STARTING FROM SCRATCH IN SOUTHERN SUDAN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KHARTOUM 000259 SIPDIS SIPDIS, SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV SOCI EAID SENV SU SUBJECT: STARTING FROM SCRATCH IN SOUTHERN SUDAN ¶1. (U) SUMMARY: In courtesy calls on a dozen ministers of the GoSS, CG Juba has been impressed by the frankness of the ministers in describing the difficulties of making the broken institutions of Southern Sudan functional. Virtually every meeting begins with an inventory of what must be done balanced against a list of what is needed - and in most cases lacking -- to get things done. Recent calls on Minister of Education, Science and Technology Michael Milli Hussein and Minister of Environment and Wildlife Conservation James Loro Siricio are illustrative of where Southern Sudan finds itself. End Summary. -------------- In the Basement of Sub-Saharan Africa -------------- ¶2. (U) Milli Hussein pointed out that Southern Sudan is at the rearguard of African education. With an estimated 1,000,000 primary age students not attending school, only 27 percent of potential students are enrolled. Although education ranks with clean water and health as top GoSS priorities for delivering a peace dividend, the obstacles to improving the situation are daunting. There is a shortage of teachers - the GoSS needs to recruit 2,000 more primary teachers in 2006 - that can be addressed only by hiring teachers who have themselves just completed secondary school but who have no pedagogical training. He praised USAID for its support of the Teachers' Training School in Maridi. ¶3. (U) Hussein said that Maridi had taken the lead in development of a new syllabus that would shift the Islamic focus of Khartoum to a model more relevant to the cultures of the South. He observed that this would include a shift from Arabic to English as the primary language of instruction, which would in turn require English language instruction for many current teachers. Hussein said that he had just returned from talks with UNESCO in Paris, where he had requested UNESCO assistance in training planners and at a lower level managers who could run the schools effectively. -------------- Doing Everything at Once -------------- ¶4. (U) Hussein said that demand for education at every level of southern Sudanese society was massive. His ministry needed to maintain and expand the traditional 8/4/4 structure (primary/secondary/university) while trying to organize a compressed four-year course of basic study for a lost generation of older southern Sudanese who had received no formal school during the war. This group was separate from older Sudanese who required adult literacy training. It also flowed into the need for vocational training -- it was impossible to find the electricians, masons, plumbers, and other artisans that would be required to rebuild the South. And this, he concluded, was connected to successfully demobilizing SPLA troops into the job market. ¶5. (U) The Minister invited the CG to visit the local campus of the University of Juba, which was moved to Khartoum sixteen years ago. The Juba campus was in surprisingly good shape, although a major rehabilitation is needed. A quick visit to the library revealed that the scholarship of the last quarter of the 20th Century had never made it to Southern Sudan. Hussein said that there had been good progress in moving the universities of Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile back to Wau and Malakal -- both vice chancellors and much of the student body were from the South -- but that the University of Juba posed a problem. The vice chancellor, a northerner, was reluctant to return. Hussein cited space as the greatest constraint. An institution of 800 students and 100 faculty when it moved to Khartoum, the University of Juba had burgeoned to 15,000 and 800 respectively in Khartoum, with a 50/50 split between northerners and southerners. Colleges had grown from five to twelve. He said that one faculty had returned and that he hoped that other colleges could be returned gradually as the necessary housing, classroom space, and faculty expertise became available. -------------- Wildlife Not a Priority -------------- ¶6. (U) Minister Loro frankly admitted that Wildlife Conservation, while important, ranked well below the top priorities of the GoSS for a peace dividend in the South. He said that his ministry was more concerned with the KHARTOUM 00000259 002 OF 003 physical environment, including the salubrious state of cities like Juba. He said that the basic function of his ministry had been abandoned for twenty years. He had inherited two people for wildlife protection and two four tourism, one of whom had been poached by an NGO. His total ministry staff now numbered five. He claimed that his own vehicle comprised the entire ministry motor pool, although we learned from another source that there are three vehicles, plus another three in other parts of Southern Sudan, a region Larger than Texas. ¶7. (U) Loro described how the ministry had tried to clean up Juba by campaigