Do International Ethics Matter?

Humanitarian Politics in the Sudan

Best humanitarian efforts notwithstanding, relief for suffering civilians in civil war settings is still not universally honored as a moral imperative. In a host of bloody struggles, particularly in Africa (e.g., the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola, and Mozambique), the attention of the international community has been increasingly drawn to the callous deprivation, by both governments and insurgents alike, of the access of innocent civilians to food, medicine, and other relief supplies. Such tactics have been a regular part of arsenals from the beginning of organized warfare. The widespread indignation and active mobilization of international public opinion against such tactics, however, is a relatively recent development, as is the successful deployment of aroused public opinion to restrain the excesses of protagonists.

The present article seeks to explore the host of problems that are associated with attempting to put flesh on the evolving two-part global ethical norm that entitles civilians, no matter where they are located, to international succor, and aid agencies to provide assistance to such persons. The case material is drawn from the first phase of Operation Lifeline Sudan, which was launched in April 1989 and had been nearly completed by October 1989.² It is our thesis that while each historical situation is in some sense unique, the international community's relatively successful efforts to deal with the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) were not so idiosyncratic that they

¹ This article draws upon findings in Larry Minear's Humanitarianism Under Siege: A Critical Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1991), reproduced with permission. The authors are grateful to Jarat Chopra for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

² Except where otherwise noted, the term "Operation Lifeline Sudan" or "Lifeline" connotes this first and precedent-setting phase of activities. The second phase, begun in March 1990 after many delays and still proceeding as of this writing in late 1990 with considerable difficulty, is not the focus of this analysis.

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cannot be replicated elsewhere to protect civilians caught between warring factions in civil strife.³

Lifeline is a gripping story of a massive international relief undertaking. Led by the United Nations, it built upon and augmented the work of many private and bilateral aid organizations. Its challenge was to reach some two million persons under siege throughout the southern Sudan, an area larger than the United States west of the Rockies. Lifeline is a story of humanitarian aid itself–and those who sought to provide it–coming under siege. Yet, in spite of difficulties, Lifeline helped avoid the widespread starvation and displacement that had occurred in the Sudan during 1986-88.

The Sudanese civil war is reminiscent of medieval battles. Belligerents attack convoys, disrupt agriculture and traditional ways of coping with famine, and tighten the noose around civilian populations in garrison towns. Yet Lifeline was not a medieval morality play, chronicling the noble efforts by humanitarians in white hats to outwit the inhumanity of protagonists locked in mortal combat. The humanitarian politics were far more nuanced. The struggle by humanitarian interests to assure and expand the space in which to carry out assistance activities drew strength from allies within the ranks of both protagonists. Conversely, effective humanitarian action was undercut by institutional politics within, between, and among the aid agencies themselves–governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental.

Moreover, the story does not have a happy ending, although there are lessons to be learned by the purveyors of aid as well as by outside analysts. The second phase of Lifeline began in spring 1990, but had largely stalled by autumn. In fact, the positions of the belligerents have hardened once again, and the menace of famine has returned, this time affecting the northern as well as the southern Sudan. Thus, Operation Lifeline Sudan represents an important evolution in international humanitarian ethics and politics, but one that remains fragile as of this writing.

Even though Lifeline has not proved an enduring success, its story needs to be told now. Its recounting requires sensitivity to the formidable obstacles that were faced and generates appreciation for the accomplishments of those involved. Postmortems of past relief operations have always had far less appeal for

³ We do not wish to imply that humanitarian aid is all that can be undertaken by the international community in civil wars, but it is the focus here. For a discussion about the continuum between emergency relief and development assistance, see Mary B. Anderson and Peter J. Woodrow, Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Times of Disaster (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989). For a discussion of the reconstruction needs arising from the winding down of civil wars in Afghanistan, Indochina, Central America, southern Africa, and the Horn of Africa, see Anthony Lake, ed., After the Wars (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990).

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humanitarian activists than getting on with the next emergency. Thus, to date, precious little thought has been given by the UN system–and even less by most governments and private relief groups–to Lifeline's larger significance.

However, the topic is a timely one. There is new interest in and appreciation of the UN's increasingly active role in regional problem-solving. The revitalization of the UN's activities in peace and security was recognized by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988 and by its recent peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Angola, Namibia, and Central America.⁴ The month of August 1990 witnessed what one American diplomat described as "the most historic month in the 45-year history of the United Nations"⁵ with action in the Iraq-Kuwait crisis and movement toward ending Cambodia's decade-long civil war. The UN is clearly poised to play a mediating role in the growth industry of civil wars as East-West tensions recede. Its contribution in the Sudan thus merits particular scrutiny in gauging the evolution of international humanitarian ethics.

