A woman from Lurcuk Payam receives a tetanus vaccination, March 20, 2009. (by David Widgington)

[Montréal, Québec, Canada -1°C] I visited Southern Sudan March/April 2009. It seems like such a long time ago. Reviewing the video footage and photographs I took during my visit, brings me back. Below is my latest video montage of a particular day: March 20, 2009.

This is the day I joined a team of World Vision staff on one of their vaccination programs. We went to Lurcuk Payam in Tonj North County, Warrap State. The one-and-a-half-hour drive along bumpy roads that are inaccessible during the rainy season, took us past clusters of traditional tukul homes and herds of strolling big-horned cows.

We arrived at 11h00 under the shade of the biggest tree that stood outside of the local clinic and borehole well where women come to fetch water. Two vaccinators spent five hours giving innoculations for measles, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria and tetanus. In all, 276 Lurcuk children are vaccinated and 167 women of childbearing years receive a tetanus vaccine.

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Census and Voter Registration

A Juba resident makes her registration for the Natonal Elections in April 2010, by Bonifacio Taban.

There are prerequisites to conducting a democratic election that include a census of the population to determine who can vote and in which electoral constituency. The Sudan census has been contested by the SPLM and analysed by others.

Citizens are required to add themselves to the voter list during the voter registration process, followed by a verification of the voter list after its publication. The Carter Center provided observers to provide an impartial assessment of the process. Registration of political party lists with their representatives ended yesterday after a seven-day extension. 

Political Campaigning

Once the politicians place themselves inside the arena of an election, democratic principles require than they are able to voice their positions in an election campaign. This is when they can criticize current government practices and provide an alternative approaches to governence that will make the electorate choose them on a ballot. In Sudan, elections campaigning begins on February 13 and ends on April 9, two days before voting begins.

The Sudan Electionnaire is an English/Arabic quiz that will compare you view on 30 debated issues with the positions of the 16 main parties for the upcoming elections. Once the set of questions are completed a ranking shows how your answers match party programmes. A very interesting tool that was released by The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Sudan, the University of Khartoum Institute of Peace Research with funding from the UK Department for International Development.

Media Coverage

Thousands of wind-up and solar-powered blue radios distributed by NDI in Sudan are bringing a dialogue about national issues to isolated communities. (courtesy: National Democratic Institute)

Even before campaigning starts, the media’s role in election coverage is crucial. Radio, television, print, online media and ‘under-the-village-tree’ journalists act as messengers between the voters and those seeking votes. Journalists provide analysis and perspective to the public debate and hold politicians accountable to their proposed platforms and promises as the campaign progresses. They also provide an amplified mouthpeice to citizens wishing to express their opinions to the politicians and other citizens. Sudan Votes, another website affiliated with Sudan Electionnaire, has election reporting resources including a media code of conduct, a Reuters Reporter’s Guide to Election Coverage (.pdf), election broadcast guidelines, and media election process reference material.

Voter Education

Sudan has not held elections in 24 years and a civil war raged in the country for most of those years, so the election process is not well known by the Sudanese. With literacy rates among the lowest in the world (see chart below), particualrly in poorly developed Southern Sudan and Darfur, voter education is a significant challenge if the April elections are to be fair and democratic. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) prepared a Sudan Civic and Voter Education Baseline Study (.pdf) in 2008 with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency.

Electoral System

Typical elections might require the selection of one, two or three representatives. (view a clip, below, of the first presidential election in Afghanistan,  in 2004) In Southern Sudan, each electorate will have twelve (12) representatives to choose from for three levels of government.

Three votes will be cast to select 1) the President of the Republic of Sudan, 2) the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, and 3) the respective State Governor.

North versus South Sudan Statistics (courtesy: Oxfam, UN)

Southern Sudanese will have three votes to cast for each of the following three legislatures: 1) the National Assembly in Khartoum, 2) the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly in Juba, and 3) the State Legislative Assembly in their respective State. Each of the three legislature votes is divided into three components: 1) 60% of the members are elected to represent geographical constituencies at their respective levels, 2) 25% of the seats are to be filled by women members elected by proportional representation from party lists at state level, and 3) 15% of the members are elected by proportional representation also from party lists at the state level.

Considering the above literacy and education rates in Southern Sudan, it will take considerable effort to educate the average electorate about the details of such a complex ballot system.

