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Humanitarianism under Siege A Critical Review Of Operation Lifeline Sudan   By Larry Minear   In collaboration with Tabyiegen Agnes Aboum Eshetu Chole Kosti Manibe Abdul Mohammed Jennefer Sebstad Thomas G. Weiss           The Red Sea Press, Inc. 15 Industry Court Trenton, NJ 08638     Bread for the World Institute on Hunger and Development 802 Rhode Island Avenue NE Washington, DC 20018 Humanitarianism under Siege A Critical Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan   Preface v Forward ix   Chapter 1: Background 1 Chapter 2: Principle and Action 25 Chapter 3: Relief and Politics 65 Chapter 4: Sovereignty and Suffering 99 Chapter 5: Relief and Peace 125 Chapter 6: The Sudan and Beyond 151   Appendices A=Key dates 161 B=Interplay of forces 164 C=Persons consulted 169 D=Contributing agencies 185 E=Resources for further reference 187 F=Team members 193     Glossary 197 Footnotes 199 Index 205     Preface   The idea for this study grew out of my personal experiences in the war zones of the southern Sudan where, during the past five years, the civilian population has suffered enormously. Yet politics has somehow managed to insulate itself from people's suffering and has frustrated repeated efforts to respond to massive human needs. When after concerted pressure the two parties to the conflict agreed to allow Operation Lifeline Sudan to take place, those of us involved in humanitarian activities were elated. In subsequent months, some of us became seized with the idea of institutionalizing the principle of impartial humanitarian assistance in situations of armed conflict. Our obsession grew as we realized that despite breakthroughs in other regions, war and conflicts, with all their ugly consequences, will continue in the Horn of Africa for the foreseeable future. Convinced that humanitarian principles should be the cords that bind us all, we began to see Lifeline as a starting point for legitimizing such principles in the region. Many of us who started work as development economists during Africa's optimistic post-independence period have found development almost impossible in the Horn, given the stark reality of protracted civil conflicts. Most of us have ended up by default doing patch-up jobs as relief workers. Such work has exposed us to the magnitude of the conflicts and the nightmare of their devastation. End of page v The historical circumstances that have given rise to the "just causes" of these wars are apparent: the legacy of colonial rule; economies geared to the extraction of wealth; boundaries shaped by the whims of outsiders; and political systems that have failed to accommodate diversity, facilitate popular participation, or sustain economic development. The inability of political leaders to fashion viable systems of governance has made for ongoing instability. Yet the consequences of these just causes are tremendously costly. The catalog of human misery in the Horn of Africa makes chilling reading. Three to four million civilians have perished from war and famine since 1955. Over two million refugees have fled their homes across the frontiers of Somalia, Ethiopia, and the Sudan. Five and a half million people are currently threatened with death from war-induced starvation. These causes, however just are destroying the very people whose interests they purport to serve. The history of our region demonstrates that political leaders among both government and opposition forces alike too often consider the morality of their actions very narrowly. And while they may weigh their objectives against possible human losses and costs, they nevertheless engage in the most flagrant violations of accepted norms of conduct. Their excess zeal goes largely unchallenged. Those of us committed to peace in the Horn recognize that its leaders will continue to fight to uphold their political principles. Yet we cannot accept the proposition that civilians should continue to pay the price. At a minimum, opposing sides should adhere to codes of conduct that recognize the right of third parties to protect civilian populations and provide them with humanitarian assistance. Lifeline has been a positive step in this direction. End of page vi Our study of Lifeline underscores the critical need for humanitarian norms to take firmer root in the region. These norms should blend universal humanitarian principles with traditional moral values that are the common heritage of people here. They should subject political acts to moral standards. Ultimately, causes must be judged not only against the principles they espouse but also against the human price they exact. Our findings should encourage governments and opposition forces in the region to identify a core humanitarian ethic and to observe a universally accepted minimum code of conduct in war situations. Today's heroes in the Horn of Africa are civilians enduring despite enormous suffering. Through this study we offer homage and respect to them and to those who have struggled tirelessly to maintain humanitarian access to them. It is my hope that this study and the continuing efforts of the Inter-Africa Group, a newly formed non-governmental organization promoting humanitarianism, peace, and development in the region, will help assure that the politics of the protagonists reflect a fuller acknowledgement of the consequences of war.   