A chance to work with the recently created South Sudan Chamber of Commerce took me to Sudan for my first visit, and, I believe, CIPE’s first visit as well. A truly unique country with sights and sounds unimaginable. Only less than two years out of Civil War and enjoying nearly world-wide approval, South Sudan is well on its way to independence unless there is a dramatic and unexpected improvement in its relations with the North.
Below are some impressionistic pictures that have filled my mind after my days in Juba, the new capital of South Sudan.
Women road repair workers wearing filmy dresses of bright colors as they methodically shovel dirt into Sudan’s famous potholes. Living conditions: The only place we found to stay was an austere looking cement walled compound protected by concertina wire. A central shower/toilet unisex facility. A large tent restaurant serving a single meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The tent filled with a motley collection of UN military personnel (Observers), Sudanese drivers and maintenance men, Arab managers of the compound who come across as reasonably professional as they go around their high priced compound.
Juba: War torn and weary. Half the buildings are shell marked and about a third abandoned because of shelling. City roads all potholed and subject to periodic flooding. Government buildings only marginally better than the average building still standing. And of those buildings marginally OK, the UN has taken over most of them.
Flies: even with bug spray on flies constantly land on your arms and face while the nights are reserved for jet-powered mosquitoes carrying malaria virus in their bomb-bays
The recently appointed Minister of Agriculture, a returnee from the Diaspora, spoke despairingly about past Government planning, but described his plans for seed distribution and extension services for South Sudanese farmers with considerable enthusiasm. We sat in his backyard while both his house and the Ministry’s office building were being refurbished.
Talking with an American fisheries expert from Georgia who was preparing to return home upon completion of his assignment spoke to us with considerable frustration. He said that if the fish catch in the White Nile improves thanks to his promotion, he expressed the fear that the income gained by selling more fish would be spent on a larger herd of cattle that would simply put more cattle on the already over-grazed land reducing the productivity of land even further.
Government buildings in desperate need of repair if only a coat of paint, with their yards full of goats and kids running freely in the yards.
Mid-afternoon heat is stifling with the sun literally knocking the breath out of you. Ministers and deputy ministers have at least six armed (with machine guns) soldiers assigned to their safety, but for them to get anywhere for a meeting, they must still suffer through bumping along some of the worst roads on the continent.
The one soccer field in town is hard packed brown earth with not a blade of green grass to be found. A sudden fall by a player could easily lay open a leg or arm. Sudan is still practicing female circumcision and pulling out the bottom front teeth of teen age boys to make them look “civilized”? Medicines Sans Frontiers presents a comforting image wearing their red and white tee-shirts.
Wide-spread resentment (hatred?) against the North abusing its power vis-à-vis the South suggests that to avoid the country splitting down the middle in the scheduled 2008 plebiscite, will require a near miracle to keep Sudan whole.
This is not to suggest I wouldn’t come back. I would in a minute.
Summing up Southern Sudan is not easy. But the most encouraging part of the often dismal and depressing scene is the number of optimistic people in the country to help. There is a spirit and an optimism that says, no matter how difficult and how hard it is to accomplish something in this environment, hundreds of people, simply by their presence, are saying “we can make a difference” and they are.
Published Date: April 17, 2006