BY STEPHEN GRAY
The gunfire, explosions and screams coming from his village convinced Peter it was time to flee. Concealed by the falling dusk, he escaped into the woods, leaving his family, his village in Southern Sudan, and his childhood behind. Peter is now 29 years old, although he’s not exactly sure when he was born. If the peace holds between the groups that control the South and North of his country, Peter hopes one day to return and find out. Whether it’s safe to do so depends largely on a referendum on independence for Southern Sudan scheduled for January next year. If the vote leads to two viable states, it will end three decades of civil war. But if it fails to provide the South with the autonomy they so desperately crave, a return to violence is almost inevitable.
Peter’s appearance is striking. He wears a patchwork of t-shirt, business jacket and slacks that doesn’t quite fit his six plus feet of lanky frame and walks with a slow, deliberate gait, his arms swishing at his sides like palm fronds as he gets closer. He greets me with red eyes, sunken features, and a shy grin; extending one of those huge fronds in welcome.
Peter escaped from his village of Pathuyis in 1987 as bands of Northern fighters ravaged the region. He speaks softly, describing how the girls who weren’t raped and murdered by the militias were sold as slaves or adopted by other families. Older villagers stayed behind to defend their possessions, or wait until it was safe to return to salvage what they could. Separated from his family and with nowhere else to go, Peter joined thousands of other young Sudanese boys who fanned out from the villages in search of safety in the neighboring countries of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
The so-called lost boys of Sudan – mostly aged between four and ten – walked barefoot towards safety in journeys that lasted months or years. During his two-month trek to the Western Ethiopian border Peter survived by scavenging in villages along the way and sleeping in the grass beside the road, aware but unafraid of the snakes. When the dry season arrived many of the other boys began to die of exhaustion and thirst, but not before some tried to stave off death by drinking their own urine.
Arrival in Ethiopia did not provide the respite they had expected. Unsupported at this stage by the international community, the Ethiopian government could not provide food, shelter or medical care for the lost boys – a staggering 27,000 of them. Having survived the militias of the North and hundreds of miles of inhospitable terrain, the boys were left to die alone in camps.
“People started thinking about home; about their parents they couldn’t even communicate with”, says Peter solemnly. “People died of homesickness – there was no support when they most needed it”. Asked if he thought of his parents often Peter is matter of fact – “We lived in Ethiopia for four years and didn’t need our parents. You just internalize it and that’s the way it’s going to be”.
Peter’s life began to turn around in 2001 when he was granted refugee status as part of a US program to resettle thousands of the lost boys. “I told myself if I get a chance to go to school I really want to study health” he says. One college degree behind him and on his way to a Masters in Public Health at Columbia University, Peter is well on his way towards that dream. He hopes to return to Sudan when he finishes so that he might apply his new found skills to his countries massive public health challenges.
Whether it is safe to return is far from certain. In 2005 a comprehensive peace agreement was brokered between the Southern forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the government of Sudan, with its base in the Northern capital of Khartoum. This agreement was based on a promise that the South would get a chance to vote for independence within six years. The referendum scheduled for January is Sudan’s last chance to stage the vote.
Like the large majority of Southerners, Peter will vote for independence, but worries that anything less than a successful referendum and stable transition of power to the South will usher in a new era of violence. “If [the referendum] doesn’t happen”, he says for a moment, pausing as if to quell the thought, “the country’s never going to be in peace”.
These claims are backed up by the International Crisis Group, which stated in a recent report that the country is likely to return to civil war if the North doesn’t allow the referendum to proceed, or doesn’t respect the results, denying the South the autonomy they have been fighting for for decades.
But a successful referendum and stable transition of power is far from assured, not least of all because Khartoum would much rather Sudan remain united, even at the cost of peace. If the South secedes after the referendum, Khartoum will no longer be entitled to revenues from the South’s lucrative oil fields, which account for approximately 80% of the country’s overall wealth. Khartoum realizes that a successful referendum could spell an end to the North’s relative prosperity, and is widely assumed to be responsible for the surge militia activity in the South since late last year that is complicating important North-South negotiations and intimidating voters ahead of the referendum.
Two thirds of the population must participate in the vote for the referendum to be deemed legitimate. The logistical challenges are daunting in such a poorly-developed region, and Khartoum is unlikely to assist South Sudan’s fledgling government to host it effectively, or refrain from disrupting it.
Against this background the United Nations Mission in Sudan is tasked ensuring that the referendum is secure, inclusive and credible. But while they’ve done a commendable job in keeping the peace in spite of the North’s belligerence since 2005, they do not have the resources to maintain security and supervise the elections in such a large, poorly developed area. Their jurisdiction is larger than Texas, but they have no helicopters and only 10,000 troops to keep the peace – approximately one every 32 square miles.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice recently stated that the US is “very, very concerned” about the UN’s ability to implement its mandate in Sudan. The UN Mission in Sudan responded by asking for an urgent increase in troops, helicopters and diplomatic pressure on Khartoum from the United States and key ally China, but so far these requests have gone unheeded.
Peter can do little to prevent the international community shirking its responsibility to support Sudan’s fragile march towards peace. He refuses to let the threat of violence prevent him from taking the next step in his own long journey however. In January next year Peter will return home to Sudan, where he hopes to cast his vote before beginning a medical residency in Juba, the southern capital. His newfound expertise may be in higher demand than ever.