I

The famine and violence that became the cauldron for the evolution of new international norms were but the most recent tragedy inflicted upon the people of the Sudan. Civil war has been a regular feature of the landscape since independence from Great Britain in 1956. In fact, two-thirds of the post-independence period has been marred by internal conflicts rooted in an amalgam of religious, racial, political, and economic tensions that defy easy description.

The north's estimated population of 18 million (even demographic data is an object of contention) is largely Muslim, with many identifying themselves as Arabs. The south's population of some 6 million is largely black and practices Christianity or one of the traditional African religions. However, there are Africans and Christians in the north as well as Arabs and Muslims in the south. Moreover, within north and south alike there are widely differing ethnic and tribal groupings, lifestyles, and political allegiances.

While regional religious and racial differences have become more sharply drawn in the last decade, some observers see them as rationalizations for conflict between

⁴For a general discussion, see Donald J. Puchala and Roger A. Coate, The Challenge of Relevance: The United Nations in a Changing World Environment (Hanover, NH: Academic Council on the United Nations System, 1989). For more specific examinations of recent developments in the field of conflict resolution as the Cold War wanes, see Augustus Richard Norton and Thomas G. Weiss, UN Peacekeepers: Soldiers With a Difference (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1990); George L. Sherry, "The United Nations Reborn," Council on Foreign Relations Critical Issues (1990), Vol. 2; and a special issue of Survival, Vol. 32, No. 3 (May/June 1990).

⁵The New York Times, September 10, 1990, p. A1.

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the Khartoum government and the insurgents, rather than as bona fide reasons. Recent years have also witnessed a heightened awareness of religious differences in the north itself, as assertive Islamic fundamentalism has made the imposition of traditional Muslim law (sharia) a major political crusade in a country that had previously been among the more open and tolerant nations in the region.

A shifting sequence of military and civilian governments since independence suggests that a durable method of governing the nation has proved elusive. Sudan's first civil war, which lasted from 1955-1972, ended with accords signed in Addis Ababa that promised the south increased economic and political autonomy. Civil war erupted once again in 1983 when various provisions of these accords were abrogated. The most explosive breach of the agreement was the imposition by then-President Jaafar Nimieri of sharia, which led to the mutiny of southern officers and soldiers within the national army and the formation of the SPLA, which soon became a serious military threat to the government.

From the outbreak of renewed hostilities in 1983 until Operation Lifeline Sudan was launched in April 1989, the country was engulfed in a widening vortex of violence, famine, and death. The years 1984 to 1985 brought drought and starvation, particularly in the northern and western parts of the country. This was also a time when more than half a million refugees from Tigray and Eritrea fled from civil war in neighboring Ethiopia, taxing the Sudanese central government's capacities and resources further still.

Largely spared during this earlier period, it was the south's turn to suffer drought in 1986-1988. Food shortages would have been manageable without civil strife; yet both warring parties consciously adopted military policies that created famine. They disrupted normal agricultural production by moving people into garrison towns and in other ways deprived their opponents of normal access to food. The scale of suffering was staggering. The United Nations estimated that some three million Sudanese were displaced in 1986-88 alone, and that half a million deaths resulted from disease and starvation.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Sudan Council of Churches, Sudanaid, Oxfam-UK, Médicins sans Frontières (MSF), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) alerted governments and UN agencies to the food shortages in the south in 1986. They also sought to mount their own relief initiatives, which lacked the international visibility and political support which might have helped sustain them. The first major UN initiative came with Operation Rainbow in 1986. Supported by eleven western donor governments and led by Resident Representative Winston Prattley of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the endeavor encountered resistance from both sides. Neither the Sudanese government nor the SPLA acknowledged

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the enormous scale of needs, nor did they want assistance to benefit the other side. The SPLA threatened to shoot down relief planes headed for government-controlled towns in the south; the government declared Prattley persona non grata.

The following year, the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) joined forces with some NGOs to launch a critical review of the food situation in the south. UNICEF's country representative, Cole Dodge, led the way. However, the very idea of humanitarian assistance so antagonized Muslim fundamentalists that the government successfully exerted pressure on UNICEF to transfer Dodge out of the country. Sudan authorities also expelled four private groups working in the south whose humanitarian activities were perceived as benefitting the enemy.

For most of 1988, the ICRC labored to get both sides to agree definitively to its regular delivery of relief supplies. Only sporadic deliveries had broken the widespread pattern of starvation by the time agreement was finally reached in December. In fact, the suffering had become so egregious that relatively large-scale, although still far from adequate, cross-border operations had been mounted by NGOs from Kenya and Uganda.⁶

These types of operations are considered illicit from the point of view of a central government, and the Sudan was no exception. While having no problem with shipments bound for government-controlled areas, Khartoum refused to agree to those with SPLA-controlled destinations. The insurgents held similar views, but they were often in a less powerful position than the government in using food deprivation as a weapon. When the overall situation worsened as both sides were increasingly able to prevent the other's effective access to relief, however, agreement was reached with the ICRC on relief flights to an identical, if limited, number of destinations controlled by each side.

