South Sudan, on the verge of nationhood, has a lot of oil but faces enormous challenges.

On July 9, 2011 South Sudan is expected to become an independent state, Africa’s 54^th. Prior to that date, much preparation work must be done to establish a vigorous economy, stable government and peaceful society. The name and capital of the country have yet to be officially declared. Issues of debt, oil, aid and borders also remain undecided.

Just four months ago, in January 2011, the Southern Sudanese population voted overwhelmingly for secession. In the month since the peaceful referendum, relations between Juba and Khartoum have been tense. South Sudan has experienced its share of political and military turmoil. Geographical boundaries need to be determined.

The most divisive issue continues to be the semi-autonomous region of Abyei, which produces 25 percent of all of Sudan’s oil production. The disputed region of Abyei lies on the border of what is now Southern Kurdufan (a North Sudanese state) and Western Bahr el Ghazal (a South Sudanese state). How the two sides approach this thorny issue will determine just how smoothly the newest country joins the international community.

The Question of Abyei

In July 2005, the Abyei Boundaries Commission released a report which sought to “define and demarcate the area of the nine Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905”. After the Sudanese government declared the report invalid The Permanent Court of Arbitration Abyei Tribunal stepped in. The tribunal ruled that the commission exceeded its mandate in the implementation (by drawing boundaries without sufficient reasoning) but did not exceed its mandate in interpretation. The tribunal then redrew the boundaries of Abyei and it was left to the citizens of Abyei to determine where they felt their allegiance lay – North or South Sudan.

Abyei was due to hold a referendum in the same week as the South Sudanese self-determination vote. Unfortunately the vote could not take place because the governments of North and South Sudan could not come to an agreement on who should be allowed to participate in the region’s referendum. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM/A) argued that only the Dinka Ngok, the non-nomadic agriculturalist tribal kin of the Dinka of South Sudan, should be allowed to vote. The National Congress Party (NCP) of North Sudan countered that the Misseriya have a right to participate. The Misseriya are a nomadic group based out of Muglad since the 18th century – a town in what was formerly the Western Kurdufan state. They travel to Abyei annually during the dry season.

On March 17^th 2011, North Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and South Sudanese President Salva Kirr met in the presence of Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa. They agreed to resolve the conflict on who could participate in the self-determination vote by the end of March. If Bashir’s response two weeks later is any sign, there won’t be a resolution soon: “We are saying, loud and clear, that there will be no referendum on Abyei without the Misseriya.” Bashir further explained that he sees the exclusion of the Misseriya from voting as an effort to denigrate them as second-class citizens to “settled” peoples.

According to noted Sudan scholar, Eric Reeves, in the months leading up to the 2009 decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration Khartoum made no mention of the Misseriya. It’s as if they have “run out of other strategems” because there was also “no mention of Misseriya Arabs as residents of Abyei in the Abyei Protocol of the CPA” (Comprehensive Peace Agreement). Which leads to the question: How far will Khartoum go to keep control of Abyei?

There has also been heavy fighting within South Sudan. Clashes continue between the South Sudanese army and a militia movement known as the Southern Sudan Democratic Movement/Army in the oil-rich state of Jonglei. The militia is led by George Athor, a former SPLM lieutenant general, who lost in the April 2010 Jonglei gubernatorial election. In Unity State, a region in the south that the government of South Sudan calls Western Upper Nile, former SPLM army general Peter Gadet, has organized another militia known as the South Sudan Liberation Army. The South Sudan Liberation Army fights against what it cites as “regional government corruption.”

Both North and South Sudan need the revenues that would come from the management and division of oil fields in Abyei and Jonglei. But in the case of Abyei, which North Sudan is fighting to control, Khartoum would not have to share profits as it does in the current agreement between north and south Sudan.

In October 2010, the Sudan Ministry of Finance and Economy revealed that the October oil income for North and South Sudan was a combined total of $357 Million. Roughly 60 percent of the income goes to North Sudan. About 80 percent of Sudanese oil reserves lie in South Sudan, but the port and refinery facilities are in the north. To produce and manufacture oil, the raw material must first be harvested and then refined with sophisticated machinery into petroleum grade products. Currently only North Sudan has the capabilities and technology for mass scale oil production.

