The Sudan Rebel Perspective
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Complex Operations in Weak and Failing States The Sudan Rebel Perspective BY WILLIAM RENO he U.S. Government provides a comprehensive plan for civilian-military efforts in failing states aimed at showing citizens that their own governments can protect them. The object is to weaken any appeal that rebels might develop among these populations. In Sudan, which T 1 ranks third in a prominent index of failed states, this effort entails U.S. coordination of humanitar- ian aid, the provision of basic social services, and help to improve governmental function. This latest effort, part of the implementation of a 2005 peace agreement between a rebel army and Sudan’s government, is part of an intensive 20-year official engagement with this country and its conflicts. Sudan thus serves as a good illustration of complex operations that can inform effort of “syn- chronization, coordination, and/or integration of military operations with the activities of gov- ernmental and non-governmental entities to achieve unity of effort.”2 Even though the military component played a minimal role in the Sudan case until recently, this experience with coordinating the other two components of this trinity highlights some important lessons for complex operations in the future. Too little attention has been paid to how armed groups in targeted countries synchronize the activities of foreign operations to create their own “unity of effort.” This article focuses on how one group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and its political wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), have incorporated complex operations of foreigners into their strategies for fighting wars and gaining political power. Even as the SPLA has fought an insurgency campaign against Sudan’s government, some rebel groups have significant experience in conducting their own versions of complex operations that involve nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international agencies, and foreign governments over several decades. From the rebels’ perspective, complex operations strengthen capacity to use foreign actors to their own advantage. Foreign-run operations can help rebels to recruit and discipline fighters, suppress factional divisions, and, most critically, convince local people that they, and not the government, protect noncombatants and Dr. William Reno is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. PRISM 1, no. 2 FEATURES | 111 Former SPLA soldiers retrained as police officers participate in graduation ceremony UN (Tim McKulka) UN (Tim that the international community accepts the lessons from this experience and points to some rebels’ claims to be “authentic representatives” broad considerations for complex operations in of the people. other settings. This article first considers the advent of complex operations in southern Sudan from The View from Outside the point of view of the international commu- The first large-scale experience with nity, and especially the major U.S. goals there complex coordination in Sudan’s conflict since the late 1980s. This experience has been began with Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). at the forefront of coordination of U.S. agencies The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for overseas operations in a conflict zone and (OFDA) in the U.S. Agency for International has been a significant example of this kind of Development (USAID) worked to coordinate approach. It was one of the first major efforts Department of State activities with other gov- of its scale and complexity to provide relief and ernment agencies and outsiders in a role similar build local government administrative capacity to that envisioned more recently for the Office in a conflict zone, and thus sets a pattern for of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and later complex operations. The article then turns Stabilization. OFDA worked with NGOs that to the SPLA perspective and focuses on how had extensive knowledge of wartime conditions rebels in Sudan interpreted and manipulated in Sudan, under the coordination of the United the institutional interests of a complex opera- Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) director tion. The final section highlights some of the James Grant, to launch a coordinated response 112 | FEATURES PRISM 1, no. 2 to the plight of noncombatants in what by then international intervention in Somalia also may was a 6-year civil war. This collaboration led to have alerted Khartoum that total refusal to per- the conference in Khartoum in 1989 that cre- mit the delivery of aid in a humanitarian crisis ated OLS. This conference brought together might bring even more unwelcome interven- USAID offices in Sudan and Kenya, members tion. Thus, the OLS arrangement became insti- of Sudan’s government, and United Nations tutionalized during the course of the 1990s, and (UN) officials to coordinate famine relief. assumed even more complex forms up to the Sudan was also a proving ground