Efforts to assist civilians were highly vulnerable to violence and disruption. Throughout the years 1986-88, the SPLA targeted truck convoys moving commodities overland on the grounds that they allegedly contained military hardware. Nile barges and private aircraft were also attacked. The toll in lost lives and supplies, as well as in disrupted emergency activities, was substantial.⁷ While the Sudan government was perhaps less frontal in assaulting relief work, it too managed to frustrate efforts in the south by placing numerous administrative obstacles in the way of aid agencies.

As the suffering worsened during 1988, the Sudan government itself in June

⁶ For a discussion of the importance of these types of operations, see Barbara Hendrie, "Cross-border Relief Operations in Eritrea and Tigray," Disasters, Vol. 13, No. 4 (1989), pp. 351-60.

⁷For further details, see Sudan: A Human Rights Disaster (New York: Africa Watch, 1990), pp. 103-37

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1988 requested the UN to appeal for international assistance. After receiving the Secretary-General's assessment of the situation, the UN General Assembly in October 1988 requested him to mobilize and coordinate a major relief and reconstruction effort. UN officials stepped up emergency efforts and circulated a report on needs in November.⁸ Before ending its 43rd session in mid-December, the General Assembly approved a resolution that called for an international conference to address Sudan's seemingly intractable problems.⁹

Throughout the years immediately preceding Lifeline, each side opposed relief activities as potentially beneficial to the other. Each was willing to go to great lengths to prevent supplies from reaching civilians in territory controlled by the adversary. Yet, with the emergency well beyond the power of either to control, the stage was set for the international community to intervene with the consent of both parties.

II

The conference on relief operations, convened in Khartoum by the government and the United Nations on March 8-9, 1989, drew together aid officials of western donor governments, UN agencies, and NGOs. The purpose was simple to explain but difficult to implement: to avoid the disastrous experience and needless suffering of the previous three years.

The Plan of Action¹⁰ was cobbled together by UN of ficials at the last minute. In the midst of a civil war, it accepted a daunting challenge. Before rains rendered the territory virtually inaccessible to trucks, it was crucial to preposition food quickly. People in three areas were singled out: those in "transitional zones" (the lower part of the north and the upper part of the south); those in government-held towns in the south; and those elsewhere in the southern countryside that was increasingly under SPLA control.¹¹

Once the Plan of Action had been agreed upon by conference participants, there was need to obtain the concurrence of the SPLM/A. Although the insurgents were not present at the conference in Khartoum and criticized the session in a press release as "an illegal and a deep conspiracy," their support eventually was enlisted.

⁸"Emergency Assistance to the Sudan: Summary of Urgent Humanitarian Requirements," UN General Assembly document A/43/755, October 27, 1988.

⁹ Cf. "Special Economic and Disaster Assistance: Special Programmes of Economic Assistance," UN General Assembly document A/43/918/Add. 1, December 2, 1988.

¹⁰ "Plan of Action: Sudan Emergency Relief Operations," mimeographed conference document dated March 14, 1989.

¹¹ The needs of southerners displaced to the north were noted but not featured in the Plan, an omission that would be redressed in negotiations for the second phase of the operation.

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The Plan of Action thus ultimately managed to get both protagonists to agree to the very humanitarian principles that had proved so elusive. Relief was recognized to be neutral and access to succor was guaranteed to "all civilian noncombatant populations in need of emergency relief throughout the Sudan."

Perhaps most importantly, the government agreed to an initial month of peace during which relief efforts could proceed without fear of military action. The SPLA, however, in agreeing to the plan, insisted on modifying this provision to include only certain specified "corridors of tranquility" through which safe passage would be ensured, while fighting was to remain an option elsewhere. In reality, a de facto cease-fire resulted as both sides refrained from renewed combat during a succession of month-long truces. The UN acted as an effective mediator between the government and the insurgents, sparing them face-to-face negotiations.

The concept of corridors of tranquility, or zones of peace, facilitated by short-term cease-fires for humanitarian purposes, had been developed earlier by UNICEF to overcome difficulties encountered in other civil wars. The concept had been utilized in such settings as Lebanon and Kampuchea to facilitate a variety of humanitarian activities and had proved successful in encouraging annual breaks in El Salvador's civil war to allow for inoculations of children throughout the divided nation. In each instance, UNICEF's purely humanitarian mandate allowed it to negotiate arrangements with insurgents without conferring recognition upon them or appearing to undermine the sovereignty of the seated government.

Building upon this organizational legacy, Operation Lifeline Sudan was orchestrated by the UN Secretary-General's special representative James P. Grant, also UNICEF's executive director. It was formally launched from Khartoum and Nairobi during the first week of April when truck convoys flying United Nations blue flags departed for the southern sector of Sudan. Commitment of the warring parties notwithstanding, the effort encountered a variety of difficulties, political and logistical, in the early going. Much of what was accomplished in the first several months had built upon the work of NGOs who had been operating in the dangerous south for some time without much fanfare.

Following a somewhat slow start, the operation during 1989 edged toward its target of transporting the 107,000 metric tons of food needed before the rains began at the end of June. While only 75% of the target was actually delivered by mid-year, cooperative weather made it possible to extend the period for delivery overland. Also, local food stocks became more available as relief food broke the hold which local merchants had on the market; hoarding and speculation thereby became considerably less profitable.

Lifeline's task was basically completed by the time negative military and political

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developments intervened late in the year. The operation had already survived a military coup at mid-year which had deposed Prime Minister Sadiq el-Mahdi, with whom the operation had originally been negotiated. The new head of state, General Omar Hassan al-Bashir, initially reaffirmed the commitment of his regime to the program. However, pressure mounted from Muslim fundamentalists who bitterly opposed what they viewed as help from mainly western and Christian sources to their adversaries in the largely Christian south. Finally, the recurrence of active hostilities in late October 1989 brought down the curtain on humanitarian activities which for half a year had been largely sheltered from Sudanese internecine battles.

III

The 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols of 1977 provide the agreed international context in which modern wars are waged.¹³ They strike a careful balance between the military needs of armed protagonists, on the one hand, and the rights of civilians, on the other. States party to the agreements have covenanted among themselves to abide by certain ground rules, waging warfare not indiscriminately but within a voluntarily circumscribed framework. The reciprocal action which the ground rules promote (e.g., in the treatment of captured combatants and in forswearing tactics which target civilian populations) makes fidelity to the arrangements a matter of vital self-interest to protagonists. The protection of civilians is addressed in detail in the fourth Geneva Convention, both their need to receive humanitarian aid and the desirability of ensuring access by impartial aid agencies. Included, for instance, is the obligation of the warring parties to the fullest extent possible "to allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians...." In occupied territories, the occupying power has the "duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population" and the access of aid personnel to those in need.

The protection of civilians is further delineated in the Additional Protocols of 1977, reflecting the more recent experience of states in conflicts after the Second World War. Protocol I establishes ground rules governing obligations to the victims of international armed conflicts; Protocol II of non-international, or internal, wars. The Protocols prohibit the starving of civilians as a method of warfare, using hostages as human shields, and targeting objectives indispensable

¹²For relevant provisions and a discussion, see Frits Kalshoven, ea., Assisting Victims of Armed Conflict and Other Disasters (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Nijhoff, 1989).

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to the survival of the civilian population such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, or water resources.

These international norms were codified in order to protect Sudanese and other civilians caught in situations of armed conflict. Virtually all governments have ratified the Conventions and upwards of one hundred have embraced the Protocols. Yet, as a recent study poignantly notes:

One of Lifeline's singular accomplishments was to persuade SPLM/A to affirm and, for the most part, to respect the principle that innocent civilians, wherever they are, have a right to humanitarian aid. While Lifeline did not negotiate this breakthrough, it placed the protagonists' recent commitment in the international public domain. In return for the safe passage of aid, the warring parties expected from aid agencies neutrality (the refusal to take sides), impartiality (the provision of aid solely on the basis of need), transparency (the non-concealment of activities from either party), and public accountability. Guaranteeing the access of people to food as well as of relief agencies to civilians in need was particularly significant for the SPLA. While not formally a party to the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, the insurgents voluntarily accepted–in principle, and generally speaking, in practice–the constraints of these international norms.

Once the basic humanitarian principle had been agreed upon, relief activities themselves became an additional means of holding the parties to their commitment. Interference with humanitarian deliveries–that is, reversion to the use of food deprivation as a strategy–became more politically difficult. As Lifeline gathered momentum, the humanitarian principle became more difficult for either side to violate with impunity.

The renewal of fighting in October 1989, however, demonstrated that a succession of temporary truces does not add up to a permanent peace. Yet, the

¹³ Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Winning the Human Race (London: Zed Books, 1988), pp. 71-2.

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justifications used by each warring party for resumed hostilities were formulated so as not to contradict their own new humanitarian logic. The government claimed that it was not repudiating the principle but actually protecting it by putting a halt to the alleged transport of military items under the guise of relief. For its part, the SPLM/A condemned the suspension of Lifeline as a violation of humanitarian principles and accused the government of holding relief for civilians hostage to its inhumane military and political strategies.

Protecting the principle of safe passage for humanitarian relief led the UN and donor governments to press to extend Lifeline for a second year. At the donor consultation in Khartoum in March 1990, the Sudan government reaffirmed its commitment to the concept and principles of Operation Lifeline Sudan, including the neutrality of humanitarian relief.¹⁴ The SPLM/A itself eventually signed on, although with considerable reluctance. The chairman of the SPLM and commander of the SPLA, Colonel John Garang, affirmed that Lifeline "represented a very important principle for humanitarian operations," not only for the Sudan but also for other countries in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World. Yet he lamented the loss of "the unquestionable neutrality of the UN"¹⁵ that had helped most to make the operation a reality.

Lifeline thus struggled to establish humanitarian principles, to put into practice the safe passage of relief assistance, and to maintain principle and practice against abuse. Despite actions which undermined the implementation of the Lifeline agreement, the warring parties never repudiated the fundamental principle.

IV

International humanitarian activities were influenced not only by the strategies and tactics of the protagonists, but also by political factors at work within aid agencies. Political as well as humanitarian concerns played a significant role in determining the quality, timing, and location of relief activities by donor governments. The most illustrative case was that of the United States, from which many other governments have traditionally tended to take their cues in humanitarian matters.

The U.S. had been the leading donor in the international response to the Sudan's famine of 1984-85 and, in fact, throughout the decade. Geopolitical considerations had muted American criticism of Khartoum's domestic policies earlier in the 1980s. Of particular importance, Sudan had been one of only a

¹⁴ "Operation Lifeline Sudan Phase II, Draft Plans of Action," Government of the Sudan and the United Nations Donor Consultation Meeting, mimeographed document dated March 26, 1990, pp. 1-2.

¹⁵ "SPLM/SPLA Press Statement on Operation Lifeline Sudan," mimeographed document dated March 18, 1990, p.3.

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handful of Arab countries to back the U.S.-brokered Camp David Agreement. Khartoum had also pursued anti-Ethiopian government policies in harmony with Washington's efforts to bring down the Soviet-backed regime of Mengitsu Haile-Mariam. Later, as superpower tensions lessened and the al-Mahdi government cultivated relations with Libya and its pariah leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, U.S. fear of alienating the Khartoum authorities waned and humanitarian considerations received higher priority.

The push for U.S. policy changes to help civilians throughout the Sudan, rather than just in government-controlled areas, came not from seasoned American diplomats but from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) within the State Department's Agency for International Development (AID). OFDA's energetic director, Julia Taft, successfully lobbied both in Washington and at the United Nations for Lifeline's launching. Once launched, Lifeline served U.S. interests well. It became the rubric within which the U.S. openly and without fear of diplomatic backlash could assist civilians not only in government areas but also those in SPLA-controlled zones who had previously been receiving resources surreptitiously through the fledgling NGO network that had grown up in southern Sudan. With a reasonably balanced program assured, the scale of U.S. involvement could then greatly increase.

The interplay of humanitarianism and politics seems less likely for private aid groups than for governments. However, NGOs were themselves drawn into the highly-politicized conflict. Their aid had discernible political effects and repercussions and, in some cases, also reflected political motivations. Some NGOs embraced the cause of one protagonist or the other; most did not. Some insisted that their activities were unaffected by political forces; most acknowledged the need to make savvy calculations in their every-day dealings with political authorities. Most found it virtually impossible to assist people in government- and SPLAcontrolled areas alike, though a few succeeded in doing so, even in the face of the increased political vulnerability which resulted.

The United Nations, an inter-governmental entity, is necessarily far more attuned to the interests–political and humanitarian alike–of governments than of groups in armed opposition. Only a few insurgent movements–the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) before Namibian independence–have enjoyed even observer status at the UN, and the SPLM/A was not among them. Obviously, non-governmental organizations occupy a subsidiary position within the United Nations as contrasted with member governments, although in October 1990 a "first" took place when a record 138 member states co-sponsored a resolution that conferred observer status on the ICRC.

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The nature of the UN's primary constituency and accountability helps explain a number of problems associated with its effort to respond to a humanitarian crisis involving an insurgency as well as a recognized government. The natural political bias within the United Nations toward governments was evidenced in the Lifeline agreement itself, which was hammered out principally with the Khartoum authorities and then finalized at an international conference co-sponsored with the government in its capital. While Lifeline was a good-faith effort to deal with human needs in SPLA-controlled areas, the concurrence of the insurgents was enlisted by the UN only after the government was on board and the basic decisions had been made. Would-be impartiality notwithstanding, UN authorities never overcame the unequal treatment of the protagonists which the launching of Lifeline embodied.