Fighting and attacks by South Sudanese independence movements prior to the referendum kept the South Sudan oil industry from establishing refineries. North Sudan will continue to gain a greater percentage of revenue, until South Sudan builds the previously announced 2,200-mile pipeline from the South to Kenya’s port in Lamu.

Humanitarian Assistance

Sudan is the largest aid recipient in the world. In 2009 alone Sudan received $1.3 billion in official development assistance, 50 percent of which was earmarked for humanitarian assistance. The United States is the largest global donor of official development assistance, with humanitarian funding to Sudan in FY 2010 at roughly $431 Million. Through the USAID mission, Washington supports agriculture, market systems, health, food security, nutrition, water, economic recovery, sanitation and hygiene.

On March 30, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah testified before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee, to emphasize that the budget proposed by a Republican controlled House would devastate U.S. foreign policy and humanitarian efforts. Shah argued that the lack of funding would contribute to a health crisis among the world’s impoverished children by spiking incidents of malaria and contributing to deaths from a projected dearth of medically skilled birth attendants.

It is not only the children of Sudan that depend on USAID assistance. As of December 2010, the UN Refugee Agency estimates that there are 3.7 million internally displaced persons in Sudan.  U.S. funding decisions heavily affects these individuals. The proposed budget for the remainder of FY 2011 halved the requested amount of international disaster assistance and sought to cut the entire foreign assistance budget by 19%. This would have put 800,000 people in Darfur at risk of starvation, malnutrition, and losing preventative care.

Also in jeopardy was USAID funding for both primary and secondary project initiatives. For example, in the lead up to the January 2011 referendum, USAID funded $18 million to prepare for the elections and to help internally displaced persons return to their homes. Among other initiatives this funding developed landing airstrips and a system of roads for transportation and travel. A beneficial secondary development of USAID construction of transportation facilities was the fact that the World Health Organization was able to provide vaccinations and medical drugs to 20,000 individuals in the Abyei area.

In the end the White House says the U.S. budget deal slashed 12% from foreign aid and international assistance program funding. The deal drops USAID funding below FY 2009 levels and includes these cuts: $377 million from US contributions to the UN, $160 million from migration and refugee assistance and $80 million from development assistance programs.

US Foreign Policy

Sudan relies on U.S. government financial aid to sustain many facets of its society. U.S. political and international support is just as important. Barack Obama’s January 8, 2011 New York Times op ed put Washington’s strong support for self-determination at the heart of U.S.-Sudan relations.  Obama argues that only when “all parties in Sudan live up to their obligations” would the voting reflect the “will of the people.” Obama’s support of Sudanese self-determination ties into his December 2010 decision to endorse the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

U.S. – Sudanese cooperation has slowly been improving since 2006 and the official end of the Second Sudanese Civil War the previous year.  The government in Khartoum has been helpful in the global war on terror. In fact, due to the successful nature of the referendum in February 2011 Obama said that the United States would recognize an independent South Sudan and look into removing Sudan from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.  That’s not to say the United States and Sudan haven’t had issues, particularly over Darfur.

But Obama’s commitment to ending the crisis in Darfur is clear. It is a top foreign policy priority of his administration. On March 31 he appointed Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa, as the new U.S. special envoy to Sudan.

Lyman’s prior experience working as the first U.S. ambassador to post-apartheid South Africa will be critical to negotiating the new relationship between the United States, Sudan, and South Sudan. It also doesn’t hurt that the Sudan humanitarian community is thrilled to welcome Lyman aboard. Lyman’s activist role in the pre-referendum talks between the SPLM and the Khartoum government as well as the Doha Peace Talks is essential to his ability to navigate the conflict laden region.

That work has already begun. On April 2 Lyman traveled to Ethiopia to participate in the post-referendum talks on oil negotiations and border security. With extensive in-region experience Lyman has a good chance of negotiating a successful debut for a stable South Sudan that will, as he put it, “ensure a more peaceful and prosperous future for all Sudanese”.

In the process, the United States is also lining up another oil and security ally in the volatile North African and Middle East regions. The United States has trailed behind in the South Sudanese oil race since 1997, when President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13067barring American companies from conducting business unrelated to humanitarian aid work in Sudan. The order was originally put in place because of human rights violations in Sudan. In 2006, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, eased some of the restrictions. But there is still a blanket ban on U.S. company participation in petrochemical production in South Sudan.

