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!

During a 7-week visit to Southern Sudan, I interviewed over a dozen Southern Sudanese men and women. Each person offers an intimate view of their lives during the 21-year civil war and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. We get a glimpse into their family lives and their hope for a country with an uncertain future.

Alberto, tells about his education first in a Minor Seminary in Kenya, then in a Major Seminary in Khartoum toward his vocation of becoming a priest. He offers a glimpse into the family structure and community influence of being the son of the 19th wife of an Executive Chief. His hopes for a continued peace are revealed as are his willingness to take up arms should an unjust war return to Sudan.

Interview recorded in within the International Organization for Migration compound in Malualkon, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Southern Sudan. the street scenes were filmed from the front passenger seat of an IOM vehicle in the town of Aweil. The photographs were taken during various visits to various villages in Northern Bahr el Ghazal in  March 2009.

Special thanks to everyone at the Malualkon office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and to the villagers in the area who shared their stories with me during my visit.

For other videos from Southern Sudan visit the Video/Audio page.

During a 7-week visit to Southern Sudan, I interviewed about a dozen Southern Sudanese men and women. Each one offers an intimate view of their lives during the 21-year civil war and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. We get a glimpse into their family lives and their hope for a country with an uncertain future.

Interview recorded in Warrap Town, and roving footage from back of motorbike recorded in Wau (March 2009).

Thanks to Martin Peter Siba Mungu for the tour of Wau from the back of his motorcycle.

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For other videos from Southern Sudan visit the Video/Audio page.

The arbitration agreement between the Government of Sudan and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) was received by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on July 11, 2008 with both parties agreeing to a “final and binding” decision by the tribunal.

On July 14, 2004, the Abyei Boundaries Commission published its report that outlined Abyei’s boundaries to an area that was much larger than Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party previously claimed. They subsequently rejected the commission’s report, stating that the Commission exceeded its mandate. The case was then referred to the Tribunal.

Arbitration Award Map (source: Permanent Court of Arbitration, July 22, 2009)

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The Tribunal’s mandate was to determine whether the Abyei Boundaries Commission exceeded its mandate “to define and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka cheifdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.” The Tribunal determined the excess of mandate by reviewing the Abyei Boundaries Commission (ABC)’s interpretation and implementation of their mandate. The Tribunal’s press release reads, “The Tribunal therefore finds that the ABC Experts DID NOT EXCEED their mandate in interpreting their mandate…”

The Tribunal concludes however “that the ABC Experts EXCEEDED their mandate in certain areas of its implementation.” The ABC’s mandate was exceeded for the drawing of the northernmost border of the “Ngok Dinka and Misseriya’s ’shared rights’ area at latitude 10°35′N [...] because they did not provide sufficient reasoning.” The Tribunal found that “there was NOT an excess of mandate” regarding the ABC’s drawing of the northern limit of Ngok Dinka’s area of permanent habitation transferred in 1905. However, the eastern and western boundaries chosen by the ABC was determined to be “in excess of mandate for failure to state sufficient reasoning.”

Abyei's former market area (April 2009)

Abyei Arbitration Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration thus delimited a new boundary (see above map) that is somewhat smaller than the one represented in mauve by the Abyei Boundaries Commission.

According to a report by Miraya FM, the head of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party, Al Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed, stated that “the [Tribunal's] decision supports NCP’s vision regarding the [border's] demarcation.” Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, Deng Alor, “welcomed the Court’s decision and assured the movement’s commitment of the ruling.” Mohamed Ali Alansari, a leader from the Misseriya tribe stated that they are “studying the judgement to determine a final position.”

Central Abyei street scene (April 2009)

Abyei is an important oil-producing region of Sudan, which in 2003 provided approximately 25% of Sudan’s total oil production. Defined within the Abyei Protocol (Chapter IV of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement), Abyei is “the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.” Residents of Abyei are define as “Members of the Ngok Dinka community and other Sudanese residing in the area.” The Arab Misseriya pastoralists are not specifically mentioned as residents of the area and their grazing rights in this pasture-rich region—as prescribed in the Abyei Protocol—are a source of conflict.

Central Abyei street scene (April 2009)

The Protocol outlines the sharing of oil revenues between the northern Government of National Unity and the Government of Southern Sudan. The CPA provides for a self-determination referendum for Southern Sudan in 2011, as well as a separate ballot referendum within Abyei “to retain its special administrative status in the north” or “to be part of Bahr el Ghazal” located in the south. Abyei’s decision will be irrespective of the South’s decision in the 2011 self-determination referendum.