Abdul Mohammed Nairobi, Kenya June 1990 End of page vii   Foreword   In April 1989 the international community launched Operation Lifeline Sudan. The objective was to prevent a repetition of the experience of the previous year when some 250,000 persons are believed to have lost their lives in the Sudan due to civil war and famine. Lifeline was made possible by an agreement negotiated by the United Nations (UN) with the government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) to allow humanitarian assistance to pass through certain "corridors of tranquility" to civilians on either side of the conflict. Operation Lifeline Sudan is a story of a massive effort, led by the UN but building on and expanding the work of others, to provide aid to people under siege. The challenge was to reach more than two million people throughout the southern Sudan, an area about the size of Kenya, or of Spain and Portugal, or, in the United States, of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Lifeline is also a story of the aid itself and of those providing it coming under siege as the warring parties threw up obstacles to reaching those in need. Difficulties notwithstanding, Lifeline succeeded in helping avoid widespread starvation and displacement in 1989. It has been extended for a second year. The tactics used against the population in the grueling civil war were reminiscent of medieval military maneuvers. They included using relief as political and military weapons, End of page ix attacking convoys seeking to supply beleaguered civilians, disrupting agricultural production and people's traditional means of coping with recurrent food shortages, and tightening the nooses around civilian populations in garrison towns and rural areas. Yet the story of Lifeline is not a medieval morality play, chronicling the noble efforts of humanitarians to outwit the inhumanity of protagonists locked in mortal combat. The story is far more richly textured and ambiguous, multidimensional and convoluted. As written in mid-1990, the story does not have the happy ending of a morality play, though there are indeed lessons to be learned. Its telling engenders respect for the formidable obstacles faced and appreciation for the accomplishments of those involved. Lifeline is a story of the warring parties themselves agreeing to the principle that civilians should not pay the price of the conflict in the form of hardship and starvation—but then allowing other considerations to upstage humanitarian imperatives. It is also the story of aid agencies and personnel, humanitarian principles notwithstanding, becoming caught up in the conflict themselves. Lifeline is not a single story but many stories. It is a story of desperate people receiving critically needed relief, of committed officials on both sides facilitating the aid effort, of dedicated national and expatriate personnel working tirelessly to pre-position foodstuffs before the mid-1989 rains rendered entire areas inaccessible. It is the story of east African governments speeding relief and of parliamentarians and publics around the world responding to urgent UN appeals. Lifeline is also the story of concerted action coming years too late, of deliberate attempts to frustrate and obstruct efforts once agreed to, of an excess of humanitarian zeal and a dearth of aid professionalism. End of page x Beyond the saga of high principle tested by day-to-day practice, Lifeline is also a story of personalities insisting that institutions live up to their missions. Lifeline reflected the passionate commitment and boundless energy of James P. Grant who, as Personal Representative of the UN Secretary-General, was perhaps its single most influential force. He made eight trips to the region in seven months to launch the initiative and keep it moving. Described in Churchillian terms by those who saw him in action, his ability to project the suffering of the Sudan's civilians onto the world stage has led admirers and critics alike to resonate to the description of Lifeline as "humanitarian theater." Lifeline also reflected comparable passion and compassion among Sudanese in positions of authority. Grant's co-chairman at the Khartoum conference that launched Lifeline in early 1989 was Ahmed Abdul el Rahman, the Sudan's Minister of Social Affairs, an Arab from the north and a devout Muslim. Initially he shared the misgivings of fundamentalist colleagues about relief efforts. Yet he was so moved by the suffering of southerners witnessed on a visit to Abyei with UN officials in late 1988 that he took the lead in persuading the Prime Minister and a reluctant cabinet to allow Lifeline to proceed. He has told colleagues that he views his role in laying the groundwork for Lifeline with great personal and professional pride. Commander Riak Macar, a senior SPLA commander in the western Upper Nile region who knew first-hand the hardship created by the war, took the lead in seeing to it that airstrips were quickly readied to speed the delivery of Lifeline food and medicines. He also took advantage of the Lifeline-related lull in the fighting to provide relief to members of opposing Arab militias who had laid down their arms and to resettle them in safer locales. The notion that assistance should be provided to innocent civilians irrespective of their End of page xi location touched a chord in what the Sudanese consider their national character and brought out the best in people on both sides of the conflict. Lifeline is also the story of people in positions of lesser authority, Sudanese and expatriates alike, accepting hardship and risking injury to see that relief reached those in need. It is the story of truck drivers and pilots venturing into unsafe territory and of railway workers interceding