shari'a law and strife in the sudan: is peace possible? || food as a weapon for peace:...

Food as a Weapon for Peace: Operation Lifeline SudanAuthor(s): Bruce Van VoorhisSource: Africa Today, Vol. 36, No. 3/4, Shari'a Law and Strife in the Sudan: Is Peace Possible?(3rd Qtr. - 4th Qtr., 1989), pp. 29-42Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4186584 .

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Food as a Weapon for Peace: Operation Lifeline Sudan

Bruce Van Voorhis

"In the Lolugo Camp for displaced [people] near Juba, hungry children are eating rats. In the town itself famine-stricken civilians collapse in the streets. Malnourished children die daily in the hospital.71

This was life for the people of southern Sudan as described by the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) in a March 1989 report. In that same month representatives of foreign governments, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and non- governmental organizations (NGOs) met in Khartoum at a conference convened by the government and the United Nations to discuss a plan to transport food and other relief supplies into southern Sudan, where the United Nations estimated 100,000 people would starve unless action were taken before the seven-month rainy season. which usually begins in May.2

The Background for the Conference

Approximately six months earlier, a Pandora's box full of stories similar to those reported by SCC had been opened to the world when, in October 1988, the government allowed the United Nations and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to transport food and medicine into the war zone in the South and the transitional zone of Southern Kordofan Province. Relief workers discovered that 8,000 people in Aweil had died of starvation in four months; 10,000 had died since the beginning of 1988 in Abyei, a town where children under the age of 2 were not to be found because a measles epidemic in July had exterminated this age group; in Wau one man had buried 800 people himself.3 For the year the total number of deaths was estimated to be at least 250,000 - a catastrophe comparable with the famine in neighboring Ethiopia in 1984 and 1985.4

1. Sudan Council of Churches, Horrors of Civil War In Sudas, Khartoum, March 1989.

2. United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations, Sudsn to Jointly Convene High-lvel Meetig ?o Emergency Relief Operations, New York, February 22, 1989, p. 1.

3. Jane Perlez, 'Hundreds Said to Starve Each Day in War Areas of Southern Sudan,' New York Times, October 10, 1988, and Jane Perlez, 'In Sudan, an Airlift to a Town of Misery," New York Times, October 16, 1988.

4. Mary Battiata, 'First U.S. Food Aid Shipped to Rebel-Held Area in Sudan,' Washington Post, February 17, 1989.

Bruce Van Voorhis, program interpreter for the Rocky Mountain Regional Office of Church World Service (CWS) in Denver, visited internal refugee camps in Khartoum in 1988 while working as a photojournalist for the CWS East Africa-Indian Ocean Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya.

3rd & 4th Quarters, 1989 29



Although drought, floods, and infestations of locusts in recent years contributed to this disaster, the chief cause of the suffering was the continuation of the civil war that began in 1983. Both the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) used food as a major weapon. Natural disasters only made this weapon more destructive. The governmenfs rationale for withholding food from the South was its fear that this logistical necessity of armies would ultimately feed the SPLA; the SPLA attacked convoys and airplanes carrying relief goods claiming that they also contained weapons and supplies for troops in government-held cities and towns in the region. The victims of these policies, however, were a quarter of a million civilians in the South, while the country enjoyed its best harvest of the past decade.

Relief agencies attempted to assist these people in 1988 as they had in previous years, but they faced obstacles in addition to those posed by Sudan's warring factions. The only overland access to the regional center of Juba in the South for the past three years has been a 1,200-mile route from western Kenya through northern Uganda to southern Sudan. The transportation and communication infrastructure along this route is poor, making it more likely that trucks will break down and less likely that they can be repaired expeditiously, especially in remote rural areas. Rains last year also washed away bridges, culverts, and portions of the road, leaving a convoy stranded in Uganda for four months.5 Trucks were also stranded in the border town of Kaya by the Sudanese military who insisted that convoys have a military escort, but this has meant at times waiting up to six weeks for the escort to arrive. An alternative route does exist and has been utilized by agencies -

namely, airlifts, an expensive option costing as much as $1,000 per ton - making truck convoys the preferred method of transportation if possible.

