that even the best ‘murrumed’ roads don’t survive the thundering rains which pound the landscape in the wet season. Without maintenance (which is expensive), they will last two years. He shook his head mournfully as he told me of thirty trucks, each laden with construction materials, lying marooned in the black-cotton morass less than fifty kilometres from the state capital of Bor. There they will stand until the rains cease in a few months.

Despite the challenges, there is cause for optimism. The UK funded South Sudan Recovery Fund is constructing 600 kilometres of road across some of the most conflict prone and inaccessible areas. The UK is considering investing further in a rural ‘feeder’ roads network, linking into the work of the Americans and Chinese who are pumping vast amounts into primary road construction. It will take time, money and commitment of the government and its partners. It will also require patience for rural communities. But change is coming.

South Sudan Blog 3 – Massacres in Jonglei: The case for rapid stabilisation

by Hamish Wilson/

Last week South Sudan’s largest state of Jonglei was again wracked by violence.

On 18 August, thousands of young men from the Murle tribe, armed with assault rifles, launched an attack on communities from the neighbouring Lou Nuer tribe, deep in the remote northern part of the state. The men first struck the village of Pieri, and moved quickly westwards, scorching a swathe through villages across 150 square kilometres. In their rage they abducted hundreds of children, torched thousands of homes and stole tens of thousands of cattle, the life-blood of the Lou Nuer.

When the dust had settled and the blood had dried, more than 640 people had been killed, with 750 wounded.

As one of the least developed states in South Sudan, Jonglei has long been marred by conflict. Life for many is precarious, burdened with crushing poverty, tormented by the threat of cattle raids and newly formed rebel groups. Add to this a ready supply of weapons and young men without work. The mixture is highly combustible.

So volatile in fact, that prior to this recent incident, over a thousand people had been killed in dozens of clashes between the Lou-Nuer and Murle communities this year alone. The August attack had simply been the latest in a surge of retaliatory violence that is not looking to diminish anytime soon.

This time, the response was immediate, but not sufficient.

Humanitarian agencies, despite having been caught up in the carnage, tended to the wounded, distributed food supplies and provided emergency shelter. Searches for the missing children were launched. An inter-agency assessment team, led by the South Sudan Government, was dispatched four days after the violence had ended. They resolved to deploy more troops to the area, establish reconciliation processes and improve local infrastructure.

Such promises restore confidence and stability if they are fulfilled. Failure or inaction however can do more harm than good. If for instance, troops are deployed without sufficient equipment or provisions, forcing them to plunder local communities (as is not uncommon), then the public is further traumatised. If peace processes rehash old tensions or yield few outcomes then the initiative is lost. If it takes years to construct new roads or dredge blocked rivers, then government credibility is damaged.

Violent incidents such as these reinforce the need for rapid, concerted stabilisation efforts, which tackle the immediate situation while building local resilience and laying the foundation for longer-term recovery. They must be ably led by the Government and its security forces, and supported by the international community.

For instance, at precisely this moment in Jonglei, a raft of integrated stabilisation initiatives should be underway; shoring up the capacity of the local police, supporting local citizens to voice their grievances, enabling officials to access remote areas, communicate with their people and visibly lead in recovery efforts. Homes destroyed in the fighting could be rebuilt with well run employment schemes, offering new skills and possibilities to youth who otherwise know only cattle and raiding. Restoring water-points, markets and local services could be a fulcrum for not only addressing immediate needs, but for including women, young people and traditional leaders in determining how to mitigate tensions and avoid future conflict.

Except this time, the response will be limited – at best. Humanitarian organisations are performing heroically, yet their scope is narrow. Government agencies suffer acutely from a lack of just about everything; skills, funds and supplies. International organisations are hampered by cumbersome procurement systems, inflexible funding mechanisms and programmes that take time to deliver.

There is no doubt that South Sudan is a uniquely challenging environment, from just about any perspective you care to take. Yet this recent attack in Jonglei brings renewed urgency to the quest for new approaches to establish much needed stability for the region.

South Sudan Blog 2 – Reality Check

by Hamish Wilson/

‘Don’t be fooled by Juba, Hamish. The real South Sudan lies outside… you’ll see.’

In my first week, virtually everyone I met offered me this advice, and it sparked my interest in life beyond the capital.

Just days later I was in the north of the country, enduring a bone-jarring journey on the recently refurbished inter-state road between Wau and Kwajok, weaving and bouncing around bathtub sized potholes that threatened to swallow our vehicle. Kunal, a colleague from UNDP and South Sudan veteran, took great delight in my various reactions; ‘Enjoy it!’ he kept booming over the rattle; ‘this is one of the best roads in the state!’

Along the way we had passed hundreds of troops from the South Sudan Liberation Army (SPLA), manning checkpoints, hunched under trees and amongst the thatched huts lining the road. Their bedraggled appearance in an assortment of ill-fitting uniforms, often without weapons, did not inspire confidence. I’m told that it’s not uncommon for local communities to be better armed that the military. But in these parts, a uniform and a semblance of authority substitutes for a livelihood.

