Exhibit poster

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 17°C] Southern Sudan was a place I had not heard much about before my seven-week visit to the East African region of the continent’s largest country. It is a part of Sudan where over eight million people are now recovering from a 21-year civil war that ended six years ago after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed. The southern rebels fought Sudan’s army and its militias for a generation, trying to bring freedom to the south and end the military junta’s systematic repression of the Nilotic South. The war devastated the land and its people, leaving two million dead, four million internally displaced and one million refugees.

I arrived in Juba on February 26, 2009 during the dry season and met with temperatures that reached 45°C in the shade. I visited mine fields being cleared around the southern capital and observed mine risk education projects in villages still waiting for de-mining teams to remove the hidden danger. Farmers are still reluctent to till the land for fear of stepping on landmines that continue to kill and maim.

I flew to Aweil and visited dozens small villages in Northern Bahr el Ghazal. Here, people are returning to the homeland they ran from when they were attacked with a cruelty more recently witnessed in neighbouring Darfur. I interviewed men, women and children under their villages’ biggest trees. Here, up to 90% of the population have returned in the previous two years after living in displacement camps for ten, fifteen, even twenty years. They arrived without enough wells to supply drinking water, without sufficent schools, without clinics. They are finally on land that is theirs and want to stay, despite the hardships.

In the state of Warrap, I accompanied a vaccination program to the village of Lurcuk. Two medical assistants spent five hours giving innoculations against measles, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria and tetanus. In all, 276 children were vaccinated.

Later, before my flight back to Montréal, I revisited the youth from Sud Academy, a school for Sudanese refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. I met them before my journey to Sudan and promised to return with images of their homeland, a place they barely remember and dream of returning. Most of them haven’t seen their parents or siblings since they ran from their villages, scrambling to escape the killing.

The photographs represent some of the people I met and who generously shared their stories.

The vernissage is Thursday, June 10 from 16h00-19h00 at Café Rico 969, rue Rachel est, Montréal. Videos I took during my visit will be shown at the vernissage.

Inside a Sud Academy classroom where students look attentively at the video footage I took during my visit to South Sudan (March 2009).

UNMAO's Mark Argent and I at mine removal site outside of Juba near E. Rejaf. Notice the MineWolf in upper left of photo. (March 2009)

[Montréal, Québec, Canada -2°C] In a previous post from Juba, Southern Sudan, I wrote about a UNICEF managed and CIDA-funded Mine Risk Education (MRE) programs. I visited program sites where local NGOs taught children and their elders about landmines that remain hidden near their villages. At the time, there were still more known minefields to clear than there were teams trained to clear them so the clearing process would take time. In the meantime, villagers are taught how to recognize landmines or unexploded ordnances and avoid them to remain safe until the dangers are cleared by the United Nations Mine Action Office (UNMAO).

A few days after an MRE visit, Mark Argent (UNMAO) brought me to a different site outside of Juba in E. Rejaf where landmines were actively being cleared by a team of trained mine-removal personnel and a MineWolf machine that, to me, resembles a snow blower. We drove 100 metres past the minefield to a demarkated area adjacent to where landmines were being cleared. This safe area is outlined by a boundary of white-tipped sticks, within which the mine-removal teams prepare their equipment before entering the minefield, take breaks, debrief and where the UN ambulance vehicle parkes at the ready in case of injury.

MineWolf clearing minefiled near Juba, Southern Sudan. (March 2009)

After my debriefing, I was given protection gear to wear (see above photo) that I put on before heading toward the minefield where a team of de-miners were at work. In the back of the minefield, there was a MineWolf actively pounding at the earth, destroying the landmines hidden below the surface.

With minefields still dotting the landscape, farmers are afraid to cultivate the land. When the MineWolf passes over a minefield, it crushes the mines rendering them obsolete. Rarely do the mines explode during this process and when they do, the machine’s driver is rarely hurt due to its design but the machine gets damaged. Once it has passed over an entire field, the MineWolf is transferred to another minefield. At this point, mine-removal teams begin their meticulous work often accompanied with dogs trained to smell explosives.

Safe area is marked by white-tipped sticks planted in the ground to demarkate the area near Juba. (March 2009)

Safe area is marked by white-tipped sticks planted in the ground to demarkate the area near Juba. (March 2009)

Since 2002/2003, landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) have killed or maimed at least 4,119 people in Southern Sudan. During my visit I saw a map in the UNMAO offices that showed a list of over 100 known sites needing to be cleared of landmines. During the rpevious year’s de-mining season, which takes place during the dry season from October to May/June, UNMAO cleared 79 routes and 59 areas. Detecting mines along a road takes time. The slow arduous process moves forward at a spead of about four kilometres per day with a special vehicle that has a pulling mine detector.