This ban left the door open to other investors such as China, India, Malaysia, and Canada. China has pursued a strict non-interventionist policy in Sudan. They refused to intervene or council Khartoum against human rights violations. The effects of this non-interventionist policy, which effectively supported the Khartoum regime as it committed atrocities in Darfur, came to a head during the 2008 Olympics when human rights activists accused China of holding “Genocide Games”. Charles Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador and foreign policy export, sees China’s actions as similar to the U.S.’s non-interventionist policies of a century ago. “The United States did not then seek to dominate or control the international state system, he writes “In time…however, America came to do both”.

China has already modified its policies, backing the deployment of UN Peacekeepers and opening up a consulate in Juba in order to gain favor with the new South Sudan government.

In the past South Sudan made efforts to push foreign investors interested in its oil reserves to take a stand against Khartoum. But the future independent state is now working with Khartoum to solve their differences. The U.S. Treasury Department has also announced that United States persons will be able to engage in oil transactions after gaining approval from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.  Instead of penalizing cooperation between the north and the south, the Obama administration should work to ensure that oil negotiations and border demarcations are peacefully implemented. An equitable revenue sharing agreement between the two countries and with international investors will serve South Sudan and United States interests in the long-term by developing a stable and sustainable Sudanese economy.

The crisis in Abyei requires an immediate international response.

What does it mean to be a citizen of the new Republic of South Sudan?

During the Cold War, Americans wondered if the newest African and Eastern European nations would be democracies. Now we assess how the new democracies will live up to their professed democratic values. South Sudan has a strong Arab-African heritage, and it is also a diverse country. What kind of democracy will it build? South Sudan is in the unique position of being able to learn from and construct its constitution from countries that have already gone through the risky process of declaring freedom.

Since the declaration of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, South Sudan has been ruled under an interim constitution, adopted by the people, that firmly established that “the authority of government at all levels in Southern Sudan shall derive from the people and shall be exercised in accordance with their will.” The constitution also separated religion and the state, promised to respect all indigenous languages of the country, established English and Arabic as the official working languages of the government, and even promoted the use of sign language for people with special needs. This interim constitution was a symbol of how far South Sudan had risen from the destructive grasp of two civil wars.

The technical committee, including South Sudan’s Minister for Legal and Constitutional Development John Luk Jok, reviewed the interim constitution and drafted the transitional constitution that would take its place. The technical committee was unbalanced from the start. The body consisted of 41 members of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), and 11 officials from other political parties. On March 7, the officials from the other political parties all withdrew from the technical committee citing the unfair majority that the ruling party held over the approval and revisions of the constitution. Together this group of political officials was supposed to address any gaps in the written law and provide a framework to guide a new South Sudan.

However, the leaders of the political parties, including those that had withdrawn from the constitutional review exercise, all eventually participated in a review of the draft constitution and finally released the draft of the transitional constitution in April. The transitional constitution recognized English as the official language of the new republic, cementing the belief that English is a global lingua franca that can encourage development and differentiate South Sudan from Sudan where Arabic is the primary language. With more than 40 ethnic groups, South Sudan is very linguistically diverse. Perhaps in choosing English as the official language of the new republic, South Sudan can avoid the problems of a nation like Morocco, where classical Arabic is the official language, the local population speaks the Moroccan Arabic dialect of Darija, and the elite use French and English in the halls of government.

The right to life, dignity, and integrity are enshrined in the transitional Constitution’s Bill Of Rights. The new republic has also agreed to promote the political participation of women, who constitute over 55 percent of registered voters, with affirmative action policies that accord fully one quarter of the positions in the legislative and executive branches to women. This one-quarter figure is not quite the 30 percent representation that the South Sudanese women at the 2005 Oslo donors’ conference demanded, but it’s a start. According to the South Sudan minister of gender, child, and social welfare women will make up 52 out of the 170 members of the National Legislature from 2011 to 2015.

In regards to the disputed region of Abyei, the transitional constitution firmly claims sovereignty over the territory “of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred from Bahr el Ghazal Province to Kordofan Province in 1905 as defined by the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal Award of July 2009.” The constitution makes no mention of when the referendum on Abyei’s future will take place.