We arrived in Kwajok, the docile, sprawling capital of Warrap state. A look beyond the dusty air of calm revealed vast challenges for security, governance and development. Basic sanitation and services appear not to exist, living conditions for recently returned Southerners are bleak, newly installed power-lines lie broken and V8 landcruisers and air-conditioned offices were the only evidence of government. A second glance at the shops in the teeming market reveals a near monopoly by Ugandan, Ethiopian and Kenyan businessmen. There appears to be a vast population of unemployed youth, with ready access to weapons, facing few prospects and rising costs of marriage. A volatile mix in a state wracked by ethic division and violent incursions by rebel groups.

Serious as these challenges are, it is worth putting things into perspective. After all, as I had only recently learned, this region has been wracked with war for all but ten years since Sudan’s independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956. The question I found myself asking in Kwajok was what is the impact of decades of conflict, marginalisation, displacement and devastation upon this new country?

For a start, the need to address insecurity is all-encompassing. Entrenched poverty, deeply embedded ethnic and tribal tensions, weak and corrupt governance, scarce water and grazing land, a military which acts with impunity; there are many reasons for conflict to remain pervasive, despite the war ending with the north.

Then there is the question of state-building. How do you create a nation in this context? Where much of the population felt more secure during the war? According to a recent Danish assessment, the process ‘is virtually starting from zero, in a backdrop of serious demographic, ethnic, rural-urban and centre-periphery fault lines.’ And do not overlook the fact that, most, if not all, civil servants earned their jobs as bush-fighters in the war.

Finally, the socio-economic impacts have been simply devastating. South Sudan faces some of the worst indicators in the world; more than 90% of the population live on less than a dollar a day, 97% of people have no access to sanitation, 92% of women cannot read or write, 1 in 7 pregnant women will die of complications, 1.5 million people are food insecure… the list goes on. And it is staggering.

The enormity of these challenges began to sink in on the return flight to Juba, as the vast country below, cut off by seasonal rains for half the year, merged in the distance with the hazy blue horizon. At this point the significance of recent events struck me; relatively orderly national elections in 2010, a peaceful referendum early this year, followed by a surprisingly calm transition to independence in July.

Remarkable.

It made me wonder if, in spite of massive obstacles to peace, nationhood and development, this place might just have a chance. It might be a faint glimmer of hope at present, perched atop a fragile foundation, but it is a glimmer nonetheless.

South Sudan Blog 1: ‘Welcome to our new country!’

by Hamish Wilson/

I stepped from the aeroplane into a thick haze of humidity. Its warmth enveloped me in greeting, rich with the scent of the wet season. Heavy, grey clouds lounged low in the sky, soon to deluge the city of Juba with its daily downpour.

‘Welcome to our new country!’ beamed the customs officer, reaching over the heads of the newly arrived throng for my travel permit. He flashed me a wide, toothy smile, appearing genuinely pleased to see me. I was not expecting this. Where was the surly glare I had experienced in Kinshasa? Where was the suffocating security of Kabul?

The world’s media was anxiously hopeful in the run up to South Sudan’s celebration of independence on July 9. Fears of violence and unease over the many problems still unresolved were all underscored by a deep incredulity that this day had actually arrived for a region wracked by war for much of the past fifty years.

I arrived just days later, and the elation was still plain to see in the customs officer’s greeting. The mood was also evident on the streets of Juba. Amidst the pools of murky water and mounds of rotting garbage, precarious wooden scaffolding encased new buildings being constructed. Gleaming solar powered street-lights flashed by as we drove past road crews busily marking lines on a newly paved road.  About me, four-wheel drives bearing logos of aid agencies and government ministries weaved and jostled their way through the pedestrians. The world’s newest capital is bursting at its seams.

Ive been dispatched as the UK’s Stabilisation Adviser, charged with continuing the work of Adrian Garside, who by all accounts was universally admired, leaving me with substantial shoes to fill. As such, I’m to oversee the £50m Sudan Recovery Fund and £10m Community Security and Small Arms Control programmes. Both were established to tackle the pervasive conflict that continues to threaten South Sudan’s stability.

Thankfully, two former Helmand comrades are to join me; Phil Weatherill and Mike McKie will be embedded within UNDP to manage the programmes across four of South Sudan’s most violent states. They will have the unenviable jobs of ensuring that roads are built, police posts established and warring communities brought together in some of the remotest parts of the country.

It’s clearly going to be a massive challenge, one fraught with dilemmas, uncertainties and setbacks. It also strikes me that ‘stabilisation’ in South Sudan wont look like stabilisation elsewhere, and that this journey can’t be constrained or configured by what failed or succeeded in other parts of the world. Whatever its course, it will certainly be one buoyed by the optimism and energy of a newly forged nation excited for its future.