Central Abyei street scene (April 2009)

On May 14, 2008, a battle erupted between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee south to the Agok area where most of the displaced people remain in precarious conditions. Much of the town Abyei was destroyed by the conflict. One year later, as these recent photos portray, the town has yet to recover. As a result of the bloody fighting that left up to, the two parties decided to resolve the issue with the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

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Further reading:

- Abyei: Emir of the mujahidin in the Misseriya tribe rejects PCA’s ruling (25 July, 2009)

- Declaration on Abyei ruling by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit (23 July, 2009)

- INSTANT VIEW: Court ruling on Sudan’s Abyei region (22 July, 2009)

- Sudan: Backslaps and caveats over Abyei (22 July 2009)

- Sudan: Abyei Briefing (21 July 2009)

- Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock (12 October 2007)

- Sudan: Abyei Boundary Commission report (16 August 2005)

These elections are a cornerstone of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army. Another is the Southern self-determination referendum, scheduled for 2011 at the end of the peace deal’s six-year interim period. Both are absolutely dependent on the results of Sudan’s 2008 National Census.

On June 28, 2009, Eric Reeves published General Elections and Southern Self-Determination: At Growing Risk about the serious challenges facing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Sudan’s ability/desire to hold fair and democratic elections. According to Reeves’ website, he “has spent the past ten years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the US and internationally.” Even before starting his article, he begins with the statement:

“Increasingly pessimistic assessments of Sudan’s scheduled national elections (February 2010) [recently postponed until April 2010] make clear that the 2011 Self-Determination Referendum is deeply endangered. If the referendum is aborted, or occurs amidst the grim environment in prospect, it will re-ignite country-wide war.”

The paper is divided into sections that detail the various components that effectively compromise the election/referendum process in Sudan: 1) Sudan’s national census; 2) Logistical, technical, and administrative obstacles; 3) Censorship; 4) Khartoum’s efforts to destabilize the south; 4) Elections in Darfur; and 5) US policy towards Khartoum and the elections.

Near the former Abyei Market after May 2008 Crisis that saw heavy fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army and displaced up to 100,000 people.

The contested results of Sudan’s 2008 national census, which is the critical first step in determining electoral boundaries and demographic details for resource distribution, have—according to Reeves—”serious anomalies that deserve attention.” The Director of the Census Commission, Awad Haj Ali, has suggested that displaced Southern Sudanese living in the north have been under-counted to 500,000 but may be as many as 1.5 million people. Considering the estimates of four to five million southerners displaced to the north during the war and a May 27 report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center that 2.24 million IDP’s have returned to the South, there could even more southerners uncounted in the census. The government of Sudan’s insistence that the census form not ask the questions of place of birth or origin may have influenced the results.

Other issues include the results for Darfur, which did not include the the internally displaced people in their camps. The increase by 332% in the population of migratory Arab groups in Darfur—who would presumably vote for Sudan’s governing National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP)— is, according to Government of South Sudan Minister of Presidential Affairs, “the strangest thing” in the results for Darfur that Reeves states is “the most conspicuous anomaly.”

The implications for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Southern representation loosing millions of votes in the upcoming elections, could reduce representation of the SPLM in the National Assembly to something approximating 21% that the census classifies as “Southern.” With a percentage below 25 in Sudan’s National Assembly, Southern representatives would no longer have the ability to reject constitutional amendments, which may allow the governing NIF/NCP to use legislative majority to “revoke key elements of the CPA, including the right to self-determination, or to extort an unacceptably high price for it.”

Reeves’ 14-page report reveals the fragility of the peace in Sudan as indicated no only in its first paragraph cited above but also in its last sentence, “On present course, both elections and peace in Sudan are doomed.” I hope for the people in Southern Sudan who I met and who are hoping for a solidified peace to settle in their country that the “growing risk” will be averted.

Interesting article:

- Sudanese Return to be Counted (BBC, April 2008)

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.

Since the beginning of October, I’ve come to Le Cheval Blanc on Wednesday evenings to initiate a ritual meeting place among friends to establish tradition where non existed before. A recurrent gathering—without notice—to linger over a pint of locally brewed beer and discuss our respective projects and catch up on each other’s lives. Come after 17h00 and, barring lateness, I will be there. In my absence, carry on without me.

This ‘tradition’ is important now because I’m feeling somewhat shaky these days, having left much of my former professional self behind to begin anew. Bye bye book publishing. It was nice knowing you. We shared ten great years. But without the meetings, editorial schedules and launch deadlines, I find myself with blank agenda pages and insufficient diversity on any given day. Since I closed the bed & breakfast 77 days ago, the early breakfasts, dirty laundry and evening check-ins cease to guide my days with their punctual familiarity. And now I’ve moved to another part of town. Terra incognita. A potentially dreadful place if one is captivated by fear of the unknown. A place of potential crisis if left untethered. A panic attack circling like a pack of hyenas. A pocketed paper bag in the onslaught of hyperventilation. Luckily for me I thrive on change but it sometimes takes a bit of adjustment.