Executive-Legislative Tensions

The transitional government of Southern Sudan has ruled with a top-down approach. Edicts are issued from Juba and followed through in the local towns and ten states of South Sudan. South Sudan has established a national legislature composed of two houses (the National Legislative Assembly and the Council of States) that functionally resemble the House of Representatives and the Senate in the United States. For the 18-21 months before the first national elections of South Sudan are scheduled to take place in 2013, the legislative body is composed of representatives who have been serving as members of the unicameral Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly (the predecessor to the National Legislature) and all southern Sudanese members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Sudan in Khartoum. As it stands 90 percent of the legislators are members of the ruling SPLM. The power of the executive branch of South Sudan extends into the legislative branch. In the Council of States, in addition to those representatives elected by their state, the president appoints 20 representatives. Term lengths and limits for the National Legislature were not set out in the transitional constitution.

The new presidential powers include the ability to dissolve elected governments and dismiss elected officials. The transitional constitution limits the presidential term to four years, commencing on July 9, 2011, but does not state presidential term limits. South Sudan Vice President Riek Machar advocates presidential term limits saying “Overstaying in power beyond two terms prevents new ideas.” The decision to extend the current president’s term of office is an over step in power in the eyes of Lam Akol, leader of the opposition group SPLM for Democratic Change. “They said they would just be removing redundant language that reflects a regional constitution becoming a national one but they have set the president’s term without mentioning limits,” Akol added.

The government of South Sudan has agreed to hold a conference in which the transitional Constitution will be debated in order to draft the permanent constitution. The conference will include opposition parties and civil society.

Representation

The process of forming and sustaining ethnic coalitions will dominate South Sudan politics throughout the post-Independence period. Out of the 40 plus ethnic groups in South Sudan, the two largest groups are the Dinka and Nuer. In 2010, at least 25 percent of South Sudan’s 9 million people were Dinka. John Garang, the revered leader of the South Sudan independence movement, was a Dinka. President Salva Kiir is also of Dinka heritage, although from a different clan than Garang.. Ethnicity and tribal heritage have historically been causes of great strife within new African nations. South Sudan faces the challenge of not only keeping the different factions united under the banner of political rather than ethnic unity but also to quell the recent violent uprisings throughout the country.

Thankfully, tribal heritage is not a factor for citizenship in South Sudan. In the two articles addressing citizenship in the transitional constitution, “Citizenship and Rights” and “Duties of the Citizen”, Jus Sangui is the predominant decider. If a person is born of a South Sudanese parent they are automatically a South Sudan citizen. Southern Sudanese are also allowed to hold dual citizenship with another country. As South Sudan moves forward, it will have to balance the virtues of ethnic cohesion and ethnic diversity. The transitional constitution’s recognition of all indigenous languages as national languages and of South Sudan as a multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation is a great start. The day after the country officially became independent, President Kiir announced that South Sudan would extend citizenship to all northerners living in his country. Kiir also stressed that experienced northerners are vital to the development of South Sudan and he would give them priority in investments and the job market.

The government of Sudan has not been so amenable. Omar Al-Bashir has ruled out any form of dual citizenship, declaring that a “northerner is a northerner and a southerner is a southerner.” Even South Sudanese who have spent their entire lives in Khartoum have not been spared. Al-Bashir has stripped southern Sudanese civil servants of citizenship and declared that all southerners in Sudan after July 9 will be deported to South Sudan. On Wednesday, July 13 the northern legislature voted to cancel the Sudanese nationality of all southerners. But not all southerners in Sudan desire to live in South Sudan. In the historic January 2011 referendum, 98 percent of southerners resident in southern Sudan voted for independence but only 58 percent of southerners in north Sudan did. According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1.5-2 million southern Sudanese migrated north during the second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005). Hundreds of thousands of them could still reside there. In a recent interview one man says he fears for his children: “They are Northerners,” he contends. “They grew up with Northern culture. They studied here in Arabic. Three of them don’t speak Dinka.”

There is a possibility of leniency from the government of Sudan. According to Co-Deputy Chairman of the National Congress Party and top presidential aide, Nafie Ali Nafie, “For the southerners that want to work in the private sector in the north, they will have to get permission and residency permits.” It is still not clear if a southerner in Sudan automatically loses his citizenship regardless of whether they become a South Sudanese citizen. The Khartoum government has offered southerners a nine-month transitional period ‘to settle their situations’ and either obtain a residency permit or prepare to depart Sudan.

