http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/simon-roughneen/sudan-wars-seem-far-from-_b_953395.html

Renewed fighting in Blue Nile could undermine even small gains, such as this numeracy class run by GOAL near Kurmuk, in Blue Nile State (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

After a murderous almost-six decade forced-marriage with what is now the (relative to before) the rump state of ‘northern’ Sudan, the Republic of South Sudan (RoSS) was founded on July 9 2011, six months after the Texas-sized region voted to secede from what was Africa’s largest state.

The death-toll (over 2 million) and destruction (total) wrought on what is now RoSS during the fighting has been well-documented – if obscured somewhat in the years since 2003 when the Darfur war began. With RoSS taking 3/4′s of what was the old Sudan’s oil with it, independence and its aftermath was always likely to be a fraught affair, even if secession was mandated by a 2005 peace agreement.

There was fighting along the border in January – in the still-disputed Abyei region – as the referendum took place. Both the Khartoum Government and the Juba (then-regional) administration distanced themselves from those skirmishes, putting them down to long-standing local disputes between farmers and herders over grazing and passage rights.

Either side of the RoSS formal secession, there has been heavy fighting in the Nuba region of South Kordafan state, an area north of the (still-to-be-finalised) border, and more recently, in Blue Nile, east along the same undecided frontier and bordering Ethiopia.

Both states were on the brutal frontline during Sudan’s long north-south wars, with war-induced famine and displacement too extensive to catalogue here. Culturally and politically many of the people living in the states see themselves as closer to the south, but Khartoum remains determined to hold on to these frontier regions, and recently sent a letter to the UN Security Council accusing the RoSS of backing local southern-aligned militias and of supporting rebels in Darfur.

Both states were promised ‘Popular Consultations’ as an alternative to being allowed a say on whether they stay in Sudan or join the RoSS, but these have been postponed. It is hard to gauge whether the postponements have been a spark for the recent fighting (comments appreciated from people closer to the ground) – but, back in January, after I was in Juba for the start of the RoSS secession vote I then moved on Blue Nile, where the southern secession was seen – by some of those I spoke with – as bittersweet, with southern-leaning Blue Nile residents feeling left out – or left behind – by their soon-to-be de jure RoSS neighbours. Here is one story – with photos – that I filed from Blue Nile last January - http://www.simonroughneen.com/africa/sudan/voting-ends-in-southern-sudan-referendum-sunday-tribune/#more-4289

I interviewed people there who suffered greatly during the 1983-2005 war – with stories of family killed, homes destroyed, spending years as refugees in Ethiopia. 2005 was supposed to mean peace, and a chance to start again. However, a recent UN report says that over 1500 people have been killed and 73000 driven from their homes in the recent fighting, though the report does not cover Blue Nile, where an additional 50000 people could be displaced in fighting that started last Friday Sept 2. Sadly, odds are that some of those I met in Blue Nile last January are among the thousands affected by the latest fighting.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/01/will-freedom-of-expression-hold-in-southern-sudan026.html

Inside Radio Bakhita (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

JUBA, SUDAN — “If someone from southern Sudan trusts you, they will tell you enough to write a book,” said Sr. Cecilia Sierra Salcido, a Mexican nun and media entrepreneur who runs Radio Bakhita. “We broadcast a special history series, as so much here has not been written or recorded, and so many people have stories to tell.”

Radio Bakhita is a Catholic radio station backed by the Archdiocese of Juba and named after Sudan’s first Catholic saint. It was established on Christmas Eve 2006 and has a transmission range covering most of Greater Equatoria, or the three southern-most states in southern Sudan.

Two million people died and over 4 million fled their homes when the Sudanese Army fought southern resistance groups from 1983 to 2005. Local militias piled in, either fighting autonomously or backed by the main northern or southern protagonists, and there were various intra-southern clashes mixed in. Vast areas were laid to waste, and though some iconic stories made it out, such the tale of the Lost Boys, much of what took place during the long wars remains unheard by the wider world.

At Radio Bakhita, the broadcast content is varied, covering local, national and international politics, along with practical topics such as hygiene, sanitation and healthcare advice. “Problems and issues that matter to you whether you are Christian, Muslim or animist”, as Sr Cecilia put it, referring to the three main faiths in Sudan.

Old Media Only

Southern Sudan is set to become the world’s newest state, thanks to a January referendum whose preliminary results suggest the vote will be overwhelmingly in favor of independence. The ballot format itself is an indicator of the challenge facing media outlets in the region, and why it is likely that, as Sr Cecilia puts it, “radio has a major advantage over newspapers and other media.”

Radio stations such as Bakhita and Radio Miraya, which is supported by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), played a key role in informing the public. An estimated 9 our of10 people in southern Sudan are unable to read or write, so voting was done by thumbprint. Voters placed their print near a clasped pair of hands to remain part of Africa’s largest country, or beside a single hand to push for independence.

Signing for treatment at GOAL clinic (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

The format is a common substitute for a signature in the country. For example, I witnessed mothers using their thumbs to sign for malnutrition screening for their children at a clinic close to the north-south border. The facility is run by GOAL, an Irish NGO that has been working in southern Sudan since 1985.

Larger Challenges

Community health worker Isaac Perez told me that education or healthcare in this region is “not much better than before the war ended,” something perhaps shown in microcosm by the almost forty mothers lining up to have their children assessed on a Saturday morning at the GOAL clinic.

Electricity is intermittently available in some of the larger towns in southern Sudan, but often only via generators that can only be afforded by the wealthy, United Nations agencies, or NGOs. Rural areas and smaller villages are almost all comprised of straw-roofed mud huts, where there are often no schools or electricity, and potable water is only available at a communal borehole or well.

A general lack of education is one toll of the long war — and that in turn has a huge bearing on the state of media in southern Sudan. New media or social networks are far from taking hold. Even though mobile phone usage is growing, widespread illiteracy limits the range of options available to both consumer and provider.

Cellphone companies are trying out ways around this, and one, Vivacell, is rolling out a new service allowing the consumer to “speak” a text message into the handset, which will then deliver the remark in text format, with the obvious caveat that this will only work if the recipient is able to read.

Spoken prose, Juba (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

The relatively peaceful and orderly referendum, which drew turnout estimated at over 80 percent, is testimony to the interest in the vote and the information campaigns carried out by the regional authorities, UNMIS, NGOs involved in civic education, and media outlets — particularly local radio stations. English and Arabic are the official languages, but these are not understood by a majority of the almost 10 million southern Sudanese. Radio stations often broadcast in a variety of local languages as well as in English and Arabic, which is another huge advantage over print media.