Mine removal team returns to safe area after a day's work near Juba, southern Sudan (March 2009)

The presence of landmines in post-war Southern Sudan continue to have a serious impact on the South’s ability to develop. Landmines cause road closures, obstruct aid delivery, hinders the return of refugees and prevents farmers from cultivating the land.

In a recently published article, Norweigan People’s Aid presents the Mokindi and Kulipapa communities, located south of Juba, Southern Sudan and their return to cultivation after the land around their village was cleared of landmines. A total of 109 anti vehicle mines, 411 anti personnel mines, 418 Unexploded Ordnance and 28 sub munitions were cleared.

I read in one of your blog entries that Sudan’s civil war between the Sudanese government and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army created 4 million refugees and one million Internally Displaced People. What is the difference between a refugee and an internally displaced person and what happens to them now that the war is over? Are they allowed to go back home, and if so, how do how do they get back and where do they live? Can you interview a refugee or IDP that has returned to give me an idea of what it is like for them?

ANSWER:

Sudan’s civil war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) began in 1983 and ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The war lasted 21 years and displaced five million people, predominently from regions in the South where most of the fighting took place. Of these five million people, approximately four million were displaced internally to other places inside Sudan. The other one million people took refuge beyond Sudan’s borders to neighbouring countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Libya, Egypt).

Considering that refugees have crossed international boundaries, they are entitled to certain rights and international protection. But it’s still not easy being a refugee. Internally displaced people receive no such protection nor special rights because they remain under the jurisdiction of their own government and cannot claim extra rights not available to their compatriots. Internally displaced people are often in need of special protection because their governments may be unwilling or unable to protect them or may actually be the cause of their displacement.

According to Forced Migration Online, the recognition of ‘internal displacement’ gradually came to the fore in the 1980s and “became prominent on the international agenda in the 1990s [because of] the growing number of conflicts causing internal displacement.” The problem of internal displacement from the civil war in Sudan (the country with the largest number of displaced people in the world at the time) may have influenced the recognition by the UN. In 1992, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed his Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons, Francis Mading Deng, himself a ‘southern’ Sudanese. Deng described internally displaced persons as:

persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of, or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised state border.“

On page 82 in Douglas Johnson’s, The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil War, Johnson writes of experiences of ‘southern’ Sudanese being displaced northward in peak numbers in the mid- to late-1980s which probably contributed to Boutros-Ghali’s decision to establish a Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons:

Murahalin raids were at their peak in 1986 and 1987. Their impact in creating famine and spreading human rights abuses have been well documented. Not only were cattle taken, but Dinka villages were attacked and burned, civilians (including women and children) were killed or abducted and taken back to the North where they were traded or kept in slavery. Families split in order to survive: women, children and the elderly tried to follow the rail line from Aweil into Kordofan, and from there made their way to the displaced settlements around Khartoum.”

Forced Migration Review has an issue of its journal dedicated to guiding principles on internal displacement.

Johnson continues with a description of the same raids’ role in forcing young men to seek refuge in neighbouring countries because they:

were usually killed by the army or the Murahalin if they were caught in northern Bahr al-Ghazal or Southern Kordofan [so] they tended either to go with the cattle as far south as they could, or head east for Ethiopia, to settle in the refugee camp at Itang or join the SPLA (or, in sequence, both).”

Since the civil war ended in 2005, refugees and IDPs are returning to Southern Sudan. Not everyone wanted to return home soon after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement because of the novelty of peace and the fear that war may return. An article posted on the International Organization for Migration (IOM) website on March 31, 2006 gives a good idea of the desire Internally Displaced People in Khartoum to return home one year after the signing of the peace agreement. Photos below are courtesy of IOM.

IDPs returning to Southern Sudan 2008 (source: IOM)

IDPs returning to Southern Sudan 2008 (source: IOM)

IDPs returning to Southern Sudan 2008 (source: IOM)

According to a January 2009 report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), an estimated 2.24 million displaced people have returned home to Southern Sudan and border areas since 2005 . The report states that 81,432 IDPs were assisted home by the United Nations and their International Organization for Migration, which organized “more than 250 separate movements in 2007-2008″ that were mostly by land but also by air and river transport.

During a visit to Southern Sudan last March and April, I spoke with many people working with refugees and IDPs who said that not all IDPs had their returns assisted in the same way. While the IOM provided transportation (see above photos), and ‘non-food items’ like tarps, kitchen tools and jerry cans for water, other ‘spontaneous’ returnees were brought home by Southern Sudan government authorities who sent truck convoys northward to Khartoum. Those that returned on the convoys are considered spontaneous returnees because they basically had to decide quickly whether or not they wanted to to head southward by returning on the trucks and joining the convoys.