Ballot Papers

Drafting ballot papers that will allow illiterate citizens to make their selection is a design challenge of mammoth proportions. There are at least sixteen political parties vying for votes in Sudan. Many of the parties are represented on the twelve seperate ballots in the South. Each ballot will have to distinguish each representative from the other, and a ballot will need to quickly depict which seat in which legislative assembly are the representatives seeking election. They elaborate electoral system will all have to be represented visually and comprehensively in a complex election that can confuse experienced literate voters.

Polling Stations

The logistical demands of establishing up to 30,000 polling stations, printing approximately 220 million ballot papers representing the various constituencies, then distributing them—with the ballot boxes and other material—to each of the polling locations is daunting in itself. It is particularly challenging in a country the size of Sudan where lack of basic infrastructure, community remoteness and insecurity can interfere with the most coordinated of efforts.

Sudan’s April 2010 elections may be the most complex elections ever organized. Anywhere. Considering that a self-determination referendum is expected in 2011, one wonders if it would have been more realistic and appropriate to hold a simpler election process. Perhaps it would have been sufficient to elect only the three executive seats: President of the Republic of Sudan, President of the Government of Southern Sudan and Governor of each state. The simplification could have left constituent representative elections for a post-referendum Sudan, which most observers agree will result in a yes vote for independence of the South from the rest of Sudan.

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Watch a video clip by Dominique Morissette of Afghanistan’s first presidential elections held on November 9, 2004. The video is best viewed in full-screen mode.

We left Sudan because of war and now we are going back for the first time in twenty years.

(source: Map No. 3707 Rev. 10, UNITED NATIONS, Department of Peacekeeping Operations Cartographic Section, April 2007; demarcation line source is US Department of State)

The Sudan has been at war with itself in two successive civil wars since its independence in 1956 from British rule in the southern region and British-administered Egyptian rule in the rest (Anyanya 1: 1956-1972 & Anyanya 2: 1983-2005). Colonial powers may have decided to create Africa’s largest country by maintaining the two administrative regions together but they may just as easily have divided the country along the Jan 1, 1956 Line of Demarcation. Power in a post-colonial Sudan was handed over to the political elite in Khartoum to the detriment of Southern Sudan, Darfur, and other peripheral regions far from the capital. Power, wealth, resources and development have always been tightly controlled by a small click of autocrats based at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile rivers. This Line of Demarcation is the divide that is now a defining line needing negotiations should Southerners vote for independence in a 2011 self-determination referendum, scheduled in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the second civil war in January 2005.

In the late 1980s, the war’s front line moved agressively through the border areas now dividing Southern Sudan from the rest of the country. When the war reached Koor’s, Gabriel Bol’s and Garang’s villages near Akon—where Northern Bahr el Ghazal meets Warrap state—everyone ran for survival. Those not fast enough were killed. Some managed to hide. Others, mostly children, were taken by northern government-backed militia and enslaved, like Koor’s younger brother Chol who we meet in the film after he is released from bondage and brought to Nairobi begin school.

Families were scattered as militia burned villages, killed their inhabitants and stole cattle. They ran in all directions to escape. Boys, often quick and nimble, ran the fastest and furthest away from the killing. As the youth continued to evade the war, they found themselves merging into growing bands of lost youth heading east toward safety. More than fifty thousand Sudanese eventually settled into one of five refugee camps in Ethiopia. In 1991, Ethiopia’s Mengistu government, allies to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), fell. The new government chased the refugees out of Ethiopia, leaving the film’s three protagonists to roam for another year toward Kakuma II Refugee Camp in northern Kenya where they met.

Chris Koor Garang enrolls his younger brother, Chol, into a boarding school in Nairobi, Kenya. (courtesy Rebuilding Hope)

In 2001, the United States established the Refugee Resettlement Program for 4000 southern Sudanese refugees from Kakuma. Koor Garang was resettled in Tuscon, Arizona. Garang Mayuol went to Chicago, Illinois. Gabriel Bol Deng went to Syracuse, New York. A great book that should be read before viewing the film is David Eggers (2006) What is the What: the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. It provides the Lost Boys context in more detail than the film, which will help the viewer better understand where Koor, Garang and Gabriel are coming from.

Each of the three boys’ (now men’s) stories are similar. They are representative of many “lost boys” who immigrated from refugee camps for distant countries, recieved an education and are beginning to return to Southern Sudan. Some are returning permanently to work in the government, to teach, to start businesses, etc. Others are going back as philanthropic visitors to build schools, supply clinics, etc.

The three grown men share the common goal of locating their families that they haven’t seen since the war sent them fleeing their respective village so long ago. Some members of their families now live in the same villages from which they ran. Others now live in larger state capitals. Some have fallen victim to the war and were killed like two million other Sudanese.