The fighting in Sudan is not the only war that can cripple relief efforts there. Anti-government guerrillas in northern Uganda attacked relief convoys bound for southern Sudan. Church World Service (CWS), whose 4,940 metric tons6 of food were the most any agency transported by road to Juba and Yei last year, lost four trucks with 120 metric tQns of food and the lives of five Kenyan drivers through attacks by the Ugandan rebels.7 In such an environment of insecurity in both Sudan and Uganda, it can be difficult for relief agencies to find transport companies or airlines with drivers and pilots willing to ferry food through these war zones.

If these primarily logistical problems had been the only hurdles to reaching people at risk of starvation in the South last year, many people's lives would

5. Church World Service, CWSCC Rqu."t to OFDA for IAgIstical Budget Support for the Movement of 4900 MT. Feed to Southern Sudan, New York, p. 1.

6. One metric ton - approximately 2,205 pounds.

7. Church Worki Service, CWSOSCC IW F ldlRqee ated Opemtloee Plas toth Equatoul lRego (SoethemSade), New York, p. 3, and Church World Service, op. cit.

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have been saved. However, this was not the case because of the use of food as a weapon of war by the government and the SPLA. The government routinely denied travel permits to relief workers and landing rights for planes of emergency organizations and expelled four foreign relief agencies in February 1988.8 Some of these actions could be attributed to bureaucratic incompetence and inefficiency, but the other actions described below support the claims of Sudanese and foreign critics that the government's policy was in fact one of genocide against its black population. /

In Torit last fall, the military made five daily airdrops of food to its troops, but none of it was distributed to the town's civilian population, who were dying at the rate of five to 10 people per day. In addition to the army, Arab merchants were well fed, reportedly because they received food from the military for their own consumption and to sell in the market at inflated prices. Food became unaffordable for local residents as well as for the rural people who had crowded into the region's cities seeking food and safety from the war. By controlling the amount of food that reached the South, the military in collusion with the Arab merchants artificially raised prices to the point where people's sustenance became grass, leaves, and lily pods.9

Although the SPLA contributed to this suffering by planting land mines and attacking relief convoys, the governments military escorts assigned to protect against these attacks were not always motivated by humanitarian concems. Their priorities were evident during an SPLA attack last September on a procession of 600 trucks between Yei and Juba, which resulted in the death of 11 Kenyan drivers and the loss of trucks carrying more than 200 metric tons of food. The military escort fled with the first 120 trucks in the column loaded with coffee for merchants in Juba and Khartoum, leaving the remaining trucks to stagger into Juba a week later. 10

Past attempts to suspend the fighting to allow needed emergency goods into the South, such as the appeal to both sides for a 'food truce" by 17 agencies in 1986, had been unsuccessful. Yet following the March 1989 meeting, the government and the SPLA agreed to allow the safe passage of relief food and other necessities into the South and transitional zone. What events brought this about?

Pressure on the govemment for a change in policy began with the signing of a cease-fire proposal by the SPLA and the Democratic Unionist Party

8. Rep. Gary Ackerman, The 'Food Weapon' and Famine in the Sudan,' Christka Sclce Kosmtor, January 24, 1989, and Mennonite Central Committee, Sudsa Govermest Rejlcb ACROSS Appal to Stay, Akron, Pa., March 25, 1988.

9. Battiata, op. cit.

10. Ibid.




(DUP), the nation's second largest political party, in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Nov. 16 last year. 11 This was followed in February by the military's ultimatum to Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi that he either form a new government committed to peace or resign, one of the few times in memory that a country's military leaders forced a change in government to promote peace. 12 However, after taking Kapoeta in southeastern Sudan in January 1988, the SPLA had taken a string of towns throughout the year and into the first four months of 1989 that stretched from Nimule on the Ugandan border through Torit and Bor to Nasir near Ethiopia. Their control stretched over 90 percent of the South. The military's ultimatum reflected results on the battlefield. In addition, a series of strikes and demonstrations occurred in Khartoum, some violent and lasting for days, against high food prices and a lack of movement by the government toward achieving peace.

The backdrop for these events was Sudan's ruined economy. Many factories were producing at only 5 percent of capacity, inflation was 100 percent, and the value of its imports was three times higher than its exports. 13 As a result, the countrys foreign debt was approximately $13 billion. In Africa, only Nigeria, with greater resources for repayment, had a larger debt. 14 To meet its annual debt service requirements of about $1.1 billion, Sudan would have to triple its export earnings, an impossible task. 15 Consequently the country was in arrears to all of its creditors and by itself accounted for one- third of all overdue payments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 16 Despite this, Sudan was spending an estimated $1 million per day to fight its civil war. 17

The economy's statistics began to be reflected in shortages and hardships in the North as well as those in the South. In March a university professor with a head wound was flown to London for treatment due to an absence of drugs in Khartoum. By May middle class families were sending a member of their household to line up for bread at 2 a.m. 18 More and more people came to see the war as the cause of their misfortune and the government as the stumbling block to peace.

The faces of the war, if not the fighting, were also on the streets of Khartoum. Roughly one million people displaced by events in the South

11. 'Sudanese Party and Rebel Group Call for Cease-Fire Under Accord," New Yhr Times, November 17, 1988.

12. Sudan's Army Said to Give Premier an Ultimatum,: New York Times, February 23, 1989.

13. Tony Horwitz, 'How Khartoum Won No. 1 Ranking as a Hardship Pbst," Wal Street Joureal, April 26, 1989.

14. Jane Perlez, 'U.S. Plans to Cut Off Nonfood Aid to Sudan, New Yor Timee, May 7, 1989.

15. Michael Hiltzik, "Western Aid to Sudan Linked to Peace Efforts," Lo Asgelee Times, March 3, 1989.

16. Horwitz, op. cit.

17. E.A. Wayne, 'Can Washington Stop the Starvation?" Cbristle Sciesce Monitor, February 28, 1989.

18. Perlez, May 7, 1989, op. cit.

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walked for up to three months to reach the capital to live in huts made of burlap or cardboard in one of 23 camps for these internal refugees. 19 Their large numbers, which accounted for about one-fourth of the city's population, made it difficult for northerners to miss the effects of the war.

Sudan was also losing financial aid from its Arab supporters. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait reduced their assistance because of the closer ties al-Mahdi had made with Libya and Iran. In March Egypt even took the bold move to call publicly for new leadership in Sudan that was willing to work for peace. 20

Pressure came from the West as well. The Netherlands cut $2.5 million of its $60 million annual aid package and threatened to cut more if progress was not made by May in the peace process. Britain and West Germany also considered similar proposals.21 At the Khartoum meeting in March, Canada reportedly threatened to cease all of its non-humanitarian aid to the country if it did not cooperate with the international community in its efforts to transport relief supplies to the South.22 The linkage of aid to peace was a new strategy by foreign donors.

In the United States, USAID was providing millions of dollars for food and its transport, but there was Congressional criticism from both sides of the aisle, from private agencies, and in major U.S. newspapers that the Reagan administration was not doing enough to pressure the al-Mahdi government to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the war. Washington's policy had been one of quiet diplomacy, reminiscent of "constructive engagement" in South Africa and with similar results. The rationale was that the United States did not want to offend a moderate Arab nation strategically located between Libya and Marxist Ethiopia and with coastal access to the Red Sea.

The U.S. position began to shift, however, in January with the public announcement that USAID would provide maize from Kenya to SPLA- controlled areas in southeastern Sudan against the wishes of Sudan's government. This move was precipitated by Khartoum's inability or unwillingness to accept November's SPLA-DUP ceasefire proposal and frustration with the continuing reluctance of the Sudanese government to allow relief food into the South.

This change in policy can also be attributed to the recognition that the United States' quiet diplomacy had not achieved one of its goals - preventing

19. Jane Perlez, 'At the End of the Road Is the Graveyard of Hope,' New York Times, November 4, 1988; notes from a visit to the internal refugee camps in Khartoum in January 1988; and Mennonite Central Committee, MCC Sends Milk Powder, Blankets to Sudan Flood Victims, Akron, Pa., September 23, 1988.

20. Alan Cowell, 'Egypt Presses for New Government in Sudan," New York Times. March 5, 1989.

21. Hiltzik, op. cit.

22. 'Sudan Moving to Save Thousands from Starving," Washington Times, March 9, 1989.




Libyan influence in Sudanese affairs. The previous October Sudan moved closer to its neighbor to the west with the signing of a unity proposal by al- Mahdi and Col. Muammar al-Quaddafi and the introduction of Libyan pilots and planes in the war last fall, which the SPLA accused of dropping chemical bombs.23 With one of its objectives already lost, a shift in policy posed fewer negafive consequences for the United States; people's lives could now outweigh strategic considerations.

There had to be concem too in Washington for the influence of the fundamentalist National Islamic Front (NIF) over al-Mahdi's decisions and actions. The NIF advocated the implementation of the Islamic law of Shari'a with its code of punishment of amputations, crucifixions, and stonings as the law of the land. The party was led by the prime minister's brother- in-law, Hassan al-Turabi, who al-Mahdi appointed as his attorney general in one govemment and as foreign minister in another. Al-Turabi wrote the first Shari'a code for former President Galfar al-Nimeiri in 1983 that was one of the sparks that ignited the present war, and he also authored a more stringent code last year for governmental approval. While al-Mahdi is a member of the Umma Party, his policies seem to require the blessing of the NIF before they are implemented.

In addition to its decision to transport food into SPLA areas, the United States in January also froze its development, non-emergency assistance to Sudan, which until several years ago received more U.S. economic and military aid than any country in Sub-Sahara Africa. The decision to freeze these funds was based on a U.S. law that makes them unavailable to Sudan until it begins to repay $14.5 million it owes the United States for wheat it received over a ten-year period.24

There was also pressure on Khartoum from new U.S. diplomatic initiatives. After assuming his new position in the Bush administration, Secretary of State James Baker III in February publicly called for a cease-fire in Sudan and for the shipment of food and other relief commodities into the war zone to people on both sides of the conflict.25

Although these demands for change in Sudan from the United States and others were certainly motivated by humanitarian concerns, there were, most likely, economic considerations as well. With Sudan's economy in shambles and the cost of the war believed to be $1 million a day, it was economically prudent for Western donors to promote peace and stability if they were to be repaid. In its present condition, Sudan's economy was not

23. Jane Perlez, 'Sudan's Premier Is Visiting Libya after Proposal for Unity Is Signed,' Now York TIs, November 14, 1988, and Robert Pear, 'Sudan Rebels Say They Are Victims of Poison Gas," Now Yobrk Tlmq, January 10, 1989.

24. Ackerman, op. cit., and Hiltzik, op. cit.

25. Thomas Breen, 'Sudan Urged to End War,' WaUlgfbm Times February 9, 1989.

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good collateral against its outstanding foreign debts, and its economy was not capable of recovering until there was peace.

Meanwhile, the SPLA also had motivation to negotiate and to allow food into the South. Many of the people suffering were Dinkas, the ethnic group most strongly represented in the ranks of the anti-government movement, but the SPLA was motivated as well by events in Ethiopia, a major source for SPLA weapons and financial aid and the locale of key bases for their operations. In December the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan agreed to an accord that called for mutual respect for each other's sovereignty. 26 The SPLA was also affected by Ethiopia's wars with the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which were not going well for the government. In March the Ethiopian army lost the province of Tigray to a joint EPLF-TPLF force. In addition, the Soviet Union, which had been Addis Ababa's chief financial and military patron, was becoming less generous. Moscow was restricting its supply of arms, spare parts, and the replacement of some equipment, which previously was replenished with the latest Soviet military hardware. The Soviets also refused to reschedule Ethiopia's debt.27 With the level of financial backing of its chief benefactor in doubt and its military energies stretched by its own wars, Ethiopia's ability to support the SPLA became questionable as well.