The IDMC report writes that 68,000 returnees went home during 2007 and 2008 from “other state authorities and other bodies [who] launched organized returns.” These government sponsored returns may have been politically motivated by the Government of Southern Sudan to assure that ‘southerners’ living in the north would get counted in the south and categorized as such by the census. Other spontaneous refugees are also those returnees who decide on their own to return to their homeland and do so without assistance.

The same report states that the total number of spontaneous returns of internally displaced people and refugees since 2005 is 1.95 million. Figures from last year alone equate to 456,155 returns of both spontaneous and organized refugees and IDPs.

Many still wait to be returned to their homelands: “511,597 Internally Displaced People have been registered by UN/IOM [in greater Khartoum, South Darfur and Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal] as expressing their intention to return home.”

Living conditions of returnees

Returning home is no panacea for the inadequate living conditions experienced while displaced. An IRINnews article from May of this year notes that the returnees “still experience limited access to livelihood opportunities and basic services, among other obstacles.”

I visited many villages in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state of Southern Sudan and interviewed dozens of people about their situations. One village elder told me that most of the people in the village have just returned in the past two years. He pointed out a man who had returned the previous week. The new arrival had no place to stay, had no family that he know of and did not have any goats or cows to help establish himself.

Waterhole in War Faj village, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan (March 2009)

In his village of War Faj, where the temperature during my visit in March was 39°C, They did not have a proper well from which to get clean drinking water. A borehole was expected to be dug within about a month of my visit. In the meantime, women (who are responsible for getting water for their families) had two options for getting water: One is to take all day to fill one jerry can from their local water hole (above photo) or walk to the next well, three to four kilometres away and wait in line with other women to fill their cans and walk all the way back with excessive weight on their heads.

War Faj village centre, villagers of War Faj, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan (March 2009)

Villagers of War Faj, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan (March 2009)

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Refugees returning to Southern Sudan:

Rebuilding Hope

On January 20th, I returned for a Yellow Fever and Meningococcal Meningitis. A third visit was on February 10 for my only cholera shot and the second booster of Hepatitis B. I also had to decide whether or not to get a prescription for anti-malarial pills based on possible side-effects. Today was my last visit to get final boosters for Hepatitis A (second of two) and Hepatitis B (third of three).

Below are images of the pages in my Travel Immunization Record that testify to my vaccination diet over the last little while.

One Yellow Fever vaccine is good for ten years.

One polio shot is for life. One Tetanus Diphtheria shot is good for 10 years.

Two Hepatitis A shots are good for 20 years or more.

I recount anecdotes of my time in Southern Sudan to friends, family, journalists and am reminded of how little we know about the place, which beckons a second visit. How the media focuses on the war in Darfur, or the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir but completely ignore the immense challenges facing the southern part of the country as it adapts to times of relative peace four years after the signing of the January 9, 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended 21 years of civil war.

Few people I’ve spoken with realize that Sudan is divided in two: Sudan and Southern Sudan with a coalition Government of National Unity dominated by President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party for the whole of Sudan, and a semi-autonomous Southern Sudan led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. Salva Kiir is also First Vice-President of Sudan under the power-sharing peace deal. Even fewer people I’ve spoken with are aware that under the mandate of the CPA, Southern Sudan is scheduled—at the end of its post-war six-year interim period—to hold a referendum in 2011 that will determine whether or not Africa’s largest country will be divided, giving independence to the South.

In the meantime, what has happened to the one million people that have been living as refugees in neighbouring countries for up to two decades, or to the four million Internally Displaced People (IDPs) who were uprooted from their homes when they fled the fighting? More than two million have already returned to their traditional homeland in the south, which was devastated by the war. How are the returnees adjusting to the tenuous peace now that they have returned to regions they no longer recognize, or for the younger ones, have never lived in?

Below are IDPs during their return to Southern Sudan in 2008 as coordinated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Nearly all of the Southern Sudanese I had the pleasure of speaking with while visiting the south have returned to their traditional homelands only within the last two years. Many left when they were very young while some were born in exile, which required of them complete readaptation to a homeland they do not know.

Why is our media uninterested in following the story of an African region the size of France after the end of what has been described as the Twentieth Century’s longest and bloodiest civil war? Five million displaced and two mimmion dead! What is it about the initiation of peace and democracy that persuades news editors to look elsewhere for stories? This virtual blackout of information about Southern Sudan is what led me to visit. I wanted to meet the people who are making the transition to a peaceful society.