Different in the North

Media in the Arab-ruled northern part of Sudan is tightly-controlled, but in Khartoum and other big urban areas, education and literacy levels are vastly higher than in the south. The incendiary example set by the recent, social networked protests in Tunisia led to a brief attempt to organize something similar in Khartoum as the southern referendum wound down.

The outcome was the arrest of long-time opposition figurehead Hassan al-Turabi, formerly the Islamist ideologue behind the Khartoum government, but long estranged from current president Omar al-Bashir.

Opposition parties in Khartoum may use the secession of the south to push for a more open system of government in the north, and to pressure the current ruler on the grounds that his policies resulted in the loss of one-third of the country’s land and 80 percent of Sudan’s oil.

By comparison, the southern part has been home to a relatively free media since the 2005 peace deal. “When I first came here, I immediately noticed the difference in freedom of expression compared with Khartoum,” Sr Cecilia said.

However, there are concerns about corruption and said or tribal favoritism in the structures of the southern administration. Dr Kim Adiebo is Executive Director of Juba University. He said “some ministries and departments are dominated by Dinka and Nuer,” the two largest southern ethnic groups. This “will have to change” post-independence, he said.

Speaking off the record, an official at the UN Mission said an independent southern Sudan would be held to a higher standard of accountability; it will no longer able to hide behind the history of northern oppression. Freedom of expression will likely be one of the benchmarks by which the new state will be measured, which could be good news for media.

That will take some getting used to, though. Officials in the government of south Sudan have said that Radio Bakhita is “overstepping the mark,” and that Sr Cecilia and her staff “should be just singing Ave Maria,” as she puts it. In other words, stick to religious affairs and steer clear of politics.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/decapua-sudan-blue-nile-18jan11-114124159.html – see audio here.

Sudan’s Blue Nile State did not take part in the just completed independence referendum in Southern Sudan. Technically part of the north, its sympathies often sided with the south during the long civil war. Now, its residents are wondering what their relationship with the Khartoum government will be if the south breaks away.

Yabus airport, Sudan (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Irish Journalist Simon Roughneen toured the region while the south voted on succession.

He says, “Blue Nile State is sort of a border land on the north-south border. It’s actually further south geographically than Upper Nile (State), which is nearby…. During the war it was one of the most heavily contested areas. The people are mainly Muslim like the rest of the north of Sudan, which Blue Nile State is politically a part of and going to be part of even if the south does secede, which seems almost certain.”

Upper Nile State is part of Southern Sudan.

Roughneen says some of the people of Blue Nile State “fought alongside the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) to a large degree, especially in the more southern part of Blue Nile State, which is of course closer to what will be the formal north-south border.”

What next?

“There is a bit of dismay there because the people are not getting to vote on whether they have a new political status in the new…two Sudans going forward. They’re getting something called ‘popular consultation,’ along with another state called South Kordofan further to the west. This popular consultation is aimed at giving the people in Blue Nile and South Kordofan some form of self determination and some form of say over their status in northern Sudan or whatever the constitution arrangements are,” he says.

There were polling centers in Blue Nile State for the southern referendum. These were set-up for people in the state who were considered southern Sudanese. However, Roughneen says many voters crossed the border and cast their ballots in the south because they thought voting might be rigged in Blue Nile State.

“I was at a couple of the voting stations in Blue Nile during the course of the week, and they were almost empty. And it was a huge contrast between that and what I had seen in Juba where there were huge queues on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of the week of voting,” he says.

Living conditions

Roughneen says conditions on Blue Nile State are very much like Southern Sudan.

“Southern Sudan has long been one of the most desolate, deprived, under developed areas in the world,” he says, “The 20 years plus civil war left a devastated region. Even now the capital Juba has around 40 kilometers or so of paved road, but that’s the only paved road in the whole region, which is bigger than France and Belgium put together.”

Roughneen says NGOs are providing assistance in Blue Nile State, including the Irish group, GOAL, which receives funds from USAID.

“They are doing a lot of primary health care, education, water and sanitation projects,” he says. However, aid operations in the state are fewer than those found in Southern Sudan in general, where U.N. and other agencies have had a presence for years.

As the south prepares for independence, the borderlands remain volatile and some  feel left out of the political changes taking place

http://www.tribune.ie/news/international/article/2011/jan/16/black-gold-bubbles-beneath-the-blood-red-soil/

Hawa Abdul-Gadr teaching Arabic to women from Kyeli (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Kyeli, Blue Nile State, Sudan – “Soon after we married, my husband was killed during the war”, says Hawa Abdul-Gadr.

Her eyes show a suppressed grief, but her demeanour is purposeful. That said, there is a perceptible sadness – long-kept under wraps but perhaps closer to the surface than she would care to admit.

Eschewing outward self-pity or sentimentalism, she chops her left hand down from her cheek, as if swatting away an invisible spectre. “I am happy now here, we have peace and I hope it stays.”

Hawa spent eleven years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. The border is just fifty miles away from this village in southern Blue Nile state, but for those long years, home here in Kyeli seemed like a distant dream. “I came back in 2006, after the word spread about peace in the camps.”

Kids head home from one the few schools in Blue Nile (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Blue Nile is technically part of northern Sudan, but is de facto split between those who identify more closely with the southern third of the country that has just finished voting on independence, and those who want to remain part of the state of Sudan as it is now. It marks the often indeterminate borderland where Arabic, Islamic northern Sudan meets the African, Christian or animist south.

However many Muslims in the southern part of Blue Nile identify more closely with southern Sudan – the largely Christian or animist region that yesterday finished voting on independence – than they do with the mostly Muslim north, in what what will remain as Sudan after the southern part completes its likely secession later this year.

Pouring coffee in the shade (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Farah Mohamed works for GOAL, which runs education, health, water and sanitation projects in Blue Nile, one of the smallest of Sudan’s 26 states but which by itself is larger than Denmark. Sitting under a roadside baobab tree in Kyeli, as local men lounge in the shade, sipping espresso-sized coffees away from the afternoon sun, he says “I am a Christian from the west, but have an Arabic name, it is common here.”

On the road, children run home from school, their white uniforms beiged by the brown dust raised by a light breeze. “Khawaja, khawaja” (Arabic for ‘foreigner’) they shout, pointing and laughing. Women fetch water, five gallon drums perched atop their heads with an effortlessness belying the load involved. Or they carry firewood, or sorghum, tied in a pair of torso-sized bundles and hung off both ends of a carrying-stick draped across their shoulders.

Carrying the harvest home (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Hawa also works for GOAL as a trainer in the REFLECT programme, offering local women Arabic literacy and numeracy, as well as training on health and hygiene issues. “There is almost no education in this region, apart from a couple of schools”, she says. “most people cannot even read the labels when they go to the market. Part of that is down to the war”.