I don’t fear the horizon ahead of me, of falling of the edge of the world. I enjoy facing the open ocean imagining the current taking me toward the rest of the world. These are moments when everything is possible. It’s the potential of it all that makes new projects worth pursuing. And it’s precisely this potential that leads me to Africa or more precisely to Sudan, a place devastated by post-colonial war. I read in this morning’s newspaper that just yesterday, at the National Forum on Darfur, held in Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir called for a ceasefire in Darfur and the immediate disarmament of the Janjaweed militias 1, 2, 3, 4. Maybe the western region of Sudan will grasp the tenuous peace that continues in South Sudan, where I’m headed at the end of January or early February.

South Sudan may be one of the more remote and underdeveloped regions of the world but it is on the cusp of something new. Something great. Great because it has been at peace with the central Sudanese government since 2005, after two debilitating civil wars (1956-1972 & 1983-2005). Great because four million refugees are returning to their traditional homeland. Great because schools are being built to educate the girls and boys who have now experienced peace for the first time. Great because elections are coming in 2009 and the population is learning about democratic processes by state-sponsored, privately owned, and community media. Great because in 2011, the South can hold a referendum( as mandadted in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the northern Government of Sudan (GoS) and the southern-based Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement) that can give the South independence from the rest of Sudan. I’m not adverse to separation but I’d like to ask the South Sudanese what they want in their context.

Everyone knows that holding elections or referenda after decades of war can be volatile in the best of times, but its potential for holding onto the peace is palpable. I want to be there, as it unfolds, to witness, capture and understand this potential.

South Sudan, as a political entity in and of itself, is without tradition. Its existence is new, since the 2005 peace agreement. I am not referring to the traditions of the various community and ethnic groups, like the Dinka, Nuer, and 68 others listed by The Gurtong Peace Trust. Their respective traditions go back farther than anyone can accurately refer to. Theirs are oral histories that have been passed on through generations since the beginning of time.

The tradition I’m referring to is in the tradition of peace and co-habitation within a geographic area and political setting that did not really exist before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The Agreement was signed on January 9, 2005, beginning a 6-year interim period and establishing South Sudan as an autonomous region within Sudan.

Now midway in this interim period, Sudan is preparing for elections. The Fifth National Population Census is underway to reveal the demographics of the country but I’m particularly interested in the South. How many people actually make up its population? A difficult questions considering about half of the four million refugees have yet to return to their ancestral lands. Some are internally displaced within Sudan, others are refugees in neighbouring countries, while still others have taken refuge in Canada, the United States, and other western countries. How can so many people who are still on the move be accurately counted? And how accurate must the count be to consider election results fair and democratic? There hasn’t been an accurate census taken in Sudan since 1983 before the beginning of its 2nd civil war.

To give you an idea of the challenges, Southern Sudan’s land mass is huge with an area of about 640,000 square kilometres (about the size of France), with a population estimated somewhere between 7.5 and 9.7 million. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFDA), the population is expected to increase by as much as three million in the next six years due to the natural increase in population and the return of refugees and internally displaced people. Where will they all live? What infrastructure is needed to accommodate their arrival? What will they do when they get to where they are going? Humanitarian and development aid is needed in South Sudan to provide for those who are already there, so how much more is needed to accommodate the returnees? These are questions that are rarely discussed in Western media so how else is one supposed to genuinely understand without interviewing the few that follow the case closely and talking to the people living through the tumultuous changes? Although the peace holds a huge potential to rejuvenate a wounded land and its scattered people, its erratic interpretation by those who’ve only known war—and the geopolitical wrangling by those interested in the South’s resources—can foment crisis conditions reminiscent of the recent past.

If I can share challenges and successes of the peace process in written, audio and video reports and documentary films, which few others seem to be doing, then maybe it will be a little easier (if ever so slightly) for peace to settle in and make itself comfortable. That’s another reason I want to go.

Kapuscinski writes in the aforementioned book that experience has taught him that “situations of crisis appear more dire and dangerous from a distance than they do up close.” I tend to agree. He continues in the chapter about Zanzibar, that mythical island off the coast of Kenya, about when he chartered a plane from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar to report the previous day’s coup d’état there. He adds, “Our imaginations hungrily and greedily absorb every tiny bit of sensational news, the slightest portent of peril, the faintest whiff of gunpowder, and instantly inflate these signs to monstrous, paralyzing proportions.” Corporate media thrive on this sensationalism but I want to get past it; closer to the truth. However, Kapuscinski doesn’t denigrate the havoc that can reign during such times. He wrote “about those moments when calm, deep waters begin to churn and bubble into general chaos [...] it is easy to perish by accident, because someone didn’t hear something fully or didn’t notice something in time. On such days, the accident is king; it becomes history’s true determinant and master.”

I’ve never been prone to accidents and I plan on keeping it that way.