Now that I’ve returned, I have more questions than before, but they are no longer based on a total lack of information. How does a rebel army like the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) make the transition from rebel forces to official army of Southern Sudan and member of the Joint Integrated Units with its former foe, the Sudan Armed Forces? How is former soldier, Lt. General Salva Kiir Mayardit adapting to his new job as President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and First Vice President of  Sudan’s interim Government of National Unity (GNU)? What are the most imposing obstacles to the peace agreement (and there are many: serious underdevelopment, food insecurity,  intertribal conflicts, international pressures, border disputes, resource sharing, slow/non implementation of CPA requirements, census results, February 2010 national elections, the 2011 independence referendum, etc.)

I will attempt to address the above questions and others in future posts to this blog so I invite you to return here and comment on what your read. I am in regular contact with people I met in Southern Sudan and will be following their stories and the story of Sudan as it unfolds. I’ve just begun to review the thousands of photographs, hours of video footage, dozens of audio interviews, and the pages and pages of notes taken throughout my trip. I’ve started reading the books, reports, newspapers and documents I picked up while in Southern Sudan and have consolidated the names and contact details of people I met there. I’m reviewing websites of organizations I came across in Sudan and am adding links to the relevant ones to the sidebar on this blog. There are many news blogs that provide regularly updated news about Sudan, many of which I’ve added RSS feeds here as well.

Burningbillboard.org is my South Sudan resource gathering point. If you are interested, it can also be yours.

I haven’t had the opportunity to post in the last two weeks as I continued to visit sites, interview people and learn more about the complexities of Southern Sudan.

Once I return to Montréal in early May, I will begin to review my pages of notes and hundreds of photos taken during the sevens weeks in Southern Sudan. I will view the hours of video footage and listen to the dozens of audio interviews recorded during the visit. The books, newspapers, reports and other written documentation collected during the visit will be read and analysed upon return.

Here are a selection of photographs taken during the visit that portray remnants of Sudan’s civil war that ended in January 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Most photos were taken in Abyei Transitional Area and reflect the city of Abyei since the May 2008 Crisis that erupted in fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, leaving the town much destroyed.

IMAGES FROM WAU:

IMAGES FROM ABYIE:

Documents obtained under the Privacy Act (.pdf 169Mb or ZIP 52Mb) and available from the website of the People’s Commission on Immigration Security Measures indicate that Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, was incarcerated in Sudan on the request of Canadian officials. While in prison in December 2003, he was interrogated by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Since his release in July 2006, he has been blocked from returning home to Montréal.

Mr. Abdelrazik’s family lives in Montréal and has not seen him since he left for Sudan in 2003. Human rights activists and citizens groups have began a public campaign to repatriate Abousfian Abdelrazik. Project Fly Home, raised enough funds from at least 171 Canadian citizens to purchase a airline ticket to take Abdelrazik back to Canada. His ticket is scheduled for April 3, 2009.

UPDATE: Abousfian returned home to Montréal on Saturday June 27, 2009 around midnight after a six-year forced exile in Sudan, where he experienced torture, imprisonment without trial, and over one year trapped in the Canadian embassy. All with the involvement of Canadian officials.

- Abdelrazik pleads to clear his name: ‘I want to live like a normal Canadian — G&M July 24, 2009

- Abdelrazik describes details of interrogation in Sudan — Toronto Star July 23, 2009

- Abdelrazik ‘very glad to come back home’ — CBC June 27, 2009

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Below is a timeline taken from the ‘Project Fly Home’ campaign organizers:
1990
Mr. Absoufian Abdelrazik, flees the violence of a civil war and coup in Sudan, arrives in Canada and is granted political refugee status.

1995
Mr. Absoufian Abdelrazik becomes a Canadian citizen.

2000
After the arrest of Ahmed Ressam, the millennium bomber, Mr. Abdelrazik and other Muslims living in Montreal come under close surveillance by Canadian counter-terrorism agents. Mr. Abdelrazik says it amounts to harassment so severe that he calls the Montreal police for help. He is never charged with any crime, denies any connection with al-Qaeda and testifies for the prosecution at Mr. Ressam’s trial.

2003
MARCH 23: He arrives in Khartoum from Montréal, travelling on his Canadian passport to visit his mother.

SEPTEMBER 12: Mr. Abdelrazik is arrested and imprisoned by Sudan.

DECEMBER: Interrogated by people he identifies as “Canadians” while in prison. Mr. Abdelrazik says he was repeatedly beaten and tortured. In an affidavit this year, he admits to telling his interrogators “what they wanted to hear.”

2004
JULY: Mr. Abdelrazik is released from prison after 11 months. He was expected to fly home to Canada with a Lufthansa-Air Canada ticket paid for by his family. A Canadian diplomat was to escort him on temporary travel papers because his passport had expired.