Still, there are reports of discrimination. On the day South Sudan became independent, the government in Khartoum suspended six newspapers because the owners are from South Sudan. Under the Sudanese press law the newspaper owners must have Sudanese citizenship. Reporters Without Borders has accused the Khartoum government of harassing journalists in an attempt to prevent publication of human rights violations. The new restrictive policies against South Sudanese in Sudan serves as the perfect forum to do so.

The UN Security Council voted to include the Republic of South Sudan into the United Nations on July 14. South Sudan is the first new UN member since Montenegro in 2006.

Abyei and Oil

The status of the province of Abyei is an unresolved issue from the June 2011 détente between Sudan and South Sudan. In the year since South Sudan’s independence, the two countries have managed, relatively successively, to keep from engaging in direct war. Minor skirmishes on the border and illegitimate air raids in the oil field of Heglig in April 2012, however, have disrupted that faulty peace.

Abyei, a small area with special administrative status on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, has been a source of contention between the two countries since independence. Both countries claim that it is the homeland of their respective populations and eventually agreed on a referendum among its people. The details of the referendum weren’t set out in the 2011 détente between the two countries. Because of various disagreements, including over the eligibility of residents to participate in the referendum, a vote has been on hold since then.

On May 2, the UN Security Council issued a resolution demanding that the governments in Khartoum and Juba cease their open conflict and cross border raids within two days. The deadline came and passed swiftly. By mid-May the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, had stepped in to offer his services as a mediator in a series of shuttle diplomacy talks. After flights to Khartoum and Juba he was able to get the two opposing governments to agree to continue talks. On May 17,the Security Council issued Resolution 2047, which extends the presence of UN security forces in Abyei until October 2012 and demands that Sudan and South Sudan finalize the agreement between them on the status of the contested region. Both sides agreed to resume negotiations on May 29, under the auspices of Mbeki, with the hope of resolving the conflict.

Negotiations over Abyei have always presented a riddle because it sits in Muglad Basin, an oil-rich rift basin on the border region. Heglig, a major oil field near Abyei, is a contested part of the surrounding area. The oil fields on the border and within Muglad collectively represent almost 25 percent of Sudan’s annual oil production. South Sudan has a majority of the oil fields on its side of the border, but Sudan is not ready to give up its only access to substantial revenue.

Economy and Commerce

It has been six months since the government in Juba decided to cut off the export of its oil to Sudan. That’s 350,000 barrels a day that are no longer conveyed through the oil pipes and exported at a rate of $100 per a barrel.  Each day that the oil flow is shut off South Sudan loses $35 million. South Sudan shut off the oil because of a dispute with Khartoum over the cost of transporting the oil through Sudan’s pipelines. South Sudan claimed that Khartoum’s $36-a-barrel transit fee was highway robbery, and it refused to pay what amounted to 30 percent of its revenue for the use of the pipelines.  South Sudan is gambling that it can survive 18 months until a new pipeline is built from the south of its country to an East African nation on the coast of the Indian Ocean, such as Kenya. The oil blockade has hurt not only South Sudan but also Sudan. The government in Khartoum has implemented austerity measures, including a cut in fuel subsidies. Public transportation prices have increased as much as 35 percent. Public protests have been going on in Khartoum since early June.

It has become a matter of national pride in South Sudan to “stick it to” the Sudanese. But that national pride is causing starvation and dire economic straits throughout the country. Half of South Sudan’s population lives below the poverty and cannot afford the hardship and strife caused by high inflation rates from the loss of government revenue. In May, the rising cost of food and oil boosted South Sudan’s inflation to an 80 percent growth rate. The sudden loss of oil revenues, 98 percent of the South Sudanese budget, has contributed to a glut of high pricing across the board. The prices of hotels and restaurants have correspondingly risen to 48 percent higher than this time last year. Rumors of hoarded food and fuel are rife.

According to Oxfam, the price of 11 pounds of sorghum – a drought- and heat-resistant cereal crop – is now $7.50, up from $5 in September 2011. The average South Sudanese makes between a dollar and two dollars a day. Strife in South Sudan is not just fueled by rising inflation, but also by endemic corruption, diaspora backlash, and an illiteracy rate of 90 percent among the rural population.