Gabriel Bol Deng in home village (courtesy: Rebuilding Hope)

Chris Koor Garang is studying to become a registered nurse and works as a Licensed Practical Nurse. He has set up a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) (The Ubuntu) to provide medical supplies to the modest Brown Back Medical Centre in Akon, to distribute mosquito nets to local people and share his skills with care givers there.

Gabriel Bol Deng finished his undergraduate degree in mathematics education and is a strong believer that education is the answer to relieve poverty for his people. He started his own NGO (Hope For Ariang) to build a school in his home town of Ariang. When he arrives in Akon, Gabriel Bol meets an uncle at the market and asks the whereabouts of his parents. He is told to go to his home village to find out because he is not the one to say. Upon arrival in the village, an aunt walks up to him, revealing that his mother lives on in Gabriel’s eyes that resembled hers. He later shares an intimate moment under a large and healthy tree and tells us:

Our ancestors, when they die, they know what those people who are alive are doing. And I believe my mom really, and my dad… they know what I’m doing. The tree grew out of where my placenta was buried and it’s where my mom was buried… My mom is giving something back in the form of a tree. This tree is the greatest blessing ever and the greatest connection between me and my mom… There is no better way to honor them than really, to help people and contributing to making life better in Ariang village.

Garang Mayuol's homecoming (coutesy: Rebuilding Hope)

Garang Mayuol’s main goal during his first visit home is to seek out and locate his mother who he hasn’t seen in twenty years. He would also help his two friends with their NGOs. All three of them realized, as they distribute mosquito nets and sewing kits to villagers, that the need quickly surpassed their supplies. The anguish from not being able to provide for everyone is self-evident on each of their faces, particularly when one man repeats to Koor over and over after being told that there are no mosquito nets, “Just one will be enough for me and my kids.” While buyig supplies in Kenya, they decided to purchase less mosquito nets than expected due to weight restrictions on the charter flight to South Sudan. A decision that weighed heavy on their shoulders.

The historical background provided in the film is minimal but it still provides context to the war that displaced four million people, sent one million into refugee camps outside of the country and killed two million. Post-colonial power, typical for the British in retreat, was distributed to a select few to British best interest rather than the best interests of the population as a whole.

Gabriel Bol describes the source of conflict in Sudan when he states that the main source of the problem lies in the hunger for leadership. He says that clicks and specific groups are dominating politics and using religion to divide the people of Sudan.

The film portrays divisions between Arabs and non-Arabs in Sudan within its historical narrative. When referring to the divide-and-conquer strategies of Sudan’s central government in the civil war (Muslim north vs Christian South) and in Darfur (Arab vs black non-Arabs), Marlowe suggests that non-Arab black Darfuris are natural allies of Southerners. The divisions exploited by the Khartoum government are much more complexe and are not necessarily divided along religious, linguistic or ethnic lines. They were exploited along political lines to control power and share wealth to suit their political ends. It is dangerous to hint about such cultural/ethnic divisions prior to a self-determination referendum, because the minorities on both sides of the North/South border will suffer if political powers continue to exploit these divisions to prevent or promote separation of the Sudan.

Despite this, Rebuilding Hope gave me a glimpse at something new in Southern Sudan. The diaspora who left their homeland because of war are returning with hope for the future and a with strong connection to the land and its people they were froced abandoned so long ago.

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Jen Marlowe recently wrote an update about South Sudan and updates us in her article: S. Sudan makes some progress amid possibility of war.

More from Jen Marlowe on Untold Stories: Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting, including a video about education and health care in South Sudan.

Have you seen another film about South Sudan, Lost Boys or about changes taking place in Sudan that we should now about? If you are South Sudanese and have regturned to your homeland to rebuild after being in exile, what is your experience? Please share in the comments below.

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movie trailer:

Local drumist, Ajing Deng beats the drum as the dancers follows along. With him is a very young boy who is also caugh up in the action of drum beating. He is at it at a very young age, but its part of the rich tradition of the Sudanese culture.

International focus moved away from Sudan’s long civil war toward the regional rebellion and government’s genocidal reaction that began in Darfur around 2003. Darfur rebels became active with the objective of being included into the peace talks that resulted with the CPA deal. Unfortunately, they were excluded for reasons that are still not clear to me.

The signing of the CPA initiated a six-year interim period, during which time the central government in Khartoum and the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan are to pass laws that will allow the two regions to coexist. Border issues are to be resolved, oil wealth distribution is to be made equitable, cencus and election legislation is to be passed. According to the CPA, if the two regions are still unable to coexist after the six years, then in 2011, Southern Sudan will hold a self-determination referendum to decide whether or not for independence, creating Africca’s newest independent state.

The 5th anniversary and Sudan’s first democratic, multiparty elections to be held in April 2010 are drawing more attention to the situation in all of Sudan. The myopic, but still important, focus on Darfur is being brought into the fold of the larger and more precarious situation in Southern Sudan, where much of the civil war was fought. If war returns to Southern Sudan, it will consume all of Sudan and the larger region.

One of the symptoms of the resurgent interest in maintaining the CPA in Sudan is Sudan 365, A Beat for Peace. Musicians from around the world (Sudan, UK, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Ireland, Egypt, Rwanda, Spain, Russia, USA, India, and elsewhere), take a video of themselves playing (mostly) percussian instruments that have been edited together in the video below as a single music video. Known artists like Radiohead’s Philip Selway, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, Snow Patrol’s Jonny Quinn, the Police’s Stewart Copeland, have participated.

If you want to add your beat to the melée, you just need to upload your peace beat. It’s time to get the drums out and call your friends!

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Perspective: Sudan – Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

by Dr. Paul J. Sullivan as a Special to the Circle of Blue Water News.

As we approach the January 2011 date for the referendum on the south, and as we see Darfur seemingly in an eerily, but uncertain, peaceful period, we need to look at the water situation in Sudan. Water will be a make or break issue for the peace process in Sudan and in deciding whether the Sudan will move forward in peace and prosperity or more poverty and war. It is a country that went through one of the most brutal civil wars in history. Millions were killed and displaced. Sudan is the country of Darfur, “The lost boys,” and lost generations. One of the driving forces behind the start of the last civil war between the south and the north was the Jonglei Canal. This is an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was to be a canal to bring the water through one of the largest wetlands in the world, The Sudd, more quickly to the north and to Egypt. But those earlier plans did not include much improvement in the lives of the people of the South and along the proposed canal. Dr. John Garang, one of the leaders of the southern rebels wrote his Ph.D. on the Jonglei Canal. The horrors of Darfur can be partly traced back to climate change, rain pattern changes, and water stress. Water is a very big issue in Sudan.

About 80 percent of the people in Sudan find their livelihoods in agriculture. Agriculture is about 40 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for about 97 percent of the water use. Meanwhile 70 percent of agriculture in Sudan is rain fed. The rest of agriculture can find its water through small traditional spate irrigation and via khors, small mostly hand dug canals, or via huge irrigation projects, such as the Gezira project — which uses about 35 percent of Sudan’s water, and the many giant sugar irrigation schemes. Sudan has the largest area of irrigation in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even if this is poorly managed and maintained.

A close up of the fields in the Gezira Scheme, which is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. It is centered on the Sudanese state of Al Jazirah, just southeast of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers at the city of Khartoum.

Water is not just income and jobs in Sudan. It is life, most particularly in the dry areas of the country: in Darfur and in the north while most of the wetlands are found in the south. This huge country has many climate and water zones. It has massive underground water reserves that are part of the largest source of freshwater in the world, the Great Nubian Sandstone aquifer. It also has the large Umm Rawaba and other aquifers. Sudan has the Nile, the Atbara and many other rivers coursing through it. The country is also blessed with the Nile River Basin, which is a watered, mostly underground area that can stretch to 80 percent of the country. As much as 80 to 85 percent of Sudan’s population used the Nile Basin waters. Most of the rains happen in the south. Much of the Nile water comes from other places, like Ethiopia, Uganda and more. The waters from the White Nile and The Atbara in the south and west rise and flood at different times from the Blue Nile and other sources in the east and central parts of the country — no real efforts have been developed to coordinate and better manage these flows and stocks.

Sudan not only faces down the threats from a potential new civil war, it also faces external tensions that could build over the sharing, use and abuse of the Nile across countries in the region. There is only one agreement between the many nations who share the Nile and that was established in 1959 between Sudan and Egypt. As the other countries along the Nile, including the most likely new Sudan in the south, want to develop, demand on the water of the Nile for electricity production, irrigation, industry and more will grow greater. Sudan also shares groundwater resources and sources with other countries. Though the ground water flows, the data on this is as scarce as good management of it.