JULY 23: The flight home is scrapped at the last minute when Air Canada and Lufthansa refuse to carry him on the grounds that he has been added to the U.S. no-fly list, even through routing doesn’t involve a U.S. stop. Mr. Abdelrazik is not told about the U.S. no- fly list but is told that the government of Canada is powerless to tell airlines to transport him. He’s required to live in a police-owned and monitored house.

JULY 29:  In DFA Case Note 123, senior consular official Odette Gaudet-Fee, says when Mr. Abdelrazik’s wife inquired about chartering a private plane, she was told that the government would not pay for this.

SEPTEMBER 29: Senior Sudan official warns Canadian diplomats that “Sudan realized however that keeping an innocent man in detention was a human-rights violation. So far, they had prevented him from having access to news media and HR organizations but this could not go on forever. He thought that protest and public attention to this story would impact adversely on both our countries. In particular, it would tarnish Canada’s reputation in Arab countries.”

OCTOBER 10: Sudan offers a private aircraft to get Abdelrzik to Canada if Canada will contribute to costs and provide escorts.

OCTOBER 31: Canada is not prepared to contribute to the cost of the flight and also not prepared to provide an escort for Mr. Abdelrazik on the flight.

NOVEMBER 24:Then-PM Paul Martin arrives in Khartoum on a Canadian military Airbus with seating for more than 150. Embassy officials thwart Mr. Abdelrazik’s efforts to meet with PM and the aircraft leaves with scores of empty seats. A senior official travelling with the prime minister meets Mr. Abdelrazik.

2005
APRIL 13: Canada’s senior diplomat in Sudan agrees to tell Mr. Abdelrazik “I can assure you that the Govt of Canada has had no involvement whatsoever in any decision to place your name on such lists.”

MAY 9: Senior Foreign Affairs diplomat warns that Mr. Abdelrazik “has reached the end of his rope, he has no money, no future, very little freedom and no hope. Should this case break wide open in the media, we may have a lot of explaining to do.”

JULY 26: Sudan Minister of Justice issues Mr. Abdelrazik a formal document exonerating him. We “did not find any evidence’” linking him to terrorism or crime or al-Qaeda.

OCTOBER 5: With a Canadian delegation scheduled to visit, Mr. Abdelrazik is arrested again and detained, without charge. Canadian consular access is denied. But an undated and heavily redacted Canadian Foreign Affairs document marked secret and carrying a CSIS stamp says he was imprisoned “at our request,” but it isn’t clear whether that was the first, second or both times.

DECEMBER 16: In a cable marked secret, diplomats warn Ottawa that “further delay in this case risks the perception of complacency on the part of the Government should this case become public, especially given our repeated observations regarding Mr. Abdelrazikis increasingly desperate frame of mind.”

2006
JULY 20: He is released from prison after 10 months as the Sudanese say they cannot hold an “innocent” man. A Canadian diplomat, in a message to Ottawa, says he “appears to be a broken man,” but Ottawa tells diplomats to tell Mr. Abdelrazik they won’t give him a passport or travel documents.

JULY 23: The United States formally designates him a terrorist “for his high-level ties to and support for the al-Qaeda.”

JULY 31: He’s added to UN Security Council terrorist no-fly blacklist by the U.S. All his personal assets are frozen. The ban, however, specifically exempts travel for return to the country of citizenship, for the fulfillment of a judicial process and for other justifications (such as for medical and religious purposes) if allowed by the U.N.

DECEMBER 16: A secret document sent from Khartoum to senior Foreign Affairs and security officials in Ottawa says, “Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested on September 10, 2003 [word blacked out] recommendation by CSIS, for suspected involvement with terrorist elements.”

2007
MAY 15: Mr. Abdelrazik is called by the Sudanese secret police for an interrogation by a visiting FBI anti-terrorist team. He asks for Canadian consular help, but Ottawa expresslyforbids diplomats in Khartoum to escort him. After the interrogation, Canadian diplomats report to Ottawa that Mr. Abdelrazik was told that “he will never return to Canada” unless he co-operates fully.

NOVEMBER 6: In the process of examining Aboudelrazik’s request for de-listing from the U.N. list, CSIS declared that it had “no current substantial information regarding Mr. Abdelrazik”.

NOVEMBER 15: RCMP anti-terrorism branch formally tells Harper government that it has “conducted a review of its files and was unable to locate any current and substantive information that indicates Mr. Abdelrazik is involved in criminal activity.”

2008
FEBRUARY 22: Despite RCMP’s exoneration, CSIS’s most recent terrorist update summary still says Abdelrazik received training at the Khalden camp in Afghanistan in 1996 and is important Islamic Jihad activist.”

