9 July 2011 South Sudan at Independence Registered Charity No 1107341 BHuuimldainnitgarifaonrAtihd eRefliueftTurrue st “Stories, hopes and dreams Featured in this issue: from a new Notes from a scorched earth: nation on the Understanding South Sudan eve of independence ” Making a difference at Marol Academy Living in the margins: Ongoing conflict in the Nuba Mountains and Abyei Right: A Sudanese lady The meaning of independence builds the roof to her tukal in rural Bahr-El- Ghazel, South Sudan www.hart-uk.org A new nation I will never forget landing at the forbidden airstrips, Today, I write to congratulate South Sudan on the eve of designated ‘No Go Zones’ by Khartoum so that no- this special day to celebrate the historic referendum and one could take aid to its victims or tell the world what the establishment of a new nation, built on the firm was happening. As we landed, we could often see foundations of the sacrifice of many who gave their lives smoke rising from horizon to horizon – villages for faith and for freedom. burning. We were always welcomed with courageous smiles, by men, women and children, so often (Baroness) Caroline Cox emaciated with hunger and disease. And then we Egypt Libya 100 mi would go footing through the killing fields and the Q 100 km Wadi Halfa burnt homes and crops, torched in Khartoum’s Q Port Sudan Saudi R scorched earth policy. At night, as we settled to sleep ile e N d Arabia S in our tents, the horizon red with flames, we would e S u d a n a Chad hear singing. The people still sang – even surrounded Er r Q Khartoum itr ea by the fires of destruction. u Yemen El Fashir Q f e l r i N Now, South Sudan has risen from those fires of e t ntains i a Mou h Nuba Blu W e Djibouti destruction to give birth to a new free and South Nile D Kordofan E t Abyei h independent nation. Somaliland hazal i Central hr El-G Q o Ba Addis Ababa African Republic p QWau i There are many challenges in the months ahead: the a humanitarian crises; the renewed fighting and South Sudan Q Juba inter-communal conflicts; the unresolved problems of YeiQ Abyei; the suffering of the peoples of the Nuba Somalia Uganda DR Congo Q Mountains and the threat of violence in the Blue Nile - Kenya Magadishu and many others. We will continue to support our friends in South Sudan as they build for the future. “South Sudan has risen from those fires of destruction to give birth to a new free and independent nation ” 12 Students at Marol Academy in the village of Lunyakor CONTENTS Page 4-5: Understanding the The dawn North-South war Page 6-7: Stories from South Sudan of a nation Page 8: Interdependence: Fuel, Food and Guns On 9 July 2011, South Sudan will become Page 9: the newest nation on earth. The HART: ‘Footing’ in South struggle for independence began over Sudan fifty-five years ago – far longer than Page 10: most lifetimes in South Sudan. A common News of our work history, a lack of justice and a desire to Page 11: shape their own destiny has drawn the people Making a difference at of South Sudan together. Having witnessed Marol Academy Africa’s longest civil war, and countless stories Page 12-13: of suffering, this final separation is laden with Living in the margins: promise. Briefings on the Nuba Mountains and Abyei This edition seeks both to look back at the Page 14: South Sudanese struggle for liberation and to Conflict in South Sudan glimpse forward at the future of this new Page 15: nation. Drawing on our partners’ unique The meaning of experiences and insights, we hope to shed Independence light on South Sudan’s remarkable Page 16: achievement and to give a snapshot into the Supporting HART’s work stories of hope that HART is helping its friends weave in South Sudan. Naomi Pendle and Lydia Tanner 3 Understanding the North-South war They came without a noise – the whirr of the to conflict. The South was given powers to be a Notes from propellers sounded little more than the whisper of the semi-autonomous region with its own government a scorched wind. If you did not know that they might come, you that would have control of revenues from newly would not have heard them at all. And then, high discovered oil fields in the region. However, ten earth above the thin clouds, they would open their bellies, years of peace were shattered when the “dropping death from the skies”. The white hot, razor government, in Khartoum unilaterally nullified the sharp metal that fell like rain killed thousands of agreement reasserting their sovereignty over the people during the long years of civil war. South. They disbanded the Southern Regional Assembly and took control of oil exploration and Yet as well as the bullets and the bombs, the tanks revenue rights. Direct rule from the North was and the helicopter gunships, there were many slower imposed by the military: Sharia law was introduced deaths. Those that fled the attacks gathered into throughout the country in the Muslim and non- crowded camps vulnerable to disease. As they ran, Muslim territories alike, two presidents were there was no-one to plant their crops. Without a overthrown, and deepening civil unrest suspended harvest there would be no food to eat for the year oil production and halted development aid. ahead. In the late 1990s in Bahr al-Ghazal, one Opposition newspapers were closed. People began hundred thousand people starved to death. to disappear. The civil war between North and South Sudan started Sent to crush Kerbino Kwanyin’s Southern rebellion, in 1955, the year before the British left. Sudan was Dr John Garang quickly defected from the Northern ruled by the British from the last years of the army and joined the liberation movement. In 1983, nineteenth century, and during their regime the the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was British applied a ‘Southern Policy’ rule. formed leading to a twenty-two year struggle for Since records began, Sudan has been defined by its freedom. Survival became an uncertainty and terror plurality. Rich in indigenous tribal culture, its a routine, especially in the urban centres of Wau, inhabitants have always been composed of hundreds Gogrial and Juba, held by the North as garrison of ethnicities, languages and religions. Disparate towns. In the battle for the town of Yei, it was said variations in the natural environment from desolate that dead bodies were piled so high on the roads deserts in the north, to lush equatorial regions, have that vehicles could no longer pass. furthered this diversity. Before colonialism or Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s the ferocity urbanization, the deserts of the north were sparsely of conflict increased. Thousands of villages were populated by camel raisers, sustained by the river burnt to the ground. Tens of thousands of young Nile. In the south, men of all tribes broadly fell into two categories; agriculturalists and semi-nomadic “During the first cattle herders known as the Nilotics. Both were phase of the intensely proud of their civilizations. civil war most of Recognising the cultural and religious differences the rebel between North and South, the Southern Policy soldiers fought applied different taxes, visas and trade terms to the two regions. However, as independence approached with sticks and and fast decisions were made, the North and South spears ” were joined back together. Power over the largest country in Africa was given to the ruling Islamic elite in Khartoum. Christian influence had already strengthened an emerging Southern identity, making enforced assimilation impossible. Violent resistance in the South began before the British had even left. During the Ananya I – the first phase of the civil war – most of the rebels soldiers fought with sticks and spears. Grandfathers in South Sudan recall watching their brothers die with a nail hammered into their skull, and their wives being herded into a church and set on fire. Yet their motivation was strong and rebel control of the sprawling rural landscape of South Sudan became impossible to resist. As the rebel movements won favour with the people, control of the South moved beyond Khartoum’s reach. Peace was only possible with the promise of limited autonomous government in the South and at last, the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 brought a halt 4 Understanding the North-South war children who were looking after the animals away Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo, Liberia and the Persian Above: Voting in the from the villages escaped the violence but lost their Gulf combined. A further four million people were elections in South Sudan entire families. They made their way through displaced. hundreds of miles of desert seeking refuge in Kenya Left: A soldier in South The promise of the CPA was a referendum on Sudan and Ethiopia. They became known as Sudan’s lost Southern independence on 9 January 2011. A boys. peaceful referendum produced a unified, southern Right: T-shirts promote The battle cry of the SPLA was always for liberation vote for separation from the North. the SPLM from the Khartoum regime, but the exact dreams Six months later, on the 9 July 2011, South Sudan varied over time and between players. The early will become the newest state on earth. South 1990s saw a division in the SPLA bought on by Sudan has always been defined by its diversity and ideological splits and a changing international here lies its real strength.