Moreover, the shift in responsibilities from Grant in New York to Michael Priestley, who served in Khartoum as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, further underscored the bias. At about the same time that cooperation between protagonists associated with Lifeline was giving way to renewed violence, the operation inevitably lost some of its hard-won credibility with the SPLM/A in October 1989. Priestley's location in Khartoum and his multiple and conflicting roles and responsibilities within the UN prevented him as manager of Operation Lifeline from being perceived as giving equal weight to the views of the government and the rebels. U.N. even-handedness was further undermined by the content of the new agreement for Lifeline 2, which conceded to the government important monitoring authority that it had previously shared with the SPLM/A.

Lifeline's experience at the interface between humanitarianism and politics is intricate and multi-dimensional. Humanitarian imperatives are indeed very fragile, exercising no automatic legitimacy when political or military forces are otherwise inclined. At the same time, Lifeline also demonstrates that humanitarian principles can be so framed and managed as to be an independent force with which even recalcitrant political and military authorities must reckon. Such principles can also exercise a moderating influence on the most opprobrious behavior of belligerents. In the words of the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, "The problem is not of morality versus politics but rather of the kind of politics which allow moral restraints to emerge and be observed." ¹⁶

¹⁶ Independent Commission, Winning the Human Race, p. 11.

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V

The right of sovereign states to enjoy exclusive jurisdiction over all matters within their own boundaries, however aberrant in their human impact, is perhaps the most basic principle of international jurisprudence. The extreme sensitivity among governments to incursions into their internal affairs is never more acute than in civil war settings, when sovereignty is under direct assault.

However, Operation Lifeline Sudan succeeded for a time in elevating humanitarian principles over state imperatives. Donor governments and aid agencies, both intergovernmental and non-governmental, by their words and actions emphasized the primacy of access by civilians to succor. The international community exerted moral and political pressure to bring the belligerents into line, on occasion succeding in ensuring respect for the human rights of civilians which would otherwise have been abused.

The actions of Sudan's government and the armed opposition reflected assumptions generally dominated by calculations of political expediency and military necessity. Nonetheless, international ethics made their mark on the Sudanese protagonists, injecting into the traditional concepts of "national sovereignty" and "internal affairs" a certain human content and positive obligations to respect basic human rights. Operation Lifeline did not challenge the fundamental authority of a sovereign state, but it did encourage a more responsible exercise of the prerogatives of sovereignty. Lifeline infused the definition of sovereignty with a humanitarian content, one traditionally short-changed in the Sudan and elsewhere. Lifeline prevailed upon the government and the insurgents alike to exercise their political and moral obligations to civilians within the territories they claimed by cooperating with the international community rather than by continuing to bar access to those in need.

Lifeline at its best thus demonstrated the creative potential for concerted humanitarian intervention in a civil war, given the consent of the warring parties. It is less helpful in suggesting how the international community should proceed in the absence of consent. Nonetheless, the importance of expanding the notion of sovereignty to include genuine respect for civilians trapped in a civil war should not be minimized. During the years immediately preceding Lifeline, an estimated 500,000 persons died because neither the government's nor the SPLA's understanding of sovereignty included respect for the most basic of the human rights of civilians, their right to food and other forms of emergency relief.

The change in perceptions was not a result of sudden magnanimity, but rather reflected the cumulative weight of insistent international public opinion. Essentially embarrassing them into cooperation in the relief undertaking, the

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Secretary-General's special representative, James Grant, in early 1989 confronted each side with The New Yorker's appalling portrait of their willingness to use food as a weapon. "Both sides in the war have deployed a silent weapon to kill women and children," wrote Raymond Bonner. "It is as much a part of their warfare as automatic rifles and landmines."¹⁷ Lifeline exposed the protagonists to international ethical expectations and provided them with a tailor-made opportunity to improve their humanitarian stature.

In agreeing to participate in Lifeline, the Sudanese government went to great lengths to stress that it was doing so explicitly as an exercise of its sovereignty. In fact, it described itself as entrusting a portion of Sudanese sovereignty to the United Nations, which it would hold accountable accordingly. As an internationally recognized government, Khartoum stood to lose face locally from agreeing to Lifeline.¹⁸ More remarkable still was the discipline Lifeline imposed on the insurgents, who acknowledged their humanitarian obligations even though they were not formally party to the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. The outcome suggests that international aid can and should serve as a means of holding insurgents, no less than governments, to accepted international standards of ethical behavior.