MARCH 25: Maxime Bernier, the Canadian foreign minister, visits Khartoum. His chief of staff and MP Deepak Obhrai meet with Mr. Abdelrazik, who lifts his shirt to show scars that he says were from torture and beatings while in prison.

APRIL: Sean Robertson, a senior foreign affairs official, formally writes to Mr. Abdelrazik’s lawyers assuring them that the government of Canada had already “transmitted our support for Mr. Abdelrazik’s de−listing request to the 1267 Committee,” (the Security Council resolution bearing that number that blacklists known al−Qaeda members).

APRIL 18: Sean Robinson, director of consular affairs in the Department of Foreign Affairs, confirms in writing that “we stand by the commitment” to “ensure that [Mr. Abdelrazik] has an emergency travel document to facilitate his return to Canada.”

APRIL 20: Senior Transport Canada intelligence and security officials, in a classified document say, “Senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik’s return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list.” Transport Canada documents state it was the U.S. no-fly lists that prevented Mr. Abdelrazik’s return to Canada when he was released from prison in July 2005.

APRIL 29: Mr. Abdelrazik seeks refuge in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum. Mr. Bernier grants him “temporary safe haven,” suggesting that he poses no threat to the embassy but may be at risk of re-imprisonment in Sudan.

SEPTEMBER 15: Etihad Airlines agrees to fly Mr. Abdelrazik from Khartoum to Toronto via Abu Dhabi on this date. The Canadian government fails to deliver on its promise, first made in 2004, that Mr. Abdelrazik, like all Canadian citizens, is entitled to emergency travel documents to return home.

DECEMBER 23: Passport Canada adds a new condition – a fully paid-for ticket, not just a confirmed reservation – must be presented before Mr. Abdelrazik will be issued emergency travel documents. Mr. Abdelrazik is destitute. The government says it must seize his assets and anyone who gives him any money is committing a crime.

2009
MARCH 12: One hundred and sixteen Canadians break federal law by contributing towards the purchase of a plane ticket for Mr. Abdelrazik with a departure date set for April 3. The government has untilthen to issue travel documents.

(Most of this timeline appears in a March 5, 2009 article entitled “Exiled in Khartoum: CSIS asked Sudan to arrest Canadian, files reveal” written by Globe and Mail Correspondent Paul Koring. Additional sources, Globe and Mail.)

MARCH 20: CSIS posted a request on its website asking SIRC to investigate its role in Mr. Abdelrazik’s detention in Sudan, hoping to clear itself of allegations that it had acted inappropriately.

MARCH 27: Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon says Mr. Abdelrazik must have his name removed from the 1267 UN no-fly list before the government will issue travel documents.

APRIL 3: On the day Mr. Abdelrazik is booked to fly home, Minister Cannon uses his discretionary powers under the Canadian Passport Order to bar Mr. Abdelrazik from coming home. He continues to wait in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum.

APRIL 28: One year anniversary of Mr. Abdelrazik’s “temporary safe haven” in Canadian embassy in Khartoum.

MAY 7: Court hearing begins in Ottawa where Mr. Abdelrazik is seeking a mandatory order to compel the government to bring him back “on any safe means at its disposal.” The motion is based on section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which states, “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.”

Here is the transcript of the audio report with a few added photos:

Exactly three weeks ago, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur. Like many people in Sudan, I was glued to the television set to view the announcement. It was 4 p.m.

An anonymous blogger who worked for an international aid agency in Darfur wrote on AlertNet, that one hour after the announcement was made, his agency received a phone call. “The Government had revoked our licence and we must close all our programmes. No further explanation. First thing the next day we were told all international staff had to leave Darfur by 4 p.m.” They had to be out of the area exactly 24 hours after the ICC announcement.

According the the UN’s Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 13 International Agencies were expelled:
- Action contre la faim
- Solidarité
- Save the Children (UK & US)
- Medecins Sans Frontières (NL & FR)
- CARE International
- Oxfam (GB)
- Mercy Corps
- International Rescue Committee
- Norwegian Refugee Council
- CHF International
- PADCO
- And three Sudanese relief agencies were also closed.

The International Herald Tribune reported on March 21, that armed men looted Oxfam’s Darfur Warehouse, “stealing all of its contents.” While in Malual Kon, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State where Mercy Corps has a compound, I learned that all of their equipment from their Darfur and Khartoum operations were seized since their expulsion: computers, communication radios, everything. Since their communication system was centred in Khartoum, they have had to reorganize their communication strategy for their activities in Southern Sudan.

Internews—which is an International NGO affiliated with Mercy Corps—coordinates Nhomlaau FM in Malual Kon. It has three other community radio stations in Southern Sudan. One of these is located in  Kurmuk, Blue Nile State, which is within the North/South transitional area. The radio station there was nearly closed along with Mercy Corps, but they managed to continue broadcasting by arguing their independence of the US-based NGO.