Astonishingly little of its recharged groundwater and its surface water are used in this often water stressed country. What is used is often wasted with inefficient irrigation methods and even quite destructive rain fed farming methods, and livestock overgrazing. Meanwhile the extraordinarily destructive mechanized agricultural system that is causing huge deforestation, land and river bank erosion, salinization, and more negative effects. Water treatment is almost unheard of in the country, especially in the south. Water-borne diseases are rampant and pesticide poisoning via the water-food chains are likely quite common in some areas. The growth of the mesquite tree and water hyacinth has also wreaked havoc on the country’s water systems.

The precious water of Sudan is being degraded in many areas and wasted in others. Basin and catchment degradation are the norm in many parts of the country. The country is, on average, water rich, but it is management and maintenance poor.

Siltation near small and large dams is common. Suspended solids and stagnant water are common near the dams. Sudan needs the hydroelectricity — it is constantly in a severe energy crisis, but the dams could be more costly to the water and the environment than many may think.

Then there are the very difficult problems of what to do with the huge numbers of returning IDPs and the possible movement of southerners from the north to the south. Also, how are the north and the south to coordinate their water management and water uses? These are very big issues that need to be resolved, or at least managed better.

Sudan can solve its water and related problems with better data collection, better regulations and rule of law, improving incentives for using the water better, and simply managing the water better in an integrated water management system. All of this is easier said than done, but just about everyone who studies the water problems of Sudan, including many world class Sudanese, see the solutions, but also the excruciating practical problems in applying them. Poor governance and lack of governance capacity are huge issues, most particularly in the South.

Water is vital for food production, which is in decline as the population grows in Sudan. Clean water is vital for health and sanitation, but it is rare in and near the cities and even near some of the smaller villages. Most Sudanese use whatever water they can find, and sometimes that water is unhealthy, at times even deadly.

Water, land, food, energy and development are tightly and importantly interlinked. Water is also very much linked to the potential for peace in the country. The tensions and potentials for peace in Darfur, between the north and the south — and amongst many other in other regions, including between local tribes and clans — can be, in part, determined, by the availability, quality, sharing, management and maintenance of water sources in the country.

If the mismanagement and inadequate mediation methods continue we could see more wars and conflicts– and millions more dying and displaced. Water and all of its complex relations with land, development, opportunity, health, and more will be some of the reasons behind these preventable horrors.

Dr. Sullivan is a professor of economics at the National Defense University, Adjunct Professor of Security Studies and STIA at Georgetown University, and an adviser to Sudan projects at the United States Institute of Peace. He is an internationally recognized expert on the Middle East, parts of Africa, and international energy, water and other resource security and conflict issues.

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)

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.

Sudanese children in Juba promote voter registration by handing out posters (Peter Martel, IRIN)

Although the registration in the south began slowly, according to UNDP staff working with the National Election Commission (NEC), it quickly gained momentum in Southern Sudan. The SPLM-controlled region ended voter registration with a higher than average registration rate of around 86%. Today is the last day of the exhibition and objection process whereby a review of the registry is possible. The registration’s final result will be released by the NEC tomorrow.

This high rate of registration in the south may be due to a political pro-registration campaign from the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) which claims that data from the 2008 census underestimates the number of Southerners. The difference may also reflect a high number of people that returned to South since the census. What is interesting is the high turnout in northern states of Southern Sudan.

Mawien Kuc, National Election Commission Chairperson for Northern Bahr el Ghazal (a Southern Sudan state that borders northern Sudan) told the Sudan Tribune , “We will have over one million people registered and ready to take part in the next national election scheduled to take place in April 2010.” Mawien Kuc said, “I am telling you that we really committed our resources for proper mobilization of our people during registration.”

Sudan finances the majority of the registration process while 43% comes from donors.

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SOUTHERN SUDAN ELECTION PREPARATIONS (UNMIS)

To the surprise of researchers, wildlife remains plentiful in southern Sudan's Boma National Park, despite a long civil war, which ended in 2005. Here, a herd of elephants move through a grassland in the park. (Miguel Juarez for NPR)

[Montréal, Québec, Canada -2°C] Before the last civil war started in Sudan in 1983, the country’s protected areas, according to the Wildlife Conservaton Society, “supported some of the most spectacular and important wildlife populations in Africa, and hosted the second largest wildlife migration in the world.” According to their website, “During an aerial survey, more than 1.3 million white-eared kob, tiang (African antelope), and mongalla gazelle are thriving in Southern Sudan.” And apparently, an estimated 8,000 elephants are located within the Jonglei region and particularly in Boma National Park.