The multiple tribes in the region all speak Arabic as a lingua franca, thought Farah Mohamed concedes that it is often “not proper Arabic”, but a pidgin of Arabic and local languages.

Sitting next to Hawa is Sawra Babakr, a twenty-six year old mother of three. She is one of Hawa’s students in the class, which meets for two hours five days a week. “I left school at seven”, she says. “Before starting REFLECT, I could not read or write. Now I at least can read from the board in front of the class”.

At another REFLECT class a few miles from Kyeli (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Two million people died and at least 4 million others were driven from their homes as the Sudanese Army fought the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) from 1983-2005. Khartoum sought to impose sharia law on the multiethnic country, soon after it became apparent that the north-south border area was rich in oil. Blue Nile was one of the worst-hit areas, as the northern army and local militias fought the SPLA/M.

The 2005 peace agreement promised independence for the south, and last Sunday in Juba, the south’s capital, I watched long queues form outside polling stations well before the 8am start. Waiting to enter the station at the tomb of Dr John Garang, the former head of the SPLA/M – a southern hero who ironically wanted the south to remain part of a united, secular Sudan – Bobby Amun, a mechanic aged 22, said “we are so happy today because we will aim for our independence”.

By Wednesday, the turnout in the week-long vote passed the 60% validity threshold, and by all accounts southern Sudanese were set to easily surpass the simple majority in favour of independence.

In Kurmuk, a sleepy market town of 20,000 people and host to a United Nations peacekeeper base.there is a polling station for locally-based southerners. However the place has been almost empty all week, as most people cross into neighbouring Upper Nile state, technically part of southern Sudan, to vote there, amid whispers that the Blue Nile vote might be rigged against a pro-independence outcome.

Outside the referendum polling station in Kurmuk (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Blue Nile itself will remain part of the north, but has been granted a ‘Popular Consultation’ – a compromise aimed at ultimately giving the region, along with Southern Kordofan – an oil rich area bordering Darfur – some measure of local autonomy.

With dozens killed there in the week since the referendum started, Abyei – a small region straddling Unity State in southern Sudan and Southern Kordofan in the north – remains volatile. Both sides want Abyei, through which the main pipeline taking southern oil to northern refineries and ports runs.

Local Arab herders known as the Misseriya and southern-leaning farmers known as the Ngok Dinka fight over grazing rights and land – though it is believed that the powers-that-be in the north and the south arm both sides. The Dinka is the largest ethnic group in the south, and along with the Nuer, dominates the regional Government of South Sudan (GoSS), which will govern the independent state, if and when that comes about.

Infant assessed for signs of malnutrition, Kurmuk (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Blue Nile is mostly quiet, for now. Whether it remains so may depend on how the economic needs of the people are addressed. In Kyeli, there is no electricity, no running water, no schools. People grow sorghum, beans and vegetables, while herders move goats and cattle along and across the regions winding dirt-roads, a bone-jarring 2 hour drive from Kurmuk. 4 hours to the north is Sudan’s largest hydropower station, at the Roseires Dam on the Blue Nile. The facility powers much of the north, home to oil refineries, large-scale commercial farms and the harvesting of a key ingredient in Coca-Cola and other soft drinks – gum arabic – of which Sudan is the world’s largest source.

Part of the reason people in Blue Nile aligned with the south during the war was down to grinding poverty and indifference to their plight shown by Khartoum. “There are no good roads here”, laments Sarwa Babakr, while another REFLECT student, 30 year old Zainab Malik, a mother of four who never attended school, says “people have no money, no future other than to stay on the farm”.

Such needs will need to be addressed in the near future, if the region is to remain as calm as it has been in the half-decade since the peace deal. Independence for the nearby south could change the feeling on the ground, and, according to a report by the United States Institute for Peace (USIP), a mismanaged Popular Consultation “could destabilize not just Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, but all of Sudan.”

US Senator John Kerry (L), US Sudan envoy Gen. Scott Gration and Justice Chan Madut after press conference on eve of voting last week (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/0116/worldreport.html#&autoplay=true - audiostream

Shertiyo, Blue Nile State, Sudan (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Five and six hundred yards long queues form either side of the entrance to polling stations – men on one side, women on the the other. They wait in excitement and euphoria on the first day of polling — here — in what would be the new capital of an independent southern Sudan. The scenes have been repeated all across the region in voting this week to decide whether the region should remain part of Sudan or form the world’s newest country.

Among a group at the end of the line of the polling queue at Saint Bakhita Primary School is 28 year old Joel: who worked as a security guard. “We are going to be free” he tells me. ” I have no doubt about it”, he says, when asked his thoughts on how the vote would go.

His friend: 22 year old Marcus, says that he hopes a new southern Sudan will provide jobs and development for one of the poorest regions in the world. “it is better to be on our own. He says. “We can support our own people better that way”.

At a borehole in Kurmuk (Photo: Simon Roughneen(

It is the dry season, and low-rise Juba is getting busier, with new paved roads being built, but these are the only such roads in the entire south, which is the size of France. Despite the poverty, high prices -are the norm – for rooms, restaurant meals, consumer goods, inflation caused by the presence of a United Nations mission in the town and the high salaries enjoyed by UN workers.

In reality, however, southern Sudan is one of the poorest places on earth. According to UN agencies, 90% of the region’s 9 and half million people are illiterate, half receive some form of international aid, and most live on the equivalent of a dollar a day.

Even so, expectations are high, so southern leaders are telling people that progress will be difficult, and that they have to overcome dependence.

Salva Kiir is currently regional President, and will likely be President of the new state. After voting himself, he told a packed congregation at Juba’s Cathedral that “you need to work hard, and not expect or depend on hand-outs”.

Salva Kiir meets foreign diplomat on referendum opening day (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Southern Sudan has 80% of all Sudan’s oil, potentially a lucrative source of development finance. However currently all pipelines run north to refineries in Khartoum and Port Sudan, from where much of it is shipped to China.

American academic Andrew Natsios worked on the negotiations leading up to the 2005 north-south peace,which included the southern independence vote as part of the final document. He says that southern oil will likely remain under US sanctions for the foreseeable future, as it is closely tied in with the north. This will prevent western oil companies from working in the south for now, and means that some oil blocks will remain in limbo.

The north has enjoyed an oil boom in recent years, and will lose out if an independent south pipes oil elsewhere, possibly through Kenya. Oil could be the fuel for future war between north and south.

In the past few days: dozens of people have died in tribal clashes along the north-south border, in the disputed Abyei region, through which the current pipeline runs. North and south have fought here many times before, most recently in 2008, and the region is likely flashpoint for renewed north-south fighting, according to the UN Mission, foreign Governments and the Sudanese themselves.