I’ve been travelling throughout Southern Sudan for the past four weeks and was recently in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state, which shares its northern border with Southern Darfur. According to the IRIN News Network, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal is expecting an influx of Internally Displaced People (or IDPs) from Southern Darfur as conditions are expected to deteriorate as a result of the expulsion of the 16 NGOs. Although the report suggests that the UN and the Southern Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission are “are preparing for potential inflows of Darfuris,”  their arrival will certainly put a strain on the area’s already scarce infrastructure.

IDPs returning to Northern Bahr el_Ghazal in 2007 (courtesy IOM)

Since 2007, there has been a coordinated transport of hundreds of thousands of IDP returnees to Northern Bahr el-Ghazal from Southern Darfur and Khartoum. These people are returning to their homeland after being displaced during Sudan’s other civil war that ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. Many are returning to rural locations without access to sanitation, safe drinking water, clinics or schools.

According to the International Organization for Migration (or IOM), many villages in the area have had a rate of IDP Returnees as high as 80-90% of their pre-2007 population. 2007 is the year when organized returns of Internally displaced people began in earnest with the help of IOM and the government of Southern Sudan.

waterhole in War Faj, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal

Access to safe drinking water is already in short supply throughout the state for those already living there. The influx of Darfuris could cause serious tensions at existing water sources and could lead to localized conflict. Waterborne infectious diseases, like cholera and meningitis, could become a serious problem.

To make matters worse, the rainy season is approaching. By the end of April, road travel will be become difficult and delivery of goods will be seriously impaired. Rain is a serious matter in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and neighbouring states. During the 2008 rainy season the state experienced serious flooding. During my time in the area, I’ve driven past remnants of nearly half a dozen temporary camps where thousands were displaced to during last year’s flooding.

Flood Map of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and Warrap States (courtesy UNJLC, Juba)

A  March 1, 2009 report from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, writes, “The potential movement of 1.5 million displaced Darfur residents into Southern Sudan’s Northern and Western Bahr el-Ghazal states, due to disruptions in humanitarian assistance, presents a severe threat to food security in the two states.”

During a visit to Darfur four days after the ICC arrest warrant was issued President Al-Bashir said that his decision to expel the 16 NGOs from Darfur was “irreversible.” The position of the Khartoum government has not changed since, although they have vowed to replace the international NGOs with Sudanese agencies and end the need for aid in Darfur within the year. No clear solution is in sight.

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An interesting article about Fallout Scenarios as a result of the expulsion of 16 NGOs from Darfur can be found here.

We drive for one and a half hours, averaging 25 km/hour, along dirt roads that will become impassable during the rainy season, which is expected to begin toward the end of April and last until October. As we approach the village of Lurcuk, Community Health Workers place the megaphone speaker onto the roof of the vehicle and announce their arrival. We continue toward the big tree by the local clinic and its borehole to set up registration and immunization tables.

Registration starts immediately after a public education information session about immunization. Mothers and their children continue to arrive. The two Community Health Workers who give the needles into the arms and legs of the villagers, and dispense the polio drops into the mouths of children work at a frantic pace for four hours non-stop. I am amazed at their patience in dealing with screaming and crying children who resist their efforts.

In total, 276 children were immunized for various childhood diseases like measles, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and 167 women of childbearing years received tetanus vaccines.

Below is a portrait gallery of villagers from Lurcuk, North Tonj County, Warrap State, Southern Sudan, who just received vaccinations under the big tree by the local clinic. They are each holding a piece of paper, on which is written their name, the vaccines they received and the date. All the photos were taken on Friday, March 21, 2009.

Since I began this journey through Southern Sudan, I am indeed in perpetual motion. I have only returned to a place (Wau airport and the UNICEF offices) once. Otherwise, I’m moving ever forward, visiting new places with my gear on my back (or most often in the back of an Land Rover).

What does this MoJo carry in Southern Sudan? What is needed to do the job properly without being overloaded, without sacrificing mobility. So far, I’ve taken six flights in planes varying in size that seat hundreds or just over a dozen passengers. On World Food Program flights in Southern Sudan, passengers are limited to 15kgs in total baggage. This is their policy but in practice, my bags have yet to be weighed.

I sometimes wish I had different equipment, better equipment, lighter equipment but I made choices before leaving and the choices are reflected in the below photo of the equipment I brought with me.