The Launching of Operation Lifeline Sudan

These forces and the personal intervention by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar with Sudan's prime minister led to the Khartoum conference on March 8 and 9 at which international donors, NGOs, the Sudanese government, and the United Nations agreed to the relief effort that began April 1 known as Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) - an ambitious plan to pre-position 120,000 metric tons of food and emergency supplies in the South within a six-week period. The time-frame was set in order to accomplish this feat before the rainy season arrived, making dirt roads impassable and some small airstrips unavailable for relief operations. The assessment of the United Nations was that 2.25 million people required immediate emergency assistance, with 100,000 of them facing starvation by the end of the year.28

The plan of action placed responsibility on the United Nations for coordinating the efforts of international and Sudanese NGOs, who would

26. Robert Press, 'Sudan, Ethiopia Sign Peace Agreement,' Christian Sciesce Monitor, December 23, 1988.

27. Mary Battiata, 'Soviets Press Ethiopia to End War, Envoys Say,' Wasbington Post, April 21, 1989.

28. UNICEF, Sudan hcept Sertary.enesrl' Proposalfor'Mouth of Tranquilit' In CvilConfltto Ens DeUvery of Relief Supplies, New York, March 10, 1989, p. 1.




implement most of the on-the-ground operations, and foreign governments, who committed themselves to providing the majority of funds for transportation and the purchase of relief commodities - food, medicine, seeds and cattle vaccine, school supplies, oral rehydration salts, and pumps to provide potable water. Within a month, foreign donors had pledged the remaining $55 million of $133 million estimated to be needed to acquire the 172,000 metric tons of emergency supplies required to meet the needs of the people in the South for 1989.29 As noted above, officials hoped to pre- position all but 52,000 metric tons of these goods by the middle of May.

To facilitate this endeavor, the government of Sudan devalued its currency for OLS-affiliated governments and agencies from 4.4 to 12 Sudanese pounds to the dollar, saving the operation $15 to $20 million, and formed a high-level committee of cabinet ministers chaired by the prime minister to relieve any bureaucratic burdens that might be encountered.30

OLS would not have become a reality, however, if the government, and within a few days the SPLA, had not agreed to a "month of tranquility" to allow the safe passage of these supplies by trucks, airplanes, trains, and barges through eight "corridors of tranquility" (see map). This was not a formal cease- fire negotiated between the two parties to the civil war, but an agreement by both sides that they would not attack and impede the efforts to save Sudanese civilians negatively affected by their war. As OLS proceeded, this agreement was extended.

Problems of Implementation

Like past relief operations in Sudan, there were issues still to be resolved, however. In addition to the previously discussed logistical obstacles faced by relief agencies in 1988, OLS encountered shortages of jet fuel in Sudan because of the large quantities required, which forced the delay or cancellation of flights. The daily needs of ICRC's airlift from Khartoum alone required 19,000 gallons.31 Another problem surfaced when some of the food offered by the Sudanese government for the operation was found to be rotten.32

The major concern, as it was last year, however, was security. Relief workers' initial fears were quickly realized when the first convoy of 14 trucks carrying more than 130 metric tons of food and medicine from Lokichokio, Kenya, to Torit was ambushed about 20 miles west of Kapoeta on April 18. This attack by the Taposa, an ethnic group with automatic weapons and

29. Paul Lewis, 'Western Lands Vow $133 Million in Aid for Sudanese Relief," New York Times, April 12, 1989.

30. UNICEF, Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 1, New York, April 11, 1989, p. 2, and UNICEF, Crash Relief Programme for Sudan's Southern Provimces, New York, March 14, 1989, p. 5.