Amani Mohamed fled to Ethiopia as a young child, returning to the border area after the 2005 peace deal.

Like others in the region, she is hopeful for the future. “I want the peace to last”, she says. “I want my child to go to school here”. Like others along the border region, she cannot say for sure whether peace will last. “Everyone is worried that we will have to run away again”, she says.

For World Report, this is Simon Roughneen in Juba, southern Sudan.

- Back in 2007, when I knew more about Sudan than I do now, I contributed two chapters to a book called Beyond Settlement, which focuses on what happens as countries stop fighting. See – http://bit.ly/hdkmVv

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/suspense-in-sudan/

Simon Roughneen in Juba, southern Sudan.

Lining up to vote in Juba: some southern Sudanese waiting 6-7 hours and more to cast the ballot (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Apologising for delaying the liturgy, U.S. Senator John Kerry paid tribute to the people of southern Sudan, addressing a congregation at St.Teresa’s Cathedral in Juba, the region’s capital. Sen. Kerry is Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has visited Sudan three times times in recent years on behalf of the Obama Administration. He sat next to Salva Kiir, President of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) – as the regional authorities here are known. A U.S-backed 2005 peace deal, which ranked as President George W. Bush’s main foreign policy successes, gave the mainly Christian south a degree of self-Government after 22 years of war, causing 2 million deaths, with the Islamist-leaning Government in Khartoum.

Kiir attends Mass here every Sunday, when he is in town, so his presence is no big deal to locals. However Sunday January 9 saw the start of a week-long referendum, with southern Sudanese voting whether to remain part of Sudan, or secede and form their own country

Breaking away from a government that imposes Islamic law may be a strong motivation in southern Sudan’s secession vote this week. But the region, which has a significant Catholic population, may have a difficult future as an independent country. Nine out of 10 people live on less than $1 a day. Most of the land is either scrub or swamp. Half the people receive some form of international humanitarian assistance, and most are illiterate.

Eager to establish historical and Christian credentials, names such as Azania and Cushitia have been suggested as possible names for the country, the latter referring to the Biblical land of Cush, which is thought to approximate to this region, through which the River Nile runs.

St. Teresa's Cathedral, Juba, last Sunday. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Southern Sudan’s vote has attracted a foreign press entourage to an area that does not ordinarily receive much media coverage, despite the history of war, famine, disease, and the geopolitical contest being played between the United States and China, with the latter a key investor in and buyer of Sudanese oil.

Earlier Sunday, at the Mass conducted in Bari, one of many local languages, western journalists scurried in and out of the Church, to the consternation of the nuns working as ushers. “Please, this is the consecration”, implored one, to which the cameraman and reporter responded, as if not hearing her pleas, “Is the President here? When will be be here?’

An Arabic Mass came next, during which I caught up with Fr. Philip Petia, the Parish Priest at St Teresa’s. “What did you think of the journalists coming into the Church during the Mass?’, I asked.

Parish priest at St Teresa's, Fr Phillip, blesses rosaries for local children (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

“You must be Irish”, he challenged me. “Anyone with that accent should know that you cannot interrupt the consecration”, he half-laughed. “I don’t mind people taking photos during Mass, but they can ask first and then can sit at the side near the altar, not walking up and down during the consecration.”

“There will be many reporters here for the English Mass”, I reminded him, “what will you do then?”

“Hopefully they will respect the Mass and listen to what the Archbishop and the President’s team ask them to do.”

Usually men sit on the left of the Church, women on the right. Earlier, the invading posse of reporters subverted this, but they soon left when they realised that neither President Kiir nor Sen. Kerry would be there until the English Mass later on. And when that time came around, the Church was packed, with crowds spilling out onto the steps and dry-earth carpark outside, as camera crews jostled for position near the altar.

By the time I got my photos – before the Mass – the crowd was such that the male-female segregation was dispensed with, and then, having persuaded the GoSS President’s security that I was merely there to attend Mass and not stick a camera in Salva Kiir’s face, I took my place 2/3′s the way down from the altar and amid mixed group of men and women of all ages.

Tall and greying, he spoke with clarity and humour about what it means to be Catholic and Christian in a country dominated by a Islamist-leaning Government, a foe turned uneasy partner over the past 6 years.

Fr Peter estimates that two-thirds of southern Sudan’s Christians are Catholic. However in an area bigger than France, with no paved roads outside Juba,it is difficult to get around and establish exactly how many people live there.

Southern Sudan, whatever it is ultimately called and whenever the new state comes into being, will face many challenges. The long years of war have taken their toll, and though cynically-made, Khartoum President Omar al-Bashir has a point when says that an independent southern Sudan will be a “failed state”, though in truth his own misrule and war-mongering in the south has caused much of the suffering and destruction there, and hence the southerners’ desire for independence.

“The northerners tried to impose Arabism and sharia across Sudan”, says Fr. Peter. “Imagine if we tried to impose canon law on others in Sudan?”, he asked,

On the eve of voting, the countdown is almost up. Clock in downtown Juba. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

rhetorically. “You cannot govern a country with so many ethnic groups and identities with such a system”, he says.

He says the Catholic Church was targetted by the Khartoum Government throughout the 1983-2005 war. “We were depicted as agents of the imperialists, or agents of Rome out to undermine Islam”, he says.

However the Church and affiliated aid organisations and charities helped people suffering fromwar, disease and hunger, without fear or favour, he says. “Some people saw us for what we really are, we helped other Christians, Muslims, people from traditional beliefs, if they were hungry, thirsty, homeless, hurt. We did not ask for conversion or anything like that in return”, he says.

Now, I ask, what does he hope for? “Firstly, as I asked during the Mass, we want people to vote peacefully, in an orderly manner, and not to cause trouble”.

That is fair enough, and an important civic-minded message, but it’s not exactly what I am after. “Do you want to see an independent southern Sudan?”, I ask.

“This is an opportunity for us to express our will, in a way that we have never had before”, he concludes.”We have our own culture, and history, here in the south”, he adds. “It is better for us to be on our own”.

***********************************************************************

Back in 2007, when I knew more about Sudan than I do now, I contributed two chapters to a book called Beyond Settlement, which focuses on what happens as countries stop fighting. See – http://bit.ly/hdkmVv

http://examiner.ie/world/independence-for-south-sudan-to-present-challenges-141639.html

JUBA , Sudan. The dateline here and now says ‘Sudan’, but later this year it will likely read ‘South Sudan’ or ‘Nile Republic’. Biblical references such as  ’Cushitia’ or ‘Azania’ are also being touted as names for the what will be world’s newest country. Four million voters in southern Sudan are likely to vote to leave Africa’s largest state in a referendum that started early on Sunday.