for the lives of UN officials with local militias. It is, at the end of the day, the story of Sudanese communities and individuals summoning up remarkable ingenuity and resourcefulness to cope with formidable adversity. Lifeline's stories are divergent and contradictory. To some people, the initiative seemed transparently humanitarian, to others a Western and Christian maneuver to infiltrate an Arab and Muslim nation. Some credit Lifeline with embodying the ultimate in 21st century diplomacy; others see it as a profound embarrassment, a shotgun wedding on an international stage. In reality, Lifeline embodied elements of disinterested generosity and value-laden interventionism, of creative diplomacy and national humiliation. The many stories associated with Lifeline do not lend themselves to being pieced together easily. Drawn from interviews with more than two hundred people in Africa, Europe, and North America (Appendix C), they form more a patchwork quilt than a whole cloth. While certain themes recur, no common patterns or easy generalizations by geography or politics, race or religion emerge. This narrative is a vehicle for letting those involved speak for themselves, however divergent their perspectives. Lifeline is also a story of shifting realities. When launched in April 1989 its principles had the agreement of the elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq el Mahdi. They were reaf End of page xii firmed by Lieutenant-General Omar Hasan Ahmad al Bashir shortly after he assumed power in a military coup in June. However, aid activities thereafter fared less well, as did efforts to resolve the conflict beneath the suffering. In fact, some believe Sadiq's very cooperation with Lifeline contributed to his overthrow—and to the tougher approach Bashir himself eventually took. The military equation also shifted. Lifeline was launched at a time when each side for different reasons needed a reprieve. The cease-fires from which Lifeline benefited were extended a number of times, and with them the corridors of tranquility through which relief was allowed to pass to both sides. Yet both sides used the breathing spaces to consolidate their military power. A year into Lifeline, the SPLA held more territory, and held it more firmly, than when Lifeline began. At the same time, the insurgents were on their way to becoming less of a military movement and more of a political and administrative authority. By late October, when the rains had passed, the war itself had rekindled. There were also changes in the leadership of Lifeline. At the end of September, Grant handed over the reins to his successor Michael J. Priestley. The locus of coordination shifted from New York to Khartoum, a high-level diplomatic initiative evolving into a more routine relief operation. The SPLM/A, which had viewed Lifeline as heavily biased toward the Sudan government, had fresh grounds for unhappiness as more of the action seemed dictated by the Khartoum authorities. The Sudan government was already aggrieved with Lifeline at what it considered abuses by aid agencies and disproportionate benefits garnered by the insurgents. End of page xiii Lifeline is also the story of the testing of international law and institutions by fire. Protagonists in struggles such as the Sudan's do not have unlimited freedom to wage their wars indiscriminately or to deny civilians access to impartial assistance. Yet here as elsewhere, agreed-upon international law gave way to political and military expediency. The sovereignty exercised by the Sudan government to allow Lifeline to be mounted was soon invoked to assert greater control over relief activities. Aid institutions, many of them not accustomed to assisting in internal armed conflicts, failed to develop a common front for dealing with the authorities or to maintain an effective division of labor among themselves. The situation is still too fluid to tell the Lifeline story definitively. When we submitted our proposal to do a case study of Operation Lifeline Sudan in November 1989, the war had flared afresh and Lifeline's future was itself in question. When our team met for the first time in Nairobi in March 1990, the launching of a second year of Lifeline had already been delayed for five months. A day before our visit to the Kenya-Sudan border in late March, Toposa tribesmen armed with automatic weapons had overrun the area, killing thirteen persons and providing a fresh reminder of the vulnerability of civilians, aid operations, and personnel. In mid-April after we left Khartoum, an alleged coup attempt failed to topple the military government. The next day twenty eight persons were executed by firing squad at the order of a military tribunal, and in the coming months the government took additional reprisals against those suspected of disloyalty. In early June, just prior to our final meetings in Nairobi, high-flying aircraft identified as Sudan air force planes bombed the SPLA-controlled town of Torit, hitting the End of page xiv hospital, a church, a school, and a market, killing seventeen and wounding over fifty, mostly women and children. The town, apparently devoid of military presence, was a center of relief and reconstruction work. One bomb hit a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) poultry project, killing an attendant and many of the birds. The Torit incident threatened to delay implementation of the agreement to proceed with a second year of Lifeline. Lifeline is also too current for its story be told with a clear sense of its enduring importance. If momentum is