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. Sudan’s grants to SRRA and RASS to pay staff and crisis in the 1990s therefore mirrored contem- rent offices. This support amounted to about porary concerns over supporting improvements $220,000 in direct financial aid in 1996.6 in local governance while providing aid to meet OLS officials also encouraged other inter- basic needs as components of an overall strategy national organizations and NGOs to develop to resolve a conflict. formal relationships with indigenous southern The SPLA responded positively in 1994 Sudanese community groups. Their foreign when it announced its adoption of a frame- partners could then help these Sudanese groups work for administration that included clear find and apply for foreign funding and would distinctions between civil and military insti- supervise their activities. In 1993, only two of tutions, a provision for the separation of pow- these “civil society” groups had formal relation- ers in administration, and recognition of basic ships with OLS-affiliated partners; by 1995, human rights.9 This announcement occurred
114 | Features PRISM 1, no. 2 in the context of broader negotiations involv- enjoy the support of a vigorous civil society in ing rebels and Sudan’s government under the southern Sudan, which was expected to give the aegis of the Intergovernmental Authority on peace agreement a solid political base. Development (an African regional associa- tion) and the Friends of the Intergovernmental The Rebel Perspective Authority on Development (a group of The rebel perspective of these events was Western countries including Canada, Italy, the quite different. The SPLA began its fight for Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and self-determination with the 1983 collapse of a the United States). The resulting Declaration of decade-old peace agreement with the govern- Principles set up a framework for peace negotia- ment of Sudan. Like many rebel movements of tions that by 1996 involved Sudan’s president. its time, the SPLA adopted a Marxist-Leninist Now injecting a (faintly) military component, framework, probably because it found the cen- the Western countries would finance security tralizing tendencies and association with lib- patrols, supply technical equipment, and under- eration struggles elsewhere in Africa useful write a secretariat in Nairobi for peace talks. A for maintaining internal unity and ideological new round of negotiations began in 2002 and focus. Its leadership also benefited from the in 2005 produced the Comprehensive Peace patronage of Ethiopia’s President Mengistu Agreement that is the current framework for Haile Mariam, then in the midst of a “socialist the postwar integration of rebel and govern- revolution” with Soviet help in his own coun- ment forces. try. Mengistu was willing to provide the SPLA This evolving ad hoc complex operation produced more dividends in terms of the post- conflict construction of southern Sudan. By John Garang toured the United States 2002, the SPLA had sponsored numerous con- and Europe in mid-1989 as the head ferences throughout southern Sudan, including of an “authentic representative” of meetings that led to commitments to improve southern Sudan’s people the status of women, protect wildlife, and set up programs for the disadvantaged.10 This socializa- tion of a rebel movement into the acceptance with a rear base in Ethiopian territory and used of basic global norms of governance appeared his security services to identify and eliminate as one of the triumphs of the tedious but care- rivals to the SPLA’s leadership under John ful coordination of international assistance and Garang. In return, the SPLA harassed Sudan’s international political engagement. Moreover, government, which was supporting Ethiopian the framework for negotiation and the regula- separatists at the time. The SPLA even fought tory framework for the distribution of humani- inside Ethiopia in support of Mengistu’s army tarian aid contributed to the healing of the as it battled separatist rebels from its northern factional split within the SPLA. By the time provinces. By the late 1980s, Ethiopian support the final peace agreement was signed in 2005, was critical to the SPLA ability to control wide the SPLA and its more democratically inclined swaths of territory inside southern Sudan, and SPLM political wing were able to act as an it was from this position of strength that it dealt authoritative representative of rebel forces and with the newly formed OLS.