Considerations of sovereignty also exercised a major constraint on the United Nations system in responding to the crisis in the Sudan. Article 2.7 of the UN Charter traditionally has been interpreted to prevent the world organization from intervening in the domestic affairs of member states without the explicit consent of the recognized government. A dilemma arises, however, inasmuch as the United Nations is also committed–by the preamble to the same Charter–to upholding the very human rights routinely violated in civil wars.

While the UN Secretary-General cannot thus proceed to intervene in a country without the government's tacit permission, he may respond creatively, as in Lifeline, through less political organizations and activities within the United Nations system. With its acknowledged mandate to provide assistance in civil wars, UNICEF was a logical choice as the lead agency in Lifeline. Its earlier involvement with the armed opposition in China, Nigeria, El Salvador, Kampuchea, Afghanistan, Mozambique, Angola, Uganda, and Sri Lanka had established the acceptability of its functions without conferring international diplomatic recognition on the insurgent forces.

Other UN organizations have considerably less flexibility and history in this

¹⁷Raymond Bonner, "Famine," The New Yorker, March 13, 1989, p. 86. Cf also a series of 1988 and 1989 articles by Colin Campbell and Deborah Scroggins in The Atlanta Constitution.

¹⁸Some observers trace the June 1989 coup to the fact that the critics of the al-Mahdi government used his embrace of Lifeline as a prima facie indication of weakness and ineptitude.

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regard, a situation that is becoming increasingly unworkable for other major humanitarian actors. The World Food Programme, for example, was a dominant actor in the Sudan as in other political emergencies because the need for food and food transport inevitably are critical. However, the WFP must await the request of a government before acting; UNICEF has greater power of initiative.

Building on the Lifeline experience, the United Nations itself, rather than only a subsidiary organ like UNICEF, should take the lead in the next decade in gaining fuller authority to respond to the legitimate humanitarian dimension of what is normally considered domestic affairs. Institutional changes already being discussed informally within the UN secretariat as a result of the Sudan experience are a promising beginning. This new leadership would permit the Secretary-General to quickly bring to bear the institutional mandate and the operational capacity of the entire UN system and strengthen his own broader peacemaking potential as well.

VI

Perceptions of Operation Lifeline Sudan differ dramatically. To some, the initiative was transparently humanitarian; to others it seemed a western and Christian plot to infiltrate an Arab and Muslim nation. Some observers credit Lifeline with embodying the ultimate in 21^st-century humanitarian diplomacy; others see it as a profound embarrassment, a shotgun wedding lasting only six months before resulting in separation and perhaps eventually divorce. In reality, Lifeline embodied elements of disinterested generosity and value-laden interventionism, of creative diplomacy and national humiliation.

In spite of the success of the United Nations in early 1989 in negotiating with both warring parties, and in spite of the accomplishments of an array of aid agencies during the middle six months of the year in rushing supplies to those in need, Lifeline had by year’s end lost much of its momentum. A second phase of the operation took monts to negotiate, and its implementation, once begun, was undercut by the active renewal of hostilities. Each side accused the other of violating the terms of the agreement, although neither side repudiated the fundamental humanitarian principles on which the original agreement and resulting program had been based.

The present situation in the Sudan harks back to the gloomy days of 1988. The reasonableness and humanity characterizing the Lifeline agreement have unravelled. War and drought threaten millions once again. In retropspect, it is apparent that the multiple interests of the protagonists which had converged to make Lifeline successful had, over time, come to diverge. The preoccupation of

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the international community with the crisis in the Persian Gulf and the Sudan's initially expressed sympathy for Iraq undercut the consistent application of political pressure on an increasingly resistant regime in Khartoum.

Recent difficulties notwithstanding, the approach used in Operation Lifeline has attracted growing interest as a creative precedent for future humanitarian initiatives in civil war settings. For example, UN officials, governments, and nongovernmental organizations joined forces in late 1990 to put into place a similar effort in Angola. In dealing with the government in Luanda and the rebels of the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), efforts are being made to avoid the difficulties that developed in the Sudan. In particular, officials have concluded that had Lifeline been managed more successfully and accorded greater priority in the search for diplomatic solutions to the underlying conflict, it could have made a more lasting contribution than it did.¹⁹

In the final analysis, Lifeline's most important accomplishment was to inject sovereignty with a clear and obligatory humanitarian content. Global politics continue to be based on the notion of territorial sovereignty, with governments likely to remain the key actors on the world's decision-making stage for the foreseeable future, however compromised their authority. Yet it is possible, Lifeline suggests, to infuse humanitarian concerns into the traditional notion of state sovereignty.

The primacy of humanitarian principles over state imperatives, as traditionally understood, has been most poignantly demonstrated by non-governmental organizations. NGO "intervention" by means of cross-border operations, carried out without the consent of the government which claims control of the territory, is based on the notion that common bonds of humanity override the obstacles of nation-state boundaries. Thus there exists an inherent right of concerned individuals or aid groups to alleviate human suffering no matter where it is located. Distinctions between "internal" and "external" become artificial and untenable within an interconnected sea of humanity. Non-governmental actors, which in recent decades have assumed more prominence and legal personality in international relations even though they are without sovereign jurisdictions, have helped erode the traditional concepts of sovereignty by treating the planet per se as their territory.

An important conceptual change is taking place. The continued evolution of the definition of sovereignly over the next decade could well result in a"use-it

¹⁹ A report prepared by the case study team containing detailed findings and recommendations has been well received by aid professionals. Entitled Report to the Aid Agencies: A Critical Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan and including a description of an initial round of debriefings in New York, Nairobi, Geneva, and Ottawa, the report is available from the Refugee Policy Group, Washington, DC.

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responsibly" or "lose-it" approach. The international community, perhaps through the almost forgotten provisions for military enforcement measures in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, might choose to intervene when the basic human rights of civilians are callously overlooked by either a government or an insurgent force. It is even feasible that an objective figure could be agreed upon (say, the creation of 100,000 displaced persons) which could automatically trigger a UN humanitarian support operation, with or without the permission of the state and the armed opposition involved in creating the refugees.

Steps in this direction are likely to pose particular challenges in Africa, where humanitarian need is greatest as a result of many seemingly intractable civil wars. The large number of repressive military dictatorships and one-party states makes it difficult to conceive that support for such an approach could be quickly mobilized. On a continent where many countries have only three decades of independent self-rule, there is an understandable sensitivity to the imposition of outside standards.

Difficulties notwithstanding, an important evolution has begun. The successes of the Lifeline experience reflect a growing indigenous and international impatience with the traditional waiting-to-be-asked attitude of Africa's regional organization in approaching internal problems on the continent. In July 1990, the Organization of African Unity's (OAU) Council of Ministers passed a resolution endorsed by African heads of state that affirmed the importance of Lifeline's principles to Africa as a whole. The new Secretary-General, Salim Salim, has begun to take public stances in favor of a more active OAU role in African disputes. ²⁰ His leadership position is consistent with a global upsurge in more representative forms of government to which Africa cannot remain immune.

The Lifeline experience also illuminates the need for the fuller mobilization of indigenous resources, institutions, and traditions. Indeed, the continued evolution of more inclusive and binding international humanitarian norms will require deeper roots in the cultural ethos of African and other countries which are the scene of recurrent humanitarian emergencies and interventions. Humanitarianism which remains the sole preserve of the West and fails to enlist the involvement of local peoples and governments as well as to establish resonance with the rich resources of non-Judaeo-Christian religious traditions, will remain unnecessarily foreign and interventionist in nature.

Governments are not alone in groping with the evolution of humanitarian

²⁰ Salim Salim, "Address to the 51st Session of the OAU Council of Ministers, February 1990," quoted in "Stop the Suffering!" Refugees (May 1990), p. 8. See also his "Conflict Resolution, Crisis Prevention and Management, and Confidence-Building Among African States," Disarmament, Vol. XIII, No. 3 (1990), pp. 174-89.

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mores. While it marked a new and promising departure for the UN, Lifeline paradoxically illuminated the extent to which the world organization itself may be one of the last bastions of national sovereignty as traditionally understood. The UN Charter opens with the words, "We the peoples of the United Nations," but the remaining one hundred and ten operational articles are profoundly state-centric.²¹ Lifeline was not launched until member governments pressed the Secretary-General to act, notwithstanding clear and insistent appeals from the Sudanese people and people's (i.e., non-governmental) organizations and the best efforts of staff members from the UN and its agencies.

To its credit, the United Nations ultimately found ways of responding to those trapped in Sudanese territory but beyond the control of its government. In fact, the UN opened up new and expanded avenues for donor states to reach otherwise isolated people. The UN thus emerged from the Lifeline experience as the most consistent respecter of the Sudan's sovereignty, even while working quietly behind the scenes to infuse it with a truly humanitarian content.

International ethics do matter, although politics inevitably influence the contents of humanitarianism. The lessons and precedents of Operation Lifeline Sudan are worth pondering, both in their own right and as a contribution to the evolution of a truly global vision of decency and of a more effective international humanitarian regimen.

²¹ For a discussion of this basic structural dilemma by the longest-serving UN official, see Brian Urquhart, "The United Nations & Its Discontents," The New York Review of Books, Vol. 37, No. 4 (March, 1990), pp. 11-16, and, with Erskine Childers, A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, l990).