Sudan and South Sudan

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Sandwich]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are taking a lead in the diplomatic and humanitarian response to the conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the timing of this debate is very tight. The current allocation of time comes to 58 minutes, and we have a request for a two-minute speech in the gap. I would therefore be very grateful if noble Lords could be succinct.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the Minister and thank all colleagues for joining this debate. I have chosen the anniversary of the fateful coup in South Sudan last December as a reminder of the continuing conflict in the north and the south.

I start with a brief interview with a woman from Upper Nile called Nyantay, who went blind at the time of South Sudan’s referendum and then became a refugee. Nyantay, a mother of four, fled from gunfire in her village but then found herself alone. “I just kept running”, she said. She fell into holes, ran into trees and suffered from heat exhaustion. At one point she sat down expecting death. She went on, “I thought, if the animals eat me, that’s fine. If the soldiers kill me, that’s fine. I no longer felt fear”. Luckily, she was found and taken across the border into Ethiopia and later reunited with her family, whom she had presumed had died.

Nyantay has survived but many thousands have not. At least 10,000 have died in the south—perhaps twice that number. Nearly 2 million have fled from their homes; half of them are in neighbouring countries. Ethiopia now has the largest refugee population in Africa. Some 100,000 are in UN camps in the south but many of them still live in fear for their lives, the Nuer from Salva Kiir’s SPLA and the Dinka from Riek Machar’s opposition SPLA 1.0. There have been terrible massacres on both sides. With the onset of the dry season, fighting will resume and further genocide may be around the corner. One-third of children are acutely malnourished and literacy levels for women remain among the lowest anywhere.

South Sudan is now a level 3 crisis, which is the highest UN category. The figures from UNOCHA’s situation reports are staggering: 618,000 are displaced in Jonglei state alone. Can we even imagine the challenge this presents to aid workers? Nyantay, the blind refugee, nearly gave up hope and, as onlookers, we, too, at times feel helpless and hopeless. So long as the warring parties fail to agree, South Sudan—the world’s youngest country—will remain in a state of chaos.

We may ask why we should care. We should care because people are suffering; because we may have friends living or working there; because any failed state threatens its neighbours; because we, as a country, have a historic commitment, not least as one of the troika who have been continually present at the talks in Addis; and because if we do not end the conflict in South Sudan, more refugees will come to Britain.

If we do help, will aid through the Government reach the people, considering that oil revenues have gone direct to the SPLA and South Sudan is near the top of the corruption list? Did not the World Bank health programme seize up altogether so that NGOs had to take over? Is this not a reason for some to argue that we should reduce our aid budget, or will the Minister confirm my view, which is that through the UN, aid agencies and NGOs, we can and do help effectively if we apply strict conditionality? In principle, humanitarian aid is given safe passage by both sides but there are many obstacles and restrictions, especially on foreign aid workers. The UN doctrine of responsibility to protect is the hardest to apply in such conditions.

I do not want to imply that South Sudan is not functioning, because it has a professional elite and a vigorous civil society—and not only in Juba—with many NGOs and heroic individuals providing essential services where the Government have failed. I remember them from my last visit. For the moment, famine has been averted. Although the UN mission is constantly harassed by the Government, the ICRC is now active again. The British Council has stayed open for most of the conflict. Ministers and celebrities such as David Miliband are also constantly visiting. There is a Jamaican singer in town this week. The churches are preaching reconciliation and, despite widespread unemployment, people are getting by. So I ask the Minister: what part has the UK played in the recent Addis negotiations, and to what does she attribute their failure? Does membership of the troika give the UK a particular advantage? Can the Ugandan army remain on one side of the conflict when IGAD, the regional authority, is promoting dialogue?

In Sudan itself, while there is a so-called national dialogue at the political level, whole areas of the country are still cut off by civil war. The UN say that 6.9 million are in need of humanitarian assistance across the north. Over half of these are in Darfur, with 431,000 displaced up to November of this year alone. Peace negotiations with the JEM and SLM factions in Doha, and more recently in Addis under Thabo Mbeki, have stalled yet again. One can sympathise with the writer who said that Addis is just a paid holiday for wealthy male negotiators in large cars who bring home nothing for anyone else.

Meanwhile UNAMID, the UN mission, has been severely criticised by NGOs and others for inaction and providing too little security. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, can testify that it was slow to respond to allegations of rape of 200 women and girls by Sudanese soldiers. Lubna Hussein, the human rights activist, says the UK should stop funding UNAMID, as it may be causing more harm than good. DfID has turned lately more to WFP and the other humanitarian agencies. In any case, UN peacekeepers have been progressively opposed and are now reduced in numbers by Khartoum. South Kordofan and Blue Nile are the other two provinces most affected, with civilians now caught between two wars, with the overspill from the southern conflict, and continuing hostilities between north and south. Um Dorein county has suffered renewed aerial bombardment since October. Other counties see regular overflying and troop movements. Only last week, Antonovs dropped 32 bombs in six different locations. The two areas have also suffered heavy rainfall, although it is said that SPLA-controlled counties are less affected by flooding and damage to crops. However, food insecurity has raised market prices in general, and there has been a higher incidence of malaria and malnutrition.

In Abyei, since the murder of the Ngok Dinka chief in May last year by a member of the Misseriya tribe, there has been no progress in negotiations. The town is scarcely functioning, even with the presence of peacekeepers, and the hospital is short of drugs. The national dialogue, which has offered some hope to reformers, has stalled again, with Khartoum resiling from AU-backed agreement, and Islamist rhetoric taking over from serious commitment on the part of the National Congress Party. The landmarks this year have been the Paris declaration in August which brought together the Umma party and the Sudanese Revolutionary Front; the Addis Ababa agreement in September, which included members of the Government’s dialogue mechanism; and valiant attempts by the AU Peace and Security Council to bring parties to all the conflicts together. Some of us had a positive glimpse of this dialogue when Sadiq al-Mahdi came to address our All-Party Group on Sudan and South Sudan, although it is hard even for a seasoned politician to hold the line between so many power blocs.

Two points emerge. First, we should not—in our natural concern in the UK for the Christian south—be diverted from the necessity of a political solution in the north, intractable as it is. We must give the strongest support to the AU high-level panel and IGAD forums. Taking account of Sudan’s oil revenue, there needs to be a concerted international effort on the scale of the peace agreement between north and south, which, in spite of its many failures, at least led to South Sudan’s independence.

Secondly, Khartoum seems to be reverting to its old habit of suppressing legitimate opinion in the media and civil society, and there our embassy and the NGOs must be especially watchful. There have been some alarming attacks on universities and discrimination against Christians in Khartoum, including the partial demolition of a church last week.

What is HMG’s response to the Government’s attempts—and, more recently, their failure—to achieve greater openness to dialogue? How do they judge the performance of the UN mission in Darfur and the security of aid workers? Can our Government, as a major contributor to the UN’s Common Humanitarian Fund, match their generosity with more diplomatic effort and results? Finally, will they give an assurance that the Sudan unit in the FCO will survive the cuts and be strengthened, if necessary, to inform and advise diplomats, politicians and civil society? Does the Minister share my regret that the position of EU special representative was combined with that for the Horn of Africa?

We should remember that ECHO, the EU’s humanitarian agency, has warned of famine in the south. I end with the words of the new Commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva:

“Aid operations will remain inadequate as long as the conflict continues. It is the responsibility of the political leadership of South Sudan to end the unnecessary suffering of its people”.