1988 – 7 – 15 between a rock and a hard place: aid agencies in Southern Sudan in 1988

The main obstacle aid agencies in Southern Sudan face originate from the national government.
In 1984 the war was limited to areas in Upper Nile and Bahr el Ghazal but even then when a
foreigner (in the absence of tourists and private companies, usually a humanitarian) wanted to
travel within Equatoria he needed a travel permit from Nimeiry’s State Security. Sometimes
these permits were refused on arbitrary grounds but it would be exaggerated to suppose an
intended coordinated policy of discouragement in the issuing and renewing of visas, permits etc.
Only where it concerned the allocation by the national Ministry of Education of VSO1 teachers to
secondary schools there was a clear pattern of discrimination: the volunteers were only sent to
the South if they specifically requested so.
For NGOs based in the South once the usual visa and license problems had been solved (from
NCA it is known that it had quite some problems when its license had to be renewed in 1985) the
national government had few means to hamper their activities short of simply expelling them. As
a matter of fact expulsions actually happened in April 1988 when ACROSS, World Vision (that
was just in the process of setting up logistics to bring relief from Zaire to the distressed town of
Wau), and Lutheran World Federation had to leave. Their expulsion had by then been hanging
over their heads for almost a year. At the moment of writing Summer Institute of Linguistics
risks to suffer the same fate. Of course the expulsion of aid agencies is not easily done by a
government that respects itself and rational arguments that are understandable to the international
community are problematic to come by.
Another and less controversial way to discourage agencies is to convince their embassies – from
their nature conservative in the assessment of security situations – that safety levels have reduced
so much that pulling out their nationals is the best option. It seems that in early 1988 the army
gave such a warning to Western embassies with the result that the expatriate staff of UNICEF
and WFP was withdrawn from the South. It is possible that the same expedient played a role in
the even more premature withdrawal of ODA and UNDP staff about two years earlier.
Thus if earlier the national government applied not more than quiet discouragement on aid
agencies in the South, nowadays the means of dissuasion have become more rude and obvious.
The causes for this may range from islamist fundamentalists who have become more influential
with the increasing political radicalization, to the army and other security organs that with their
increased activities feel the need of more secrecy.

Apart from the national government there is also the autonomous regional one. Limiting
ourselves here to the regional government of Equatoria the dominant figure here has been major-
general Peter Cirillo. He was the military commander at the time of the April uprising in
Khartoum in 1985 that ended the regime of Nimeiry. Following the example of Khartoum where
the Nimeiry appointees were replaced by generals, Cirillo became the governor in Equatoria. It
was only in June 1988 when Sadiq el Mahdi had won the elections and had formed a coalition
with the Muslim Brothers, that Cirillo had once again to follow Khartoum’s example and gave
way to civilians.
Evidently, the regional government had an interest to keep the aid agencies working. Even if
sometimes they were not very efficient, their presence helped to project a ‘normal’ situation that
was ‘under control’ – two qualifications that the regional government liked to use as often as
1
The British Voluntary Service Overseas at the time dispatched teachers to schools and universities. It stopped its
programme in South Sudan in 1986.
possible, especially when the situation was clearly not normal.
But the regional government depended entirely upon Khartoum and this may explain why even
this organ, nearest to the people of Equatoria, could be hostile to the agencies. Dr. Ruhlman, the
long-term director of the German Medical Team who had survived an evacuation order by the
German government back in 1984 on the strength of his French nationality, was expelled by
Cirillo after accusations that he had been dealing with an SPLA member. And in November 1986
the governor after a meeting with the steering committee of the Combined Agencies Relief Team
(CART) gave a sudden deportation order to two members of the committee. One of these, Irish
clergyman John who applied logical reasoning even when it was not politically expedient to do
so, no doubt had irked Cirillo no end; but the suspicion was also once again that CART
supported the SPLA. Lastly, when the three Christian NGOs were expelled in April 1988 this
was done by Khartoum but it was also true that elements in the regional government were more
eager to confiscate their assets than to protest this move that in no way was in the interest of the
South.

The attitude of the SPLA towards aid agencies has not been fundamentally different from the one
of the national government although the means to apply it had to be different. Kidnapping of
foreigners was there from the beginning. It first happened to the French company CCI that was
not only constructing the Jonglei canal but also renovating Juba airport. Both projects were
broken off in January 1984, seemingly as a condition to gain the freedom of its kidnapped
personnel. CCI was with reason not well regarded by the SPLA – the Jonglei canal was far from
uncontroversial in the South and the airport had obvious military value. But the German Medical
Team was another matter. Over the years, since the Addis Abeba agreement, it had set up a vast
primary health care system in almost the whole of Equatoria. Nonetheless it too became a victim
of the SPLA in April 1984. Apart from a kidnapping, an SPLA delegation that visited West
Germany at the time assured the German government that it could not guarantee the safety of
foreign aid workers. As a result the German government severely curtailed the Medical Team.
It was a premature decision as it was only about two years later that the SPLA presence had
become strong enough to effectively immobilize aid work in parts of Equatoria . Norwegian
Church Aid in the Torit area was the first victim; it had to retire to Juba and most of its 60
Norwegian experts were sent home.
The few now remaining agencies generally kept themselves out of dangerous situations with the
exception of church workers who did not want to leave ‘their’ people alone. In the cases where
these were kidnapped there were always the indications that these were not just actions of rebels
in the field but rather controlled by the command of the SPLA.

It must be concluded, then, that none of the political forces now in mid-1988 appreciates aid
agencies but it is also clear that the ordinary people – the target group and thus supposedly the
decisive factor for aid agencies – are not represented by these forces. They suffer innumerable
cruelties from both the national army and the SPLA whose political leaders have found it
necessary to misrepresent their interests.
It can only be hoped that donor agencies continue to see through the war propaganda on both
sides. Development starts with people voicing their own interests. It is the mandate of aid
agencies to assist them in this, whatever the political ideology under which the people have to
live.