John Kerry and Salva Kiir meet with clergy before Mass in Juba on Jan 9. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Just before 8am, I spoke to Charles Juma-Seyis at the end of a 500 yard long queue at Konyo-Konyo polling station in central Juba, the usually low-key and ramshackle would-be capital.  “I don’t mind waiting to vote, we have been waiting more than fifty years for this day”, he said.

Since independence from Great Britain in 1956 Sudan has seen only 11 years of peace. A landmark 2005 peace deal brokered by the United States saw southern Sudan gain autonomy within Sudan, with the option to vote on independence after a six-year interim period. That agreement came after 22 years of war that left 2 million dead and 4-5 million more as refugees and internally-displaced. Now the interim period is almost up, and after fears of a delay or sabotage, the plebiscite is going ahead.

Addressing the congregation at St Teresa’s Cathedral in Juba later on Sunday morning, southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir, a former guerilla fighter, implored people to vote “in a peaceful and orderly manner”.

Kiir, dispensing with his trademark wide-brimmed hat inside the church, said that the vote marks “only the first step on a new journey”, and acknowledged that the would-be new country faces massive challenges if it is to succeed. “People need to udnerstand that we have to work, we cannot depend on hand-outs”, he told the packed congregation, fanning themselves in the 33 degree heat.

Lining up at Konyo-Konyo voting station, Juba, at 745am Sunday morning (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Voting will run until January 15th, but a result is not expected until mid-February. The drawn-out process is partly down to the vast, inhospitable terrain of the region, and alludes to the challenges to new state will face, if and when it comes into being. There is little more than 100km of paved road in an area roughly the size of France, which includes a vast, impassable swamp known as the Sudd. 90% of people live on less than €1 per day, 85% of the population is illiterate, and almost half the people receive some form of international humanitarian assistance. A recently-established anti-corruption commission has more than 1000 complaints on its desk, but as yet no charges have been filed.

Kiir was joined at the Mass by U.S Senator John Kerry, who has taken on a quasi-official Sudan envoy status in the Obama administration. Sen. Kerry earlier hinted that President Obama would look into dropping American sanctions on the Sudan Government in Khartoum, if it respected the vote in the south and did not attempt to sabotage the outcome.

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes committed in Darfur, western Sudan. He visited Juba last week, and pledged to stick by the result, but only if the referendum passed peacefully and without contention. He later told al-Jazeera that an independent southern Sudan would likely be “a failed state”.

Khartoum has become a boom city in recent years, funded by billions in oil revenues. However 80% of the country’s oil is in the south, and this could be lost to Khartoum, if the south secedes. The north-south border has not been formally demarcated, and there are disagreements over territory elsewhere. However, the south must pipe the oil through the north for processing and exporting, so some form mutual dependence seems likely. That said, formal agreements and long-term stability could be hard to reach.

On the eve of voting, nine people were killed in shoot-outs near the north-south border. The fighting was between the southern Sudan army – which before 2005 was a rebel movement known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) – and local militias thought be armed and sponsored by Khartoum. In areas close to the border, cattle-herders and farmers often fight over land and animals, and these local rivalries are said to be manipulated by political elites elsewhere.

Salva Kiir told the congregation, which was dotted with foreign press, that the captured assailants would “explain who armed them and what their motivation was”. Again, though not referring to the Khartoum Government by name, Kiir said that “we will work to overcome our adversaries”. A 60% turnout is needed for the referendum to be valid, and whispers are that violence may be used to intimidate voters and force a reduced turnout.

Ready to vote. Inside the polling station at Konyo-Konyo, Juba (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

First, however, the voting must continue. People in rural, isolated areas will have to walk for hours, sometimes days just to vote, while ballot papers will have to be air-lifted back to Juba for counting.

The ballot paper features two symbols, a clasped hand for unity, or a single hand for independence. Billboards around Juba made no pretence of asking people to choose: a single hand, side by side with thumb-print, reminded all that for most southern Sudanese, there is only one option. Independence.

“It should be 100% for freedom”, said Benen, when asked about the likely outcome. She was among the passengers flying into Juba from Nairobi on Saturday, as airlines put on extra flights into the tiny, run-down airport. She said she was flying home to vote, even though southern Sudanese have the option of overseas voting. I want to experience the historical occasion”, she said.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20495

Back in 2007, when I knew more about Sudan than I do now, I contributed two chapters to a book called Beyond Settlement, which focuses on what happens as countries stop fighting. See – http://bit.ly/hdkmVv

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18303&Submit=Submit

BANGKOK—Since Gen. Omar al-Bashir’s 1989 coup, Sudan has been run as by a military dictatorship, but not quite as long as Burma, which has been under army rule since 1962.

Still, there are many parallels between the two countries: both are multi-ethnic, poly-religious populations oppressed by a violent elite. Both are prey to a vast state security apparatus funded by natural resource revenues, in turn abetted by close links with China and Russia.

Beijing shields both countries from criticism and action at the UN Security Council, and its investment helps undermine the Western sanctions in place against both regimes. Both regimes stand accused of large-scale human rights abuses and violence against their own citizens, and a Harvard Law School report published in May 2009 drew a direct parallel between violence in western Sudan’s Darfur region and that in eastern Burma.

Since fighting started in Darfur in 2003, the death of an estimated 250,000 people and the displacement of around 3 million more has become an international cause celebre. Taken by candidate Barack Obama’s strong line on Darfur—and perhaps by current Vice President Joe Biden’s musings about possible US military action in Sudan—the US-based Darfur lobby expected “something would be done” about Darfur if and when Obama got elected. But now the US-based human rights and Darfur lobby is angry and has criticized the Obama administration’s somewhat tepid reaction to the recent elections in Sudan.

That the Sudanese elections were a sham seems beyond question. The main opposition candidates did not run in the presidential election. The southern opposition—the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is part of the country’s “Government of National Unity” set up as part of a 2005 north-south peace deal. However, it restricted its participation to the south, possibly in anticipation of the 2011 referendum on whether southern Sudan will secede.

Perhaps the SPLM cut a deal with the al-Bashir National Congress Party (NCP), giving Al-Bashir a free run in northern Sudan, in exchange for the NCP accepting the south’s preference for secession? Urging calm despite the flawed election, SPLM official Anne Ito told reporters, “We need peace in order to get to the next stage.” However, given that a substantial if undefined proportion of Sudan’s oil is in the south, it remains to be seen if Khartoum will consent to secession next year. It has the money and the firepower to resist that outcome, while SPLM has allegedly imported arms of its own via Kenya. Over the past year, tribal violence in souhtern Sudan has increased, with the SPLM accusing the NCP of fomenting trouble by arming groups opposed to the SPLM in the south and funding intra-ethnic factionalism. It all sounds a bit like the Burmese junta backing ethnic splinter militias.