31. UNICEF, Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 2, New York, May 2, 1989, p. 3.

32. 'Sudan Famine Relief Blocked,' Washitoon Post, April 27, 1989.

36 AFRICA TODAY



B)ruce Van Voorhis

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rockets that owed allegiance neither to the government nor the SPLA, killed or wounded several Kenyan transport company employees and members of the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA), the SPLAs relief organization, who were escorting the convoy. 33 This attack was followed by two others on the same Lokichokio-Kapoeta-Torit route within the next month and one on a convoy traveling between Gulu in Uganda and Nimule.34

Another incident occurred on June 1 as a UN relief plane was unloading supplies in Torit. As workers emptied the plane, an aircraft dropped 12 bombs during two attacks on the SPLA-held town. The government denied responsibility for the raid even though the aircraft appeared to belong to the Sudanese air force.35

Another issue that also surfaced was the misappropriation of relief food in Aweil in Bahr el Ghazal Province. A local official removed 750 metric tons of food, which had cost the United States about $1 million to airlift to the town, without proper authorization. Under the OLS plan of action, relief committees which included representatives from the local community, the government's Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC), the United Nations, and NGOs were established to distribute the food, but in Aweil local authority had been abused. To solve this problem, additional RRC and international personnel were sent to Aweil and other towns.36 (An official U.S. protest and request to replace the missing grain was filed with the government of Sudan.)

Overall, however, the goals of OLS were obstructed by the inability of officials to make two of the "corridors of tranquility" operational. A third corridor was not put into service until May. The corridor from Ethiopia through which the United Nations envisioned shipping 20,000 metric tons of goods never opened because of poorer roads within Ethiopia than anticipated, and the river route from Kosti to Malakal was inoperational because of security concerns. 37

A convoy of 14 government-owned barges had arrived in Malakal with more than 5,600 metric tons of relief assistance in February, but four months later barge operators would not return to Kosti to load 9,000 metric tons of emergency supplies for civilians on both sides of the conflict. Their refusal flowed from their fear of being attacked by the SPLA, even though the movement had guaranteed their safety. To resolve this matter, the United

33. UNICEF, Attaclk OD'Operation Lifel.. Sudan' Convoy Condenedby S.cetar o eneral's Peso l Representative, New York, April 19, 1989; Robert Powell 'U.N. Food Convoy Attacked in Rebel-Held Sudan, Two Wounded, Reuters dispatch from Nairobi, April 19, 1989; 'U.N. Relief Convoy Ambushed in Sudan; 7 Slaughtered,' Denver Poet, April 20, 1989; and James Grant, UNICEF executive director and personal representative of the secretary-general for Operation Lifeline Sudan, 'Sudan Relief Effort Will Save Thousands,' letter to the editor, Washington Poet, May 3, 1989.

34. UNICEF, Operation Lifeline Sndan Situation Report No. 4, New York, June 13, 1989, p. 3. 35.

35. UNICEF, Statement, New York, June 1, 1989, and Robert Press, 'Historic Food-Relief Effort," ChristIan Science Monitor, June 7, 1989.

36. E.A. Wayne, 'US Envoy to Sudan Will Push for Peace, Food," Chriestla Science MonItor, May 23, 1989, and Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 2, op. cit.

37. Grant, May 3, 1989, op. cit., and Operation Lifeline Sedan Situation Repo"t No 4, op. cit., p. 2.

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Bruce Van Voorhis

Nations negotiated with private companies over a two-month period to transport at least a portion of these goods up the White Nile; but by the middle of June, OLS had not been able to utilize this corridor.38

Security also played a role in a seven-week delay on the rail corridor between Babanusa and Aweil. In April the train returned to Babanusa to be re-loaded with food and other relief supplies, but railway workers would not go beyond Muglad on the return trip, expressing apprehension about SPLA attacks even though, again, assurances had been given by the guerrillas for their safety. After negotiations between the government, railroad unions, and the SPLA, which were complicated by a nationwide railway strike, the issues of security and distribution of the cargo between government and SPLA areas were resolved.39