PRISM 1, no. 2 Features | 115 The collapse of Mengistu’s government advantage, the politically favored mainstream in mid-1991 in the face of advancing rebels SPLA also was able to divert relief supplies (whom Khartoum had supported) came as a for military purposes and to devise ways to tax great disaster for the SPLA, as it was forced relief aid that arrived via OLS. In the words of a to leave Ethiopian territory. Suddenly denied member of the SPLA Executive Council, “Since their secure rear base, SPLA leaders faced humanitarian assistance is only provided for the splits in their own ranks. The OLS appearance needy civil population, the task of distribution on the scene was fortuitous for the SPLA core of this assistance fell on specially selected SPLA leadership. John Garang, the SPLA chairman, officers and men who saw to it that the bulk of made his diplomatic debut in the context of the supplies went to the army. Even in cases his key role in ensuring SPLA cooperation where the expatriate relief monitors were strict with OLS. He toured the United States and and only distributed relief supplies to the civil- Europe in mid-1989 as the head of an “authen- ians by day, the SPLA would retrieve that food tic representative” of southern Sudan’s peo- by night.”13 This collaboration between rebels ple, and as one who had to be recognized as and relief agencies, regardless of the intentions a negotiating partner on par with the govern- of specific actors, was a significant shift from ment of Sudan if humanitarian relief supplies past practice among relief agencies to refrain were to reach people in need. A graduate of from engaging with nonsovereign authorities Iowa State University (with a Ph.D. in agri- that were fighting recognized governments.14 It cultural economics) and of the infantry school also enabled the SPLA to adapt to the new situ- at Fort Benning, Georgia (as a member of the ation its existing system of political commissars prewar Sudan military), Garang’s new status that it had developed under the tutelage of the enabled him to renew contacts and to visit regime in Ethiopia. Moreover, some SPLA cad- with members of the U.S. Congress and the res had received technical and political educa- Brookings Institution.11 Even if the U.S. State tion in Cuba up to about 1990, and they could Department refused to extend formal recogni- also be used to ensure that foreign-provided tion to the SPLA, OLS equipped it to conduct aid was employed in ways that benefited the its international relations at a new level. rebel group.15 As an SPLA commander noted, OLS and its partners shifted the balance commissars typically accompanied battlefield of resources toward the rebel forces with which commanders in the 1980s to enforce politi- they negotiated and that they thought would be cal discipline and manage rebel contacts with the most reliable. The factional split in 1991, local authorities, and this system of “political for example, raised concern among some foreign education” was easy to adapt to the challenges officials that the willingness to supply humani- of managing relationships with new actors in tarian relief to groups outside of the main SPLA the 1990s while the SPLA continued to fight framework would promote the formation of its enemies.16 more factions, which would raise the financial Even if Sudan’s government asserted its expenses and complicate the political negotia- sovereignty to interfere with and veto OLS tions necessary to maintain relief operations.12 relief flights, longer term aspects of the OLS Although Sudan’s government could engagement with the SPLA conveyed addi- manipulate relief deliveries for its own tional advantages to rebels. The external
116 | Features PRISM 1, no. 2 support for the development of “civil society” better able than the government to protect and groups gave the SPLA and its SRRA the capac- support them.19 In short, the Leninist organi- ity to screen participants in workshops and sem- zation that the SPLA developed in the 1980s inars and to influence which local NGOs would under Ethiopian tutelage was well suited to get contracts to implement foreign-supported manage the agendas of a new set of foreigners in development projects. Many of these Sudanese ways that contributed to core goals of the rebels. NGOs were headed by former SPLA members A few NGOs operating under the OLS and other associates of the rebel group, includ- rubric actively collaborated with the rebels. ing those that sprang up in Nairobi around the An investigation of Norwegian People’s Aid opportunities that the organizational base of the (NPA, known colloquially among some NGO coordinated relief operation provided.17 What workers as “Norwegian People’s Army”) “had appeared to the international community to be for several years organised an air-bridge for the part of the normalization in support of a peace supply of weapons to battle zones within Sudan process was to rebels the opportunity to assert under the supervision of its Nairobi office. One political control over wider swaths of southern of the NPA pilots involved in the gun running Sudanese society and dominate the distribution . . . stated that his plane had landed at SPLA of resources from foreign sources while they bases with some 2.5 tonnes of weapons.”20 A continued to fight. senior SPLA member who was responsible for This boost in the political position of managing its foreign affairs in the late 1980s the SPLA appeared in its decision in 2000 to and into the 1990s described the NPA as impose its own memoranda of understanding “outstanding” for the SPLA, and noted that on NGOs in territory that the SPLA controlled. “Norway has always been there.” He also noted These included provisions that NGOs had to abide by SPLA and SRRA regulations