This seems like such good news considering that all other information coming from Sudan is about war crimes in Darfur, tribal conflict, a fragile peace agreement and upcoming elections which may or may not be fair and free.

Sudan’s central and southern governments are over-dependent on oil for their respective revenues. Considering most of the developed oil fields straddle the as-yet-undemarkated border that situates the south, oil will play an important role in the country’s ability to hold on to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and avoid a third civil war.

Within the volatile political context that is Sudan, there has been little to no reporting on the country’s natural environment and the potential for wildlife reserves and national parks to become an important source of revenue for the South. Tanzania’s revenues from safari tourism is their second largest source of foreign currency after agricultural exports. And it is steadily growing.

The south is now seriously underdeveloped and lacking in general infrastructure and its primary foreing trade is done in oil, which is managed by the Central govenrment in Khartoum who shares the revenues with the government of Southern Sudan. The South has other exports like gum Africa to gain some foreign currency for its own development but it needs more revenue streams and with greater dieversity.

Of course it will take a while to develop the infrastructure for safari tourism but the southeastern region of Southern Sudan seems apt to offer an important future source of revenue that can rival oil exports.

Considering that wildlife tourism could be added to the important oil export to earn foreign capital, the region’s national parks and wildlife reserves could provide a genuine revenue stream for Southern Sudan’s economy that would diminish oil dependence.

Sudan Oil / Wildlife Overlay (source: Wildlife Conservation Society and European Coalition on Oil in Sudan, 2007)

How will an oil economy adapt to an emerging wildlife conservation economy? Just how do the two share the land? I thought it would be interesting to visualize how the two might complement or conflict with one another. Wildlife conservation and resource exploitation do not make good bedfellows and are unable to share the territory.

The map to the left is an overlay of two maps: one of national parks and wildlife reserves taken from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the other is of oil concessions and exploited oil fields taken from the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan.

It would seem that the Zeraf Reserve and the proposed extension are located in Blocks A, 5A and 5B, three very active regions of oil exploration and exploitation, particularly Block 5A.

The Southern National Park seems to be outside any region of exploration. The Boma National Park as well as the proposed Bandingallo National Park are within Block B at the fringes of oil exploration but not at risk of exploitation and future exploitation.

How these two ‘resources’ will coexist has yet to be seen. Hopefully, the Southern Sudanese will recognize the long-term benefits of protecting the land and its wildlife for their own benefit and the benefit of wildlife enthusiasts rather than succumb to foreign lust for oil. If the so-called ‘international community’ is genuinely interested in helping Sudan hold on to its fragile peace and preventing a third civil war in the Sudan, it needs to begin washing the bloody oil of its hands and help build a local industry that brings money into the country rather than take resources out.

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Further reading:

- After Sudan’s Civil War: Where the Wild Things Are. NPR’s WBUR Radio.

- Fragile peace may unravel in Southern Sudan. CNN

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Below is a video from CNN that give us a first-time glimpse of oil well pollution in Southern Sudan.

National Elections Commission voter registry poster

[Montréal, Québec, Canada -6°C] today is the beginning of the seven-day display of Sudan’s Voter’s Registry. It is a time for people to confirm that their names are on the registry. Not much information about registration results is available nor of the numbers of people who have registered nor percentages of registrants versus eligible voters. This is a time when confusion may emerge while unregistered people check the list and realize that they are not on it and not be able to vote in next year’s April elections.

Al Jazeera’s Inside Story asks if Sudan’s elections can take place on time without a reform to the electoral laws. In this episode, aired yesterday, (Tuesday Dec. 8, 2009) included a discussion with:

• Abdelwahab El-Affendi Senior Research Fellow at the University of Westminster Centre for the Study of Democracy who was in London England;
• Rabie Abdul Atti, Advisor to Sudan’s Ministry of Information who was in Khartoum, Sudan; and
• Ali Al Haj Mohamed, the Deputy Secretary General of Sudan’s Popular Congress Party who was in Bonn, Germany.

A state of mistrust between the partners for peace currently ruling Sudan has put the old North/South rivals back on a collison course. Three senior leaders of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) were briefly held on Monday in a police crackdown against opposition protests which demanded changes to the country’s electoral law.

Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, condemned the arrests, saying they broke the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 that ended a devastating 22-year civil war between North and South. Police had announced that the electoral reform demonstrations would be considered illegal. However, several hundred opposition protesters marched through the streets of Khartoum and Omdurman, waving placards and chanting: “We want our freedom.”

The SPLM and the ruling NCP of Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, have failed to agree on democratic reforms ahead of elections next April.