maintained and massive suffering averted a second year, the accomplishments of "Lifeline 1" will be enhanced, gaining still added luster if peace becomes a reality. On the other hand, if "Lifeline 2" becomes mired in continued political wrangling between protagonists or suffers from ebbing international support, Lifeline 1 may itself be tarnished. Lifeline's value will also be enhanced if it becomes the basis for addressing the Sudan's languishing development agenda or offers pointers for resolving similar problems in other countries. Yet if Lifeline proves to have been only a spasm of worldwide concern which leaves national institutions in disarray and deepens international cynicism about large-scale relief programs, it will be judged more harshly as the years go by. Even with the jury still out, the Lifeline story needs to be told. Many of those involved are still available to reflect on the interplay of humanitarian and political forces, on the personal and interpersonal chemistry that shaped the outcome. Individual agency evaluations to date have focused largely on technical matters, with little thought given by the UN system as a whole—and even less by most governments and private relief groups—to Lifeline's larger meaning. With the UN itself these days playing a more active role in regional End of page xv problem solving and post-conflict reconstruction, its role in the Sudan is of particular interest. Our first chapter provides historical context. Lifeline's success in meeting its own objectives, we find, must be viewed against the absence of effective international action in 1986-88, when the deaths of some 500,000 persons from famine and war are believed to have occurred. Chapter 2, which reviews Lifeline's work on a month-by-month basis, gives mixed reviews: positive in some aspects and negative in others, with some ambiguity throughout. The next three chapters move beyond operational matters to the larger issues of politics, sovereignty, and peace. Chapter 3 looks at Lifeline's humanitarian activities in their political context and reviews their political motivations and repercussions. Chapter 4 examines the extent to which the exercise of sovereignty both accommodated and obstructed humanitarian action. Chapter 5 highlights the interaction between emergency aid and efforts to resolve the underlying conflict. Ranging even more widely, Chapter 6 explores some of the implications of Lifeline for the future. It reflects the view that as the world enters a decade during which internal armed conflict promises to continue to take a heavy civilian toll, Lifeline's significance extends well beyond the Sudan. Its positive features, better understood, may become the basis for an improved system of international assistance and protection. Its negative aspects, if avoided, may strengthen future humanitarian efforts. We wish to thank the agencies (Appendix D) that have supported our work. Cooperating fully with us, they have encouraged a critical and independent review of Lifeline. They believe, as do we, that a volume such as this is needed for the concerned international public on whose informed support continued humanitarian aid ultimately depends. End of page xvi With that constituency in mind, we have kept footnotes to a minimum and have included illustrative material and a list of additional resources (Appendix E.). There is also a glossary to help with the unavoidable acronyms. Quotations in our text unless otherwise noted, are drawn from interviews conducted by the team between March and June 1990. Materials from other sources are footnoted. Quotations remain unattributed when information is sensitive and the sources vulnerable. Beyond the general public, our volume is intended for government and UN officials and aid practitioners. Building on their interest in learning from the Lifeline experience, we are also preparing a separate document comprised of more detailed findings and recommendations. We are pleased that they have found our preliminary observations useful and plan to review our conclusions with them in due course. We would also like to thank countless others who have provided assistance and encouragement. We are particularly grateful to those who have shared their reflections on Lifeline so generously and candidly. Without their help and the cooperation of a wider circle of people, we could not have carried out our research and published our findings within a six-month period. Particular thanks are due to Church World Service of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and to Lutheran World Relief for making my services available for this undertaking. We are also indebted to the Refugee Policy Group, which has acted as grantee for funds received and has provided counsel on our case study itself. As team leader, I wish to express deep appreciation to my colleagues Agnes Aboum, Eshetu Chole, Kosti Manibe, Abdul Mohammed, Jennefer Sebstad, and Thomas Weiss (Appendix End of page xvii F). The variety of our national backgrounds, academic training, and work experience has greatly enriched our work. Each of us has brought to our individual labors and corporate task not only hard-headed objectivity and seasoned judgment but also personal passion and humanitarian commitment. While the data amassed, conclusions reached, and insights shared thus reflect a highly collaborative process, we have agreed that for purposes of consistency the finished product should be written by a single person. As that person, I accept full responsibility for this volume. Larry Minear Washington, DC July 1990