On May 20 the train left Muglad with 48 freight cars full of 1,500 metric tons of emergency supplies for Awiil. A day after leaving Muglad, though, the train was stopped by 100 to 200 armed men not allied with either of the parties in Sudan's civil war. The bandits threatened the lives of the international escorts, robbed them and the 110 Sudanese workers on board, and looted the train's cargo of medical supplies. The food was not stolen, however, and the train arrived in Aweil eight days after leaving Muglad.40

An Evaluation of the Results of OIS

The collective effect of these problems described above was that OLS fell far short of its goal of pre-positioning 120,000 metric tons of emergency assistance in the South and transitional zone within a six-week period. This is not surprising, given the ambitious goals of the relief effort, the obstacles to be overcome, and the short time-frame in which to accomplish them. Relief workers had been skeptical of OLS' ability to accomplish these objectives when the operation was announced. Nevertheless, OLS did deliver more than 32,800 metric tons of food and other necessities to the region in April and May, which is more than the level of assistance prior to the beginning of the operation on April 1, and the flow of goods is continuing.41

38. United States Agency for International Development, Sudan- Civil Strif#Displaced Persons Sitation Report No 23, Washington, D.C., May 17, 1989, p. 2.; Operation Lifeline Sudan Situatio. Report No 2, op. cit., p. 4; and Operation LifeUle Sudan Situation Report No. 4, op. cit., p. 5.

39. Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 1, op. cit., p. 5, and Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 2, op. cit., p. 4.

40. UNICEF, Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 3, New York, May 26, 1989, p. 5; Press, June 7, 1989, op. cit.; and UNICEF, Sc t el' Pemonal Representative Says He ls 'MoreOptiiatic about Prospects of Success' of Operation Lifelbe Sudan, New York, June 8, 1989, p. 2.

41. Operation Lifeline Sudan Situation Report No. 4, op. cit., p. 3.




The ultimate success or failure of OLS, however, should not be judged by the number of tons of food and other supplies delivered, but by the number of lives saved or lost in 1989. Naturally this information will not be known until the end of the year, but there were indications in early June that many of the 100,000 people projected to starve prior to the implementation of OLS would now live. Relief workers noted that people in the South were having to walk fewer miles to get food and appeared to be in better health than at the same time last year when their need to walk long distances to find food or to walk to safety out of the region caused the deaths of an estimated 8,000 people on the route to the Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia alone. It is a major turnaround from 1988 when one relief official with 30 years of experience described the southern Sudanese as being in a 'holocaust condition.M42

The credit for this reversal belongs not only to OLS but also to relief efforts made prior to it under even more adverse conditions: namely, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF)-World Council of Churches (WCC) airlift from Nairobi, Kenya, to Juba that made 320 flights with more than 5,000 metric tons of emergency supplies from mid-November to mid-March, and the ICRC airlift that flew more than 3,500 metric tons of food from early December to late March into SPLA-held towns as well as those controlled by the government. Both endeavors continued as part of OLS with ICRC's operation expanded to include 19 towns of which 10 were held by the government and nine by the SPLA.43 A benefit of OLS and the relative tranquility it provided, noted Caleb Kahuthia, the regional relief coordinator for Church World Service in Nairobi, was that it expanded the ability to work in communities controlled by the SPLA to more agencies without jeopardizing their programs in Juba and other garrison towns held by the government.

In June there remained several issues for OLS to address, however. One was to continue to deliver food into the region during the rainy season, which it appeared that agencies would be able to do more effectively than predicted in March. Efforts also had to be placed on distribution to ensure that all people were receiving food in the countryside as well as in the towns where it had been pre-positioned. And lastly an emphasis had to be placed on rehabilitation as well as relief in order that an attitude of dependency did not develop in the minds of the Sudanese people who were being assisted.