Talks between Juba and Khartoum in Addis Ababa concluded on June 27 with no agreement reached. Both came to the table hoping for victory over disputed land. More importantly they wanted and needed the oil revenues that the land would bring. The negotiators return home to their capitals to consult with their respective governments. Representatives from both delegations are expected to return to Addis Ababa on July 5, four days before the one-year anniversary of South Sudanese independence, to resume negotiations in three days of meetings. Talks are expected to be concluded by the African Union’s deadline of August 2.

Refugees

The refugee camps in northern South Sudan are flooded with an influx of people fleeing conflict in the disputed border region of southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains, who need basic aid including food, water, and shelter. As of June 28 one of the largest refugee camps in South Sudan, Yida Refugee Camp, had 58,375 refugees, an increase over 20,000 people from just a few months ago. Conditions have worsened in the camp since the rainy season began, washing out roads and humanitarian aid supply routes from southern South Sudan.

U.S. Ambassador to South Sudan Susan Page, appointed in 2011, has called on the governments in Khartoum and Juba to withdraw all security forces from Abyei in accordance with UN Security Resolution 2046. Both governments are wary of losing ground to the other. On June 6, State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner noted that the United States has provided $34 million in emergency response aid to South Sudan, but there remains a “a shortage of resources” to combat starvation, malnutrition, and dehydration in the refugee camps. He called on international partners to fund the remaining 70 percent of the UN Commissioner for Refugees budget, which totals $145 million.

The one-year anniversary of South Sudan’s independence is coming up on July 9. But with millions starving on the border and the country in dire economic straits, it doesn’t feel like much of a party.

Pauline Dorcus Lamyero is an IRC-trained community advocate in her small village of Imotong, South Sudan.

Photo: Terah Edun/IRC

Times are lean in the world’s newest nation as South Sudan recovers and rebuilds after decades of civil war. Resources and supplies are scarce, but people struggle to provide not only for their families but also for fellow citizens left homeless by the conflict. Domestic violence, rape and child abuse have increased. Tension between South Sudanese who fled the war and those who stayed routinely erupts into violence as refugees return home.

“Last month four people were shot dead and another man’s fingers were cut off,” says Pauline Dorcus Lamyero, who teaches tailoring in the village of Imotong. “The attackers were from a different village. It was retaliation for an assault on a rich man who owned granaries. He and three of his family were killed for their wealth.”

Pauline, one of eight members of the local Community Protection Committee, visited with the mutilated man, who protested his innocence. “The CPC wants justice for the man and others like him,” she says.

CPC members are International Rescue Committee-trained community advocates who work on behalf of the most vulnerable in small villages like Imotong. Their goal is to reestablish social networks by combating discrimination against returnees to South Sudan and by negotiating disputes. They also strive to educate people in remote areas about human rights and provide them with access to justice when those rights are violated.

“The CPC is good because we are on the ground, the people know us and they accept us,” says Pauline, who notes that the CPC works with town elders and local police to ensure that laws are observed and upheld. “Had the attackers known about access to justice they wouldn’t have done such things. In the future, we might avoid such bloodshed.”

She also praises the committee’s efforts to create a more nurturing environment for children, especially girls. “The community is happy to have a female teacher and the young girls look up to me,” she says. By setting an example for her community and her students, Pauline hopes “to spread awareness and change.”

With the IRC’s support, South Sudanese are recognizing their human rights, standing up for them, and working together to create solutions to problems in their communities. By establishing Community Protection Committees and a process for addressing grievances, the IRC is helping to speed South Sudan’s recovery, village by village.

On December 20, 2012 Western Bahr El Ghazal, South Sudan staff for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reported a “calm but unpredictable” atmosphere following violence which forced thousands of South Sudanese to seek refuge in the UNMISS compound. Wau, located some 600 kilometres north of the South Sudan capital of Juba, erupted in violence as early as December 8, 2012.

According to Liam McDowell, use of “excessive force” by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement Army (SPLM/A) killed at least 15 protesters and caused casualties in the skirmish to prevent the move of the local seat of authority from Wau. On December 11^th the National Legislative Assembly established a Fact Finding Committee in order to initiate a judicial inquiry about what precipitated the flight of hundreds of people and the death of close to a dozen.