In the north, the NCP seems to have won seats and votes in areas not known for pro-Khartoum views. In eastern Sudan, around the city of Kassala (part of the “north”), the majority of the people are ethnic Beja and Rashaida. However, the NCP won every legislative seat bar one in the region—a result somewhat akin to the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) or similar political vehicle winning a landslide in Karen or Shan regions inside Burma. Beja Congress leader Abdullah Moussa alleged that NCP representatives emptied ballot boxes and pushed his own party observers out of the polling stations during voting and the counting of votes. He said that his party managed to win one seat on a legislative council because the Congress managed to keep an armed guard at the polling station throughout the course of the vote.

The reactions of the various observers and foreign governments to what has just transpired in Africa’s largest country might be a foretaste for later in 2010, when Burma holds what exiled dissidents are calling “a military election.”

The EU observer mission issued a contradictory statement after the elections, which said that although the polls showed “deficiencies,” they “pave the way for democratic progress” in the future. How this way might be paved is not clear, not least in the EU’s own statement, which elsewhere notes not only “intimidation and threats,” but says “competition was reduced as opposition candidates, considering they could not participate on an equal footing, withdrew from the race in the North.” The statement also refered to “deficiencies in voters lists and weak organisation [which] hindered the voters participation.”

Rather than paving the way for “democratic progress.” it sounds more like these elections could serve as a trial balloon for similar flawed, rigged polls in the future. The EU mission noted and was impressed by “the commitment shown by the Sudanese (not clear whether this refers to the people or government) to a process of democratic transformation in these complex conditions.” But can commitment by people achieve democratic progress in the future, when the odds are arrayed so heavily against them by a well-armed, well-funded state that wants to rig elections to maintain a grip on power behind a veil of democratic legitimacy?

Note also the contrived caveat of “complex conditions,” which is meant as a qualification of what can be expected of elections in Sudan. However, conditions are “complex” in almost every country and political context in the world, so why bother peppering an official EU observer statement with an unnecessary non-sequitur? The real reason is that such qualifications can justify “engagement” with oppressive and corrupt regimes, now based on the “principle” that a “democratic” event took place, regardless of what this means for the realities of power inside the country. The thinking seems to be along the lines:“Yes, the country is ruled by a man wanted for war crimes, yes, they ran rigged showcase elections, yes, we are running out of options and leverage over the regime…but its….”complex..and we have to allow for that.’”

These semantic high-wire acts only amplify Al-Bashir’s real interest in staging the election—to offset International Criminal Court indictments and an arrest warrant against him. The elections were originally to be held in 2009, based on a 2005 peace agreement which ended a long-running and brutal war between the north and south. However, the government stalled on publishing electoral laws, and the process was held up over oil-related boundary disputes between north and south, and the difficulties of holding a nationwide census in a country the size of western Europe. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Al-Bashir became more interested in the elections after the ICC first published its charges against in him in mid-2008.

Now Al-Bashir has a “democratic mandate,” and the tepid international reaction to his win makes the already far-fetched likelihood that he will stand trial in The Hague even less likely. It might be no more than typical al-Bashir posturing, but he boasted in southern Blue Nile state recently that the US now backs him explicitly.

Burma’s military elections are likely to serve a similar purpose: help the regime legitimize continued military rule and serve as a buffer against any attempt to establish a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity, as recommended by UN human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana and backed by Australia, the Czech Republic and the UK. The US is “studying closely” Quintana’s recommendations, but has not backed them explicitly.

Getting France and Germany onboard is needed to achieve a common EU position, but whether other European countries have the will to pursue this remains to be seen. In a recent statement to The Irrawaddy, Ireland said that it “welcomed the report and the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur,” but added,“We are working with our EU partners to see how these can best be advanced through the Human Rights Council and other UN agencies.”

Since the Sudan election, some whitewash statements have been issued from regional observation teams. Preliminary statements from the African Union, the Arab League and the east African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)—a regional bloc of nations instrumental in negotiating Sudan’s north-south peace deal—did not report widespread fraud, although they acknowledged irregularities and logistical problems in conducting the vote.

Sudan is a member-state of all three organizations. At the recent Asean summit in Vietnam, leaders apparently “underscored the importance of national reconciliation in [Burma] and the holding of the general election in a free, fair and inclusive manner,” according to the bloc’s final statement.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said the elections should be “free and democratic with the participation of all parties.” The Vietnamese PM had visited Burma mere days before the summit, signing a number of commercial and investment deals. Beyond that, the Asean statement made no mention of how the bloc could work to push for a free and inclusive election in Burma, beyond the blandness of a summit communique.

The Burma-ICC issue aside, some Europeans are being seduced by what junta apologists and naive optimists portray as Burma’s “transition.” EU envoy to Burma/Myanmar Piero Fossini penned a recent article in which he noted that the electoral framework “makes a mockery of internationally recognized standards of democracy,” and puts this in the context of a fragile economy, widespread human and civil rights violations and the continued detention of more than 2,000 political prisoners.

Despite this indictment, Fossini remained optimistic, along the lines that the elections can serve to open some democratic space in Burma. He said, “The upcoming election can be viewed not as a point of arrival, but as a possible ‘springboard’ for change—along the example of Indonesia—as the first step in a process for gradually handing over power back to a civilian government, to continue the democratic transition.” This reads like an implicit vindication of the junta’s “Seven-Step Roadmap” to democracy, which includes the widely-criticised 2008 Constitution, as well as the recently published electoral laws – the framework for Burma’s “democratic transition.” Indonesians might also quibble, given that the country made the jump from Suharto’s dictatorship to being southeast Asia’s best-functioning democracy, in the space of a few years.

The parallels with the EU Observer statement on Sudan are clear and both seem to be grounded in wishful thinking, spun as a form of “realism,” based on “painful choices” about “complex realities.” Fossini’s article noted the “painful reflection” taken by the US and EU before both decided upon “re-engagement” with the Burmese junta.

Similarly, “painful choices” was a phrase often used by a variety of Western diplomats, implicitly urging the National League for Democracy (NLD) to take part in the 2010 election.

The NLD has made its choice in the face of a “transition” that deprived it of its leader and hundreds of leading figures, who languish in jail. It now faces disbandment, while Burma will go ahead with elections that will do little to undermine the junta’s grip on power. As with Sudan, this is the (not very) “complex reality” behind the country’s (non-existent) “democratic transition.”

- Simon Roughneen has reported from Sudan and visited Darfur twice.

Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/west/decapua-sierra-leone-kids-7dec09-78673062.html

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1213/worldreport.html

http://www.tribune.ie/news/international/article/2009/dec/13/picking-up-the-pieces-of-civil-war-in-sierra-leone/

FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE – “The police stop us all the time. Sometimes they try to take money from us, sometimes they threaten to arrest us. But the usual trick is to check our handbags. They plant some drugs, then tell us to come with them to the station. The only way to get out is have sex with the policeman, otherwise we go to jail.”

Just 20 years old, Maryama* has lived on the ramshackle streets of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for eight years.

Her father died when she was 10 – possibly from HIV-AIDS, although nobody knows for sure – leaving her mother unable to bring up their three children. This was at the height of Sierra Leone’s civil war, infamous for anti-government rebels who hacked off arms and hands to deter civilians from voting in elections.

Inside Freetown's Marbella slum. During the rainy season, the whole area is flooded due to poor/non-existent drainage and sanitation. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Government-allied militias believed that their magic rendered them invisible and invulnerable in battle against the rebels who funded their war with “blood diamonds” smuggled out of the country and sold on at profit. The mainstream diamond industry and its customers turned a blind eye to the suffering caused by the fighting.

Now the country is peaceful and the diamond trade better regulated. The 2007 elections saw an orderly transfer of control to the winning party, and the economy is growing at around 5% a year. War seems a distant memory, brought to mind only by the sight of war amputees on Freetown’s bustling streets. Their arm (and sometimes leg) stumps are a physical testament to what was a notoriously vicious war, fought at close quarters with AK-47s and sharp blades. Around 50,000 people were killed, mostly non-combatants.

Starting in 1992, the fighting devastated much of the country. It ended only after British military intervention in 2000, which earned Tony Blair an honorary chieftaincy from the Freetown government. Despite a wealth of natural resources, the average per capita annual income in Sierra Leone is only US$240 per person.

Despite a wealth of natural resouces -  not only diamonds  – but bauxite and large untapped iron ore reserves, which are stoking Chinese interest, the country ranks at or near the bottom of most global indexes of poverty and corruption.

These rankings are not mere abstractions. Behind them lies a harsh and sordid reality. Poverty is part of the reason why young women like Maryama end up on the streets, and corruption makes their life even more miserable.

Speaking at an investment conference held in London recently, Sierra Leone Prime Minster Ernest Bai Koroma cited some high-profile anti-corruption arrests as evidence that foreign investors can expect cleaner government in his resource-rich country. Although many see the arrests as a good start, they will not by themselves stem the low-level graft and exploitation that makes life tough for Sierra Leoneans.

Girls often have little or no protection from violent or abusive men or recourse against those who refuse to pay. The police are gamekeepers turned poachers.

“If we have trouble from a customer, we cannot go to the police,” says Maryama. “The guy will just pay the cops off, and then they will turn on us, taking our money or taking us to station.”

*Zainab at her stall in Freetown's eastern districts. With GOALs help, she is now off the streets and running her own business. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

GOAL has an outreach and education project for young women such as Maryama, offering alternatives to the grimy, precarious street existence. Many of those who have already completed the course now run a variety of small businesses, enabling them to “get out of the game,” as recent graduate Zainab put it.

“GOAL provided some small business training, and a cash grant to help me get started. Now I can turn a profit of around 100,000 Leone (around $30) a month,” she said.

Zainab sells basic grocery items from a four-foot wide stall at a market in Freetown’s traffic-choked eastern districts. She plans to travel to neighboring Guinea soon to purchase hard-to-find kitchen utensils at a rock-bottom price. She’ll then sell these for a small profit back in Freetown and repeat the cycle to expand the business.

“Anything is better than working on the streets,” she says.

More than 30 percent of Sierra Leoneans go without formal education at any level. With parents unable to pay school fees, GOAL steps in with incentives to get girls and women off the streets and into the classroom.

GOAL runs a project offering shelter to young children who have been abandoned on Freetown's streets. These girls are learning basic numeracy and literacy, while GOAL social workers try to trace family members and mediate a reunification (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

Vera, now 19, chose the back-to-school option. Like many others, she has been reunited with her family after mediation carried out as part of the program.

Her home is located down a seemingly endless maze of potholed, winding, unpaved streets through Freetown’s Marbella slum. It’s a collection of tin shacks, rubbish, open drains and rainy season flooding. The refuse runs downhill to what is the third largest natural harbor on earth and then to the open sea.

High school classes usually run in the afternoon in Sierra Leone. Limited school space means that primary classes run in the morning, followed by older students in the afternoon, using the same classrooms.

“GOAL pays my school fees”, she said.

Although older than some of her classmates, Vera is clearly proud to be getting a formal education.

“I was in school for just two years of my life, when I was eight and nine. It is a joy to attend classes. I finished 15th out of 86 pupils last year,” she said.

Overall, educational facilities and opportunities are lacking in Sierra Leone. According to Britain’s Department for International Development, 70 percent of women and 50 percent of men are illiterate.

Maryama is among the latest intake, which teaches the basics of business start-up and entrepreneurship. In between instructor tips on procuring wholesale stock for a range of small businesses, the girls and women crack

bawdy jokes in Krio, a type of Creole mixing English, Portuguese and local languages. They exchange anecdotes about customers, who apparently range from local politicians to South Korean sailors to Nigerian businessmen and others.

Despite the traumas some of them have gone through, they seem resilient and determined to make their lives better, and outwardly happy. Though in some, the occasional shy, downward glance betrays an inner sadness.

One of the girls, *Sara, says one of her friends died last year after contracting HIV-AIDS from an infected customer.

Street talk is a key communications medium, and word is spreading about the life-altering potential offered by the project. Maryama heard about it from Zainab, and she enrolled because she saw the project’s success personified in her friend.

“They are three weeks into the schedule,” says Christiana Cole, a social worker and GOAL Outreach Coordinator in Sierra Leone. She believes that “all girls want to get off the streets, they all want the lifestyle change that comes with that, but at first many cannot believe that the alternative will work.”

But the classroom was half-empty, with only14 girls sitting on faded benches, blue paint flaking off them, in the humid classroom. Many more had enrolled.

Cole said, “This time around we have 40 girls, but now I think quite a few of them are ‘hustling’ on the streets.”

Success is neither immediate nor guaranteed.

“There is money to be made from selling sex at this time of year,” said Cole, “but part of the challenge for GOAL is to show that with our help and their own motivation, the girls can earn a living another way.”