By mid-June some rehabilitation programs were already being implemented in the southeastern corner of the country where seeds and tools were being distributed from Boma and Pibor Post to Kapoeta and Nimule to benefit approximately 30,000 families. Near Nasir, Abwong, Bor, Pibor Post,

42. R. Dean Hancock, Sudan Emerg.sq Report, (New York: United Methodist Committee on Relief), April 1989, p. 4, and Deborah Scroggins and Colin Campbell, 'Sudan: 'Holy War' Creates Wave of Hunger, Seeds, Decatur, Ga., August 1988, p. 6.

43. World Council of Churches telex, Sudsn Airlift- Situation Report No. 19/89, Geneva, April 6, 1989, p. 1; Operatios LifeHe Sudsa Sittioo Report No. 1, op. cit., p. 4; and Opertios Lifelie Sudan Situtaio Report No. 3, op. cit., p. 6.

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and Pochala, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) program modeled after one established by ICRC in Bahr el Ghazal Province was planned to provide 1,000 kits containing fishing equipment to be used in the nearby streams. In addition, the government and SPLA agreed that displaced people living in Juba should be encouraged to plant crops in the fields around the city, and that they should receive assistance for this purpose. The SPLA also agreed to permit safe passage to farmers who were displaced in the region's cities and towns to return to their homes and fields in SPLA areas to grow food for themselves and their families.44 This was in marked contrast to previous years when there were reports of the SPLA attacking farmers on the outskirts of Juba or in their fields in the countryside and stealing their food.

Although OLS set impossible goals for itself, it is precisely these unrealistic targets that allowed the relief effort to receive so much publicity. This UN- generated publicity initially provoked criticism from NGOs that had been working in Sudan for years and from donor governments. They contended that it falsely raised peoplis expectations about what could be accomplished and resulted in the diversion of funds from ongoing relief programs for an operation that had little chance of meeting its goals.

More important than the attention gained for OLS, though, is the awareness built for the plight of the people of southern Sudan. For years Sudanese and international agencies have been speaking to a world without ears on behalf of the Dinkas and others suffering in the South. The magnitude of the effort of OLS caught the interest of the international media and consequently brought the level of pain of the Sudanese people to the hearts of a larger audience.

Another important result of OLS is its historic nature: two sides in an ongoing war permitted the international community access to civilians on both sides of a conflict for an extended period of time through established points of entry. This is especially noteworthy because of the use of food as a weapon by both sides only months before. It has great implications as a humanitarian concept that can be exported to other countries in the Horn of Africa and around the world where the sword has replaced the ploughshare, or where, as in the case of Sudan, those trying to use the ploughshare are the victims of the sword.

Perhaps the greatest contribution that OLS will make to Sudan though, in addition to saving lives, is peace. This humanitarian operation has provided points of contact for the two sides and has offered an opportunity to build trust between the government and the SPLA. The entire operation is based upon

44. Op.atlo. Lifefla Sudam SIuati Rpept No 4, op. cit., pp. 4-5.




cooperation between both parties as well as among international institutions. A manifestation of the cooperation between the adversaries in Sudan occurred when a convoy of four relief trains with 100 cars stopped in a small government town on its journey to Aweil near the beginning of June. The freight cars at the front of the convoy were protected by government soldiers while the rear of the convoy, which was still in SPLA-territory, was guarded by the guerrilla movement's forces.45

Because of its role in Operation Lifeline Sudan, the United Nations has placed itself in a position to act as a mediator between the two sides if requested. OLS also offers either direct or indirect backdoor channels of communication between Khartoum and the SPLA if negotiations require it.

What began primarily as an effort to combat the use of food as a weapon of war now possesses the potential to be a weapon for peace. If the parties involved see the wisdom of the latter over the insanity of the former for Sudan and its people, then OLS will have provided not only a lifeline of food for the country, but it will have contributed something even greater: new life!

45. Press, CSM, June 7, 1989, op. cit.

Editors Note: As we go to press, we have received a late situation report from UNICEF on Operation Lifeline Sudan. Those interested in these reports should write: Chiara Gariazzo, UNICEF House, 3 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10022.

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