On Monday, December 24^th the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit (far left), traveled to Wau to personally calm tensions. At meetings with local officials President Kiir explicitly came down on the side of the protesters saying that the relocation of the administrative headquarters for Western Bahr El Ghazal State from Wau would be ill-advised.

In efforts to placate the local population Kiir stressed that the decision from Western Bahr El Ghazal State Governor Rizik Zachariah Hassan was not a unilateral one but rather a carefully crafted one handed down to the Governor from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, South Sudan’s ruling party. Kiir indicated in his speech that the planned move of the administrative headquarters from Wau town to Bagari was part of a concerted effort to develop the rural areas of South Sudan.  As Wau is considerably developed in comparison to the rest of the state the move of the administrative capital would have boon to the community where the new headquarters would be relocated.

In addition to Wau inhabitants’ protest against the move, opposition to the relocation surfaced amongst the local tribe of Bagari – the Balanda. Chief Joseph Stephen Fougi of the Kalfario Balanda protested that xenophobia was not the reason for Bagari resistance to the relocation of the administrative headquarters, but empirical evidence of South Sudanese relations suggests that inter-tribal tensions have a hand in the reluctance of Bagari residences to accept an administration which is primarily composed of politically powerful Dinka tribesmen and their families. President Kiir has stressed that the move would bring about development including “health facilities, schools…and roads.” But the protests have brought those plans to a halt.

A draft report of the Assessment and Compensatory Commission, appointed by Western Bahr El Ghazal (WBEG) Governor Rizik Zachariah Hassan, estimates the destruction of property in the town of Wau to average close to one million U.S. dollars. The Western Bahr El Ghazal government is seeking compensation for businesses and property loss in the area from the South Sudan government.

These girls in rural Malualkon, South Sudan, are among those who answered IRC supporters’ questions about what it is like growing up in the world’s newest nation.

Photo: IRC

Today (October 11) is the International Day of the Girl: 

The world welcomed a new nation on July 9, 2011 when South Sudan seceded from Sudan after a long and brutal civil war.  The International Rescue Committee has been providing humanitarian assistance in the region for more than 20 years, with a special emphasis on working to protect and empower women and girls.

Despite the optimism that blossomed with independence, South Sudan remains one of the world’s toughest places to be a woman. As IRC country director Susan Purdin explains, it’s a country that has “some of the world’s highest maternal and child mortality rates, lowest rates of literacy and where women and girls suffer alarming levels of violence, abuse and oppression.”

So what’s it like to be a girl growing up in South Sudan today?  Recently we asked IRC supporters what they would like to ask South Sudanese girls about their daily lives, their hopes and dreams, and the challenges they face. We then shared the questions they posted on Facebook and Twitter with groups of adolescent girls we work with in Juba, South Sudan’s bustling capital city; Malualkon, a rural town in Northern Bahr el Ghazal province near the Sudanese border; and Rumbek, the capital of rural Lakes State in central South Sudan.

What did the girls want to talk about most of all? School. Some of them are older than their classmates because they had to start their education later: The civil war kept many children out of the classroom – and after the conflict ended their parents found they couldn’t afford school fees, or that they needed their daughters to help around the house or to tend to the family’s livestock in cattle camps out on the plains.

Some of the girls said they also worry that they will have to leave school early to get married. Forced marriages are common in South Sudan and are often arranged in exchange for a dowry of cattle – an important currency in a country with few banks.

Here are the girls’ own answers to some of the many great questions you asked:

Q: What is your everyday life like?  Asked by Jessica Brickey Pitzer 

I wake up early in the morning and clean the compound, sweep and wash the utensils. Then I go to school.
- Mary Ciguen,16, Rumbek

When I wake up in the morning, I cook tea for the family and sweep the house and compound. After that I go to the market to buy food for the family and then I come back to cook. After I finish cooking, I wash clothes for the family. And then in the evening I cook dinner and I go to bed.
- Monica Anoc,14, Malualkon 

Q: What are your favorite foods?  Asked by Bill Bullock

I like eating groundnuts, rice, and milk
- Helen Sora Majok,14, Rumbek

Rice, beans, pizza and hot dogs
- Nancy Belly,11, Juba

Beans, bananas, oranges and mangoes
- Gloria Diaingwo,14, Juba 

Q: What makes you feel happy? What brings you the deepest joy in your life? Asked by Emily George

I feel happy because I am in school and my parents are helping me.
- Susan Aker, 17, Rumbek 

What makes me feel happy is that I wake up healthy in the morning and go to school without any problem. I am happy with the time I share with my brother and sister at home.