for improved signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement UN coordination efforts, which led to the 1991 in 2005. creation of the UN Office for the Coordination OLS played a major role in providing direct of Humanitarian Affairs.3 humanitarian aid to all war-affected parts of One of the aims of the 1989 conference southern Sudan, even though Sudan’s govern- was to secure an agreement from Khartoum ment made serious efforts to manage the provi- to provide “corridors of tranquility” through sion of aid for its own benefit. In enabling more which aid to noncombatants could be deliv- NGOs to operate in Sudan, OLS functioned as ered. This effort also required an agreement a sort of indirect provider of public services to from the SPLA, which by 1989 had captured noncombatants. It also had a stabilizing effect large areas of southern Sudan from its bases in on southern Sudanese society during the con- Ethiopia. NGOs eager for access to rebel-held flict. In the words of an important observer areas within the framework of the U.S.- and of politics in Sudan, the “real effect [of OLS] UN-sponsored agreement helped to organize was to keep the household labour force intact, formal talks with Lam Akol, the head of the reduce the amount of time spent on gather- SPLA’s Office of Coordination and External ing alternative sources of food, and reinforce Relations. These NGOs and UN officials pro- networks of kinship exchange and exchange vided the buffer that U.S. officials needed to between neighbouring communities.”4 avoid direct working relationships with the SPLA and its relief wing, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA). This one of the aims of the 1989 conference arrangement opened the way for other NGOs was to secure an agreement from to work in SPLA-held territory without directly Khartoum to provide “corridors of involving U.S. officials—but at the same time tranquility” through which aid to serving U.S. goals of addressing famine condi- noncombatants could be delivered tions under the rubric of OLS. A military coup in Khartoum on June 30, 1989, and the uncooperative stance of the new Even though OLS and its partner organi- regime complicated relief efforts, but OLS was zations started out as an ad hoc response to renewed in March 1990. Later, the regime in a humanitarian emergency, it evolved into a Khartoum proved willing to accept the OLS quasigovernment for rebel-held areas. This was presence in the south as part of its bid for inter- true even though these organizations had to national goodwill after having backed Saddam carefully adhere to the Sudan government’s Hussein in the 1990 Gulf War. The 1992 insistence that OLS seek permission for each PRISM 1, no. 2 FEATURES | 113 relief flight. This was a severe restriction, more than 30 of these groups had appeared. resulting in an estimated OLS delivery rate of These activities required a constant schedule between 20 and 30 percent of predicted needs of workshops and seminars as the Sudan-based in the south in the early 1990s.5 Nonetheless, organizations selected individuals to receive OLS gave the UN a vehicle to provide a regu- foreign-sponsored training. Nairobi became a latory framework for relief operations. NGOs base for these meetings, as well as for at least 50 were then able to participate in operations in Sudanese-run NGOs by 1997.7 rebel-held territories, regardless of whether This dense interaction between outsiders they addressed all humanitarian aid needs in and the SPLA and SSIM led in 1994 to the particular areas or not. establishment of formal OLS ground rules gov- UN and NGO promotion of longer term erning the conduct of the rebel organizations development in these areas, or what they in exchange for humanitarian assistance. One defined as capacity-building operations, led document stressed that the “guiding principle to more intensive consultations with rebels. of OLS and SRRA is that of humanitarian These contacts were organized through the neutrality—an independent status for humani- tarian work beyond political or military con- foreign actors found that they could siderations.”8 This cleared the way for other promote an indigenous state-building agencies to contribute to this process, for project and a democratic transition example, with the start of the predecessor to the USAID Sudan Transitional Assistance for in the midst of a conflict even while Rehabilitation program. relieving a humanitarian crisis These relationships seemed to put OLS and its partners into a position from which to influ- SRRA. After a factional split in 1991, the rival ence the development of rebel organizations Southern Sudan Independence Movement toward a greater interest in governance. These (SSIM) set up the Relief Association of South foreign actors found that they could promote an Sudan (RASS). UNICEF then seconded and indigenous state-building project and a demo- paid consultants to these organizations’ Nairobi cratic transition in the midst of a conflict even offices to provide technical advice, and gave while relieving a humanitarian crisis.