and seek NGOs that did not wish to provide their permission before interacting with local direct military assistance had a hard communities. The foreign guests also had to time avoiding contributions to the pay various fees and taxes to the SPLA, includ- ing for permission to enter, work, and live in military effort in some other form this territory, much as a sovereign government would demand.18 These regulations also allowed that the SPLA’s relations with other NGOs the rebels to control people in its territory and were “strategic” as they assisted the rebel group assert its political dominance as a gatekeeper to in significant ways that enabled the rebels to external resources. Traveling to rebel-held parts concentrate more on fighting.21 NGOs that did of Sudan at that time was like traveling to a new not wish to provide direct military assistance country, with SPLA travel permits, registries, had a hard time avoiding contributions to the and other administrative paraphernalia typical military effort in some other form. Relief flights of a sovereign state. A senior SPLA commander into SPLA-held territory, for example, routinely who had served with the rebel group since 1983 carried SPLA members.22 described the NGO presence as supporting the The additional effect of this complex oper- SPLA’s objective of convincing local people in ation was to release the SPLA from the need areas under their control that the SPLA was to actually administer local communities while
PRISM 1, no. 2 Features | 117 Man displaced by attacks on his tribe waits to receive food ration UN (Tim McKulka) UN (Tim
still being able to claim that they were protecting and providing for people by virtue of their gatekeeper status vis-à-vis foreigners. An early critic of OLS noted the weakness of administra- tive institutions in rebel-held areas in which aid was focused.23 This is not to say that the SPLA did not provide local people with some level of order and security from attack, if not much in the way of social services.24 This postwar complex operations arrangement continues to maintain this division of labor between the international community and rebel administration in the provision of services to people under its control. As of 2009, for example, the UN and other organizations provide “more than 80 percent of Southern Sudan’s safety net including primary health care and clean water.”25 The development of complex and coordinated operations in southern Sudan since the signing of the 2005 peace agreement (and its provision for a referendum on secession scheduled for 2011) continues to serve SPLA political interests. Approximately 40 percent of the southern administra- tion’s budget receipts, supported through an agreement with the government in Khartoum to share oil revenues, go to military spending.26 Overall, the SPLA has ably manipulated the interests and agendas of outsiders, despite its posi- tion as a nonsovereign authority. It has been efficient at extracting resources and pursuing its political goals, even when these have been at odds with those of its foreign interlocutors. This disjuncture in perspectives is pervasive in discussions with members of the international community in southern Sudan and with SPLA members after the signing of the 2005 peace treaty. Many SPLA members assert that their willingness to fight is in the service of the independence of a sovereign state
118 | Features PRISM 1, no. 2 in southern Sudan. They say that Khartoum the 2005 peace agreement, it has helped it to would never consent to their secession even develop its institutions of control and to assert though a referendum on the issue is scheduled its political domination as the “authentic repre- for 2011. They are convinced another war is sentative” of southern Sudanese society. Outside likely. Meanwhile, many NGO workers and aid helped the struggling rebel group to further other foreigners condemn such talk as harm- develop a separate administrative framework ful to the peace agreement and remain focused alongside the expanding range of contacts with on its implementation.27 In sum, the SPLA has foreigners and Sudanese society. This engage- managed to use the intensive engagement in ment has made it much more likely that the two decades of complex operations to leverage SPLA will eventually lead southern Sudan to the power of much better endowed and capable independence with broad popular support. actors to fight its enemies, discipline its own This disjuncture between outsiders’ ranks, politically dominate local communities, aims and local recipients’ interests appears and create a broader context in which its core in more recent U.S. military training efforts. goals are more likely to be achieved, regardless One trainer was confident that SPLA fighters of whether its patrons want this outcome or not. would accept American training in ways that would help to reshape the SPLA into a force Sudan’s Lessons for more like the American military. Cultural dif- Complex Operations ferences could be overcome through personal The obvious difference between interna- contact, and this would lead tactically profi- tional engagement in Sudan and contempo- cient SPLA fighters to use American expertise rary complex operations planning is the near to develop into a disciplined military able to absence of military engagement on the part of take its proper place within the framework of the intervening force in the former case. Even the 2005 peace agreement. While this is not so, OLS and other actors have had military an unreasonable proposition, at least some significance. The OLS apparatus allowed U.S. SPLA commanders saw the situation quite dif- agencies and others to provide aid to rebels ferently. They pointed out that the visibility through