- Monica Anoc, 14 , Malualkon

When I read storybooks, watch cartoons and listen to music
- Clara Poni,14, Juba 

When my father encourages me to study hard.
- Grace Isaiah,16, Juba 

When I pass exams.
- Agnes James,17, Juba 

Q: What games do you like to play with your friends?  Asked by Ali Corbacio

I like playing volleyball and joking with friends.
- Susan Aker, 17, Rumbek 

I like to play clapping games with my friends.  We go and make the younger girls laugh and also teach them how to play.
- Asunta Nyimeda,14, Malualkon 

Q: What in your life is most precious (or important) to you? Asked by Bonnie Moseley

That my parents love me and support my education.
-  Sarah Banasuo,16, Juba

There’s nothing more important to me than education. My parents encourage me to finish my education and become someone important.
- Monica Anoc, 14 , Malualkon 

Q: What is the biggest health problem or need where you live?  Asked by Susan Pfretzschner

The biggest health problem here is malaria which has been breaking out since the rainy season. Also there are complications in pregnancy, and diseases like HIV/AIDS.
- Susan Aker,17,Rumbek 

We have a lot of people suffering from malaria, cough and TB, and a lot of diarrhea cases sometimes.
- Monica Anoc, 14, Malualkon 

Q: Do you speak freely, without any fear, to your parents, brothers, sisters, and relatives at home? 
I speak freely with my mum about boys who are bothering me.
-  Vivian, 17, Juba 

Yes, I speak to my mum about education and what I want to become in future.
- Hellen Emmanuella, 13, Juba 

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up? Asked by Abebe Kebede and Alex Christensen

I personally want to be a doctor. I would like women to be involved in politics as well.
- Mary Ciguen, 16, Rumbek

Sometimes there are no jobs, so when you finish school you help the parents at home. I want to be a minister for finance.
- Helen Sora Majok, 14, Rumbek

When I finish my school I will become either a pilot or a doctor.
- Monica Anoc, 14 , Maluakon 

Q: What are your greatest challenges to achieving your dreams? Asked by Dave Huish and Kristin Ruether

I would want my parents to continue paying my school fees and allow me to complete my education, rather than giving me to men for cows.
- Mary Ciguen, 16, Rumbek

Q: Do you notice many differences between life in South Sudan and Sudan, or are the borders the only thing that has changed?  Asked by Kjersten Kruzemissile

Yes, there is a difference because now girls have been enrolled in schools, which did not happen before.
- Susan Aker, 17, Rumbek

Q: What are your hopes for your country in the next 5-10 years? Asked by Traci Schwartz

I would like South Sudan to have some chance as a new nation — no more conflict like in the past that kills a lot of people. I want education and good living conditions for everyone.
- Monica Anoc, 14,  Malualkon 

I would like South Sudan to be a good nation that gives every girl like me access to education and health services, and a peaceful living environment in good living conditions.
- Regina Anger, 11,  Malualkon 

I want our country to be developed like Uganda. We can make it if men and women cooperate.
- Mary Ciguen, 16, Rumbek

Q: How can you participate in that change?

When I have a better education then my voice will be heard.
- Asunta Nyimeda, 14,  Malualkon

Q: What is the most important thing that you would want the new South Sudan government to do for women and girls? What role would you like to see women play in the development of your new nation?   Asked by Dawn Perrotti and Rachael Felix 

I would want the government of South Sudan to involve women in jobs – and to help them in developing the nation to be like other developed countries, like Uganda and Kenya.
- Helen Sora Majok, 14, Rumbek

Q: What does it mean to be a South Sudanese woman?  (How do you think South Sudanese are different from other women?)  Asked by Tony Metz

There is respect among South Sudanese women.
- Clara Poni, 14, Juba

The IRC is working with communities in South Sudan to raise awareness of women’s rights and to end practices like forced marriage and early pregnancy that are harmful to women and girls.  Through girls’ clubs the IRC is helping teens build confidence, leadership skills and financial savvy, and learn about ways to keep themselves safe. We also provide counseling, medical care and legal support for women and girls who have experienced sexual violence, and encourage conversations between men and women about ways to prevent violence at home.