* Pseudonyms have been used throughout this article

Remembering the Invisible Man: My first visit to Sierra Leone was in 2003, not long after the war ended. Six years ago, while waiting to interview a former pro-government militia leader about his views on the post-war settlement, I spent a sticky mid-morning parked outside a jungle village, which though scarred by ten years of war, otherwise looked more or less as it did a millennium ago, mud huts punctuated by palm trees, inhabited by subsistence farmers who lived without running water, electricity or paved roads. I brought a a football from Freetown to give to the local kids, and began to kick around to kill the time. After ten or so minutes of being embarrassed by their natural technique on the ball, I spotted a lone figure loping between the palm trees, shotgun in one hand and sports-bag in the other. “Mr Kamara?”, I called, as the man came within earshot. “What?!”, came the astonished reply, “How can you see me?” He was supposed to be invisible, hoping to show the visiting journalist just how well the Kamajor (name of the militia group) magic worked. I hadn’t the heart to burst that bubble: “I saw the bag and gun moving along by themselves”, I replied, “so I was guessing it must have been you carrying them”.

Almost 40% of young males in Sierra Leone have no job and no education. These boys are sifting through a rubbish-strewn drain for bits of scrap metal that they can collect and sell. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=110478

Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war is a receding memory, but corruption and poverty need addressing to avoid any relapse

Lungi beach, running along the third-biggest natural harbour in the world at Freetown (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

By Simon Roughneen in Freetown for ISN Security Watch

The civil war in Sierra Leone was one of the most violent anywhere in the late 20th century. A death toll of around 50,000 did not tell the full story of a conflict where much of the fighting was carried out at close quarters.

Rebels were funded by diamond exports and supported by Liberian warlord-later-president Charles Taylor – who is now standing trial in The Hague at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Machetes were used to lop off hands and arms as a deterrent against voting; child soldiers were forced to kill family members; women were abducted and raped; cannibalism was a war ritual among some combatants; and foreign mercenaries dotted the land.

Then-president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared the war officially over in 2002, after the British Army intervened in 2000 to end eight years of carnage in its former colony. At one stage, despite being only around the same size as Ireland, the country hosted the world’s largest UN peacekeeping mission, with 18,000 blue berets in place.

Today, the country is at peace. A 2007 election saw a peaceful transfer of power from Kabbah’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) to the party that was in power back when the war started – the All Peoples Congress (APC), led by Ernest Bai Koroma.

The president was in London recently, where he was joined by former UK prime minister Tony Blair in touting the resource-rich West African state as an investment location. Blair was made an honorary paramount chief by Freetown in acknowledgement of the UK’s intervention, which was decisive in ending the war.

Still poor

But Sierra Leone is more or less as poor and undeveloped as it was after the war ended. It ranks at the bottom, or near the bottom, of listings such as the UNDPs Human Development Report or Transparency International’s corruption perception tables.

The current government claims some improvement in the latter – with some recent high-profile arrests of ranking officials accused of graft – and the boosting of a national Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

Market near Marbella slum, Freetown (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

According to Abdul Kpakra-Massally, the current government deserves credit for “passing the new bill which gives more autonomy to the ACC.” Abdul formerly worked at the Campaign for Good Governance, an NGO promoting greater government transparency and accountability. He told ISN Security Watch that the ACC was given greater prosecuting powers and now has a wider range of corruptible offences.

Corrupt patronage politics played a big part in the run-up to the civil war, with local chiefs and allies in the central government milking state resources and fuelling resentment among urbn youth and rural poor. These so-called “rarray boys” were fertile recruitment ground for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, whose blood diamond-funded war brought the group into temporary power during the 1990s, but left thousands of Sierra Leoneans maimed and homeless.

Chris Mahony is a lawyer currently taking a DPhil at Oxford University. He directed the design of a Sierra Leone witness protection program for the UN and is now writing a monograph on witness protection across Africa for the Institute for Security Studies. He says that Sierra Leone’s corruption is a symptom of a patrimonial system honed under British rule, which enables powerful chiefs to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of ordinary people.

Same taxi, different driver?

While the new ACC has extensive powers, it is a moot point whether this system has been fully unravelled or transformed, despite post-war local government reforms.

John Benjamin leads the country’s main opposition party, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which lost power in the 2007 elections and has a powerbase in the south of the country. He sent an open letter to Koroma – whose APC is popular in the north – as well as passing it to foreign diplomats and donor representatives. He accused the president of nepotism and failing to tackle corruption, a stinging rebuke given that Koroma campaigned on an anti-graft ticket in 2007.

Benjamin’s letter is paralleled by a provocative piece of social commentary in the form of a popular song on local airwaves. “Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday,” or, “yesterday is better than today” to translate from the Krio patois spoken in Freetown, compares the performance in government of the previous SLPP government and the ruling APC, more or less saying that it was bad before, but is worse now.

One noticeable difference between Freetown now and six years ago is a more reliable electricity supply to the city. Welcome as this is, Benjamin’s allegations question the “improper awarding of contracts” for the new power supply, and many other government procurements. He hints that his supporters are being shut out of economic opportunity by the government. If true, this could be a replication of the corrupt political economy that helped lay the conditions for war in years gone by.

As part of the post-war justice and reconciliation process which now has Taylor in jail, the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought to get to the bottom of why Sierra Leone saw such a violent war. The TRC report is probably the definitive account of the war and its causes. It noted that corruption, marginalization and regional and ethnic divides were key factors that triggered fighting, and warned that unless these issues are addressed, the impoverished West African state could find itself in another bout of fighting.

The unthinkable

That said, it seems unthinkable that the country could return to war, even if corruption and poverty persist.

Mahony, who wrote the recommendations on governance for the TRC, tells ISN Security Watch that due to the war’s elemental violence, people abhor the thought of more, irrespective of the political stakes.

The country is reliant on donors – particularly the British – for around half of its annual budget. Donor fatigue could be fatal, and for now, the country is in hoc to donor whims and needs. Little wonder perhaps that the government is forging a growing economic and political relationship with China, which, like the UK, has doubtless noticed that Freetown has the third-largest (and one of the most under-used) natural harbors on earth, as well as untapped iron ore reserves.

The country faces two potent, albeit indirect, external threats.

Firstly, next-door Guinea is deeply unstable, with rumors of rebels training in the jungles. Shared ethnic ties, geographic proximity and a raft of unemployed former soldiers in Sierra Leone spells vulnerability.

Nearby Guinea-Bissau is branded the world’s first ‘narco-state,’ with South American drug traffickers using the country as a springboard for cocaine sent to Europe. Sierra Leone is thought to be a secondary location for this nexus.

But for now, domestic problems need urgent attention.

Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa Programme at London’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), says that the country is relatively stable, but that it would be premature to rule out a return to civil war.

Chitiyo told ISN Security Watch that, much like the pre-1991 years, “high unemployment and lack of vocational training for the youth – many of whom were former soldiers – are serious problems.”

Editor’s note – Simon Roughneen worked in Sierra Leone in 2003, returning in early December 2009.