Oil, power and a sign of hope. Klaus Stieglitz
heritage.11 The Agreement gave rise to the National Petroleum Commission (NPC). Its board was to be comprised of representatives from both parties—on an equal basis. The Commission was charged with the responsibility for creating a body of rules implementing the above points and to be adhered to by the oil industry.12 The NPC was also to negotiate the contracts with extractors of oil.
The Agreement thus brought an end—at least on paper—to the era in which the people of Southern Sudan were at the mercy of the schemes of the North, in which the former could be exploited, expelled or massacred as so wished by the latter. A variety of cease-fire agreements notwithstanding, conflicts kept on breaking out until 2003 between the government’s troops and the rebels. The era was also marked by the full-scale attacks perpetrated upon the country’s civilians. These conflicts were motivated by the will to maintain or obtain control over oil fields. The government’s chief reason for waging war was, however, to enable its contractual partners’ undisturbed drilling for oil. Human rights organizations started reporting in 1999 on attacks being carried out against civilians. These were being carried out to drive them from the catchment areas of sources of oil.13 Although interrupted from time to time, the prospectors for oil did manage to overcome the disturbances ensuing from the civil war and to set forth their test drilling. These resulted in the pumping of oil.
In a first in the country’s history, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) elevated the Southern Sudanese to being equally-entitled partners. Representatives of the rebels’ party gained unimpeded access to the contracts concluded with oil extraction companies. They were empowered to commission technical experts with the assessment of the ramifications of these contracts.14 Regarded as being especially important was the evaluation of impacts already having taken place. These agreements were worth more than the paper they were printed on. In 2006, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) commissioned Norwegian experts with the compilation of an appraisal of the effects of oil extraction upon Southern Sudan. The appraisal was also to present the consequences of these, in view of the further expansion of the oil industry expected to occur.15
In 2007 and 2008, a team of experts from the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management traveled throughout Sudan. The experts held talks with representatives of the government and with other officials in Khartoum and Juba. The team then visited industrial facilities and waste disposal facilities. This enabled them to get a picture of the effects of and challenges posed by the drilling for and extracting of oil in Southern Sudan. When compiling this evaluation, the team used as criteria the applicable international standards and the experiences gained in other countries in dealing with the risks known to arise from comparable on-shore drilling. The team also factored in the special conditions prevailing on site. It did not gather samples of the water, soil or living beings found in the vicinity of oil drilling and transportation facilities. This procedure was normal. The prime objective of the evaluation was to detail the parameters from which further, concrete measures were to be derived. The team’s evaluation thus constituted a beginning, albeit one that came in a period in which the drilling for oil was well advanced in Southern Sudan.
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On February 6, 2008, two staff members of Sign of Hope embark upon a 10-day trip to Southern Sudan. They are accompanied by two influential journalists. One is a Kenyan who works for the “Agence France Presse” (“AFP”) news service. He joins the group in Nairobi. “AFP’s” office in Nairobi is staffed by experts who are very interested in developments in Southern Sudan. The reporter writes an article that is carried on the wires of “AFP”, which is one of the world’s largest news agencies. The other reporter is German who works for “Schwäbische Zeitung”, a daily based in the southwest part of the country. He too will go on to publish his impressions of the trip.
After stops in Nairobi and Juba, Sign of Hope’s group arrives on February 8, 2008 in the town of Raga. The group’s five-hour delay is due to their plane’s, a chartered bush aircraft, not being ready to fly. Raga’s “airport” is a long sandy trail. The “airport terminal” is a container. Raga has some 20’000 residents, making it one of the largest settlements in Southern Sudan. The town is located close to the (in those days) virtual border to northern Sudan. Its region is called Western Bahr el Ghazal.16 The town is the headquarters of the Commissioner for the County of Raga.
We make camp in Raga on a ground that is located within a secured area. The campground is in the immediate vicinity of traditional tukuls. Our group sleeps on foam rubber mats. We use camping cartridges to cook. Wandering animals are occasional visitors, with this especially occurring during the evening. We find a spider the size of a human palm. It must have hitched a ride in a rolled up pant leg. There is no other explanation for its suddenly making its present known in the middle of the night by noisily climbing up the tent—from the inside. In an instinctive move, one of us captures it using a coffee cup, which is then used to send the gigantic insect on its way in the great outdoors. From now on, pant cuffs are going to be subject to intensive inspection. From time to time, we hear the local residents’ yells. This signals the sighting of a poisonous snake. Nobody pays any attention to a waran, although this lizard is a meter and a half in length, as it meanders through the little settlement. A waran is not dangerous. It shows absolutely no interest in us as it waddles right past us, displaying no fear in the process.
In 2007, Sign of Hope set up an assistance project in Raga. Since then, one of the Comboni Missionaries has been heading an educational project. In 2001, the friars had been forced to flee the war. The conclusion of conflict allowed them to return to their base of operations. The friars rebuilt their schools, which had been badly damaged. Separated by genders, 1,200 children are taught at two elementary and one high school. Most of these children are from large and very poor farmer families. Sign of Hope’s donation amounts to €20,000. It goes for the food provided to the children every day, for educational materials, and, in this year, for small-scale repairs. In addition to the schools, the Comboni friars maintain a large number of day care centers.
We travel on the following day to Boro Medina, which is 100 kilometers to the west of Raga. It takes five hours. There is a refugee camp in the town, and it was there that Sign of Hope’s work in the area started in 2007. The camp is home to people fleeing from war and floods, and to those returning to the region. We brought 200 first response packages during our first visit. To date, our assistance amounts to 1500 sacks and 75 tons of relief goods. In this trip, we are bringing 125 sacks, each containing 50 kilos of relief goods. These goods comprise basic food, blankets, plastic tarpaulins, cooking equipment, mosquito nets, soap and hoes. These goods go to families. Conditions have not improved since the previous year. The number of refugees has risen from 1,000 to 2,100.
A 40 year old woman belongs to the Borge, an ethnic group living farther to the north. There was fighting in her homeland. It caused her to flee in April of the previous year. She walked 15 days to get to the camp. “I was afraid, so afraid,” she says. “We were bombed by a plane, and shot at on the ground.”
The camps’ residents get very little support. The camp does not have any sanitary facilities. Nor does it have any housing capable of withstanding the elements. There is no medical care. The residents’ biggest foes are, however, hunger and thirst. Many of the people that we talk to complain about not having anything or very little to eat. Another problem: there is no water—and certainly no clean water—in the vicinity of the camp. This forces most of the women to trudge 40 minutes to the Boro river. Refugee families have recently arrived in the villages of Minamba and Deim Jalab. We deliver 45 sacks of relief goods there, with the rest going to Boro Medina. Sign of Hope donates € 20,000 for this delivery of goods. The organization plans to deliver a further € 40,000’s worth of goods.
We return on February 11, 2008 to Raga, where we confer with paramilitary and other soldiers. The civil war featured a number of battles and massive attacks upon civilians in the region. Many of these attacks were carried out by militia fighting for North Sudan. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 foresaw the disarming of all militia. The army serving the regime in Khartoum and the SPLA rebels were joined by a variety of militias in fighting for the two sides. Several of the militias’ commanders can be aptly described as warlords. They were prone to changing sides. This propensity made the security situation in the regions involved virtually incomprehensible. A monopoly on force exerted by a