This MoJo’s Equipment:

list of equipment:

1. One three-outlet two-metre extension cord + plug adapter

2. One 1000ml water bottle

3. One AA battery charger and one video camera battery charger

3a. Six AA rechargable batteries and three Panasonic video camera rechargable batteries

4. Panasonic PV-GS65, 3CCD miniDV camcorder

5. Pure Digital Flip Video minoHD

6. Twenty one-hour MiniDV cassettes

7. One Petzl frontal head lamp

8. One USB-camera cable (for both camera and microphone), One ethernet cable, One firewire cable

9. One Candle lantern

10. One notebook and many pens

11. One pair of binoculars

12. One first aid kit

13. Ten recordable DVDs for backup photos, video and text

14. One international press card

15. One MacBook Pro laptop computer with editing software: FlipVideo (video), Final Cut Pro HD (video), Audacity (audio), Adobe Photoshop (photo), OpenOffice (text)…

16. One ipod nano (to listen to familiar music on lonely nights)

17. Zoom H2 microphone (also used as USB memory key)

18. One nearly finished role of toilet paper (gotta find myself a replacement! FAST!)

19. Two cell phones + chargers + three sim cards (Safaricom: Nairobi, Gemtel: Juba & other towns in S.Sudan, Zain: Juba and other towns in S.Sudan.) On my business card that I had made for this trip, I have the following list of cellphone numbers: Zain: +249 (0) 909 043 138; Gemtel: +256 (0) 477 151 332; Thuraya: +88216 4333 5305; Safaricom: +254 (0) 715 657 317) ***see note below on the use of cell phones in Southern Sudan.

20. One Thuraya satelite phone + charger + one sim card

21. one traditional single seat wooden chair for meetings under the village tree.

missing in photo:

22. Sony DSC-W1 Cybershot 5.1 megapixel digital camera (used to take the above photo)

23. Three x two-Gig SD memory cards

24. Flip Video strapon-pod to hold camera onto a variety of structures

25. I wish I had brought my tripod, but I realized that I forgot it after my arrival in Juba. I was unable to find a tripod anywhere in the capital of Southern Sudan.

*** A note on the use of cell phones in Southern Sudan: Southern Sudan is a complicated place on many regards and telephone communication is no exception. First let it be known that LAN lines are nowhere to be found or rare at best. If there were LAN phone lines before the war, 21 years of conflict didn’t leave many behind. Most communication by phone is either by cellphone or by satelite phone. I say most because I’ve seen LAN phones but I’ve never seen anyone using them. Everyone is on a cellphone or two or three. And this is where it gets complicated.

Southern Sudan feels like a frontiere town during Wild West days, when large numbers of people arrived in a seemingly uninhabited place without modern conveniences. Entrepreneurs invariably competed to be the first to fulfill the needs of the population. In Southern Sudan, cellular companies are setting up their towers throughout the South and competing for customer affiliation.

Gemtel is a private telecom from Southern Sudan that, according to the Sudan Tribune received a franchise to use a Ugandan national code (+256) since 2006 by Uganda Telecom Ltd. The article states that Gemtel was supposed to stop using its country code in September 2008 but my Gemtel # still uses the Ugandan area code so it is unclear when their code will change and what that will mean for subscribers. Two other companies, Zain and Sudani use the (+249) code and both have a better distribution network throughout the south. If you have a Zain, Mobitel or Sudani simcard you can communicate between the two services but you cannot send or receive a call from cellphone with a Gemtel simcard.

Gemtel seems to have been the first to set up in Southern Sudan since the end of the war with particular focus on the capital, Juba. So many people have Gemtel numbers. Then comes Zain, the Kuwaiti Mobile Telecommunications Corporation, which according to Reuters, began setting up mobile services throughout Southern Sudan in late April 2008 that provide more coverage than was previously available. Mobitel and Sudani show up from Khartoum, which sell their cell lines only with a phone that cannot use another company’s simcard.

Communication by cellphone is only possible from within major towns in Southern sudan, so the moment you leave a town, you need a Thuraya satelite phone. A satelite phone can only receive or send calls if the phone is outside. If you are inside a building or under a roof of some kind the satelite signal will not reach your phone. Calling between Thuraya subscribers is somewhat inexpensive but once you try to call a cell or LAN line, it gets very expensive.

So if you want to communicate relatively easily, you need either one cellphone that can hold multiple simcards at once and one satelite phone if you travel outside of a town. Many people have up to three cellphones and some have a satelite phone as well. It’s a pleasure to watch people waltz between their phones or switch simcards in their phone depending on who their are calling. It is less a pleasure when trying to reach someone who is doing the waltz out of step with you. Oh, on another note, everyone buys prepaid credit for their calling needs, so many people have just run out of credit and are not near a phonecard distributor and will therefore be unable to call you back once they’ve missed your call because they were on another phone talking to someone else.