intermediaries such as the SRRA that of one trainer—a white contractor who drove they could claim did not represent recognition a black Hummer in Juba traffic—emphasized or direct provisioning of rebels. The actual situ- ation was that “SRRA officials were all named complex operations, with or without from among the soldiers anyway and retained military components, have tended to their military rank. . . . If aid did materialize, the first human needs to be served would naturally favor the weaker, nonsovereign tend to be those close to the [SPLA] army.”28 military force This brand of complex operation did have an effect on the organization of the rebel group American power but also the equally jarring and its interests in providing governance to mismatch of foreign advice and the local situa- communities under its control. Rather than tion. As an SPLA commander with 25 years of socializing the SPLA in the direction of a liberal guerrilla warfare experience remarked, “Why political organization intent on implementing aren’t they asking us for advice in Iraq and
PRISM 1, no. 2 Features | 119 Afghanistan?” The United States, he stated, Kurdistan-Iraq in 1991, Bosnia in 1992–1995, usually has a very good military strategy and and Kosovo-Serbia in 1999. These interven- a poor political strategy.29 This condition, tions also tend to favor rebels, especially when which is enhanced with the participation of rebels are keen to collaborate with the enemies large numbers of actors with diverse interests, of their enemies. The outcome of intervention offers valuable opportunities for manipulation in many of these conflicts has been the con- and exploitation to groups such as the SPLA. solidation of the authority of secessionist rebels The SPLA story highlights the more gen- as they use their control of humanitarian aid eral point that complex operations, with or to convince local people that they are the real without military components, have tended government authority in that area. Moreover, to favor the weaker, nonsovereign military these rebels are all the more convincing to non- force because humanitarian emergencies often combatants when they receive obvious support take place in conditions where central state from important foreign partners. authority has grown weak or has broken down Complex operations in the service of altogether. In these situations, such as in the existing states are a relatively new develop- Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra ment. The Sudan story shows, however, that Leone, or Liberia, humanitarian aid agencies getting local politics right is often even more and UN or regional peacekeepers need to complex than the challenges of administrative negotiate with whatever armed force controls coordination. Actors that appear weak or dis- a particular area as a precondition for gaining advantaged often turn out to be those that are access to people in need. most motivated and most adept at manipulat- Responses to humanitarian emergencies ing outsiders and in playing their interests off have had explicit military components for one another. They suspect that outsiders are some time. UN Secretary-General Boutros motivated by career goals that define success Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peace, for example, fairly narrowly, and that they will soon depart set out a plan for preventative diplomacy, for the next disaster zone. Administrative peacemaking, and peacekeeping that described coordination is an important component of a well the ideals of the international interven- strategy to address these unintended outcomes. tion in Somalia in 1992.30 But like more Even so, the local actors know they probably purely civilian complex operations, military will spend the rest of their lives in that place, engagement usually ends up with foreign actors so they place a much greater urgency on seeking out collaborations with local armed achieving their goals than the foreign visitors, groups on an informal basis, if not officially. who believe they are training these local actors Even places without a central government, in their own image. such as Somalia, prove too difficult to pacify This is not an argument against the con- and administer without significant cooperation cept of complex operations. Instead, it is simply with groups who already have guns. a warning to take the capabilities and interests Counterinsurgency operations in some of local actors seriously and to recognize how states can create humanitarian emergencies the interests and resources of foreigners can that bring combined civil-military responses provide opportunities to local actors and can that can be deemed complex operations, as in produce unintended consequences. PRISM
120 | Features PRISM 1, no. 2 Notes 1 “The Failed States Index 2009,” available at
PRISM 1, no. 2 Features | 121 24 Øystein Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government: Political Changes in the Southern Sudan During the 1990s (Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Africainstitutet, 2005), 68–70. 25 United Nations Security Council, Report of the Secretary General on Sudan (New York: United Nations, January 30, 2009), 10. 26 “Sudan-United States: No Longer at Ease,” Africa Confidential 50, no. 2 (January 23, 2009), 7. 27 Observations from the author’s August 2009 and earlier visits to southern Sudan. 28 African Rights, Food and Power (London: African Rights, 1997), 88–89. 29 From discussions in Juba, Sudan, with SPLA commanders and an American military trainer and meet- ings with SPLA commanders in SPLA Headquarters, Juba, where American military trainers were observed. 30 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace (New York: United Nations, 1995), 39–72.
122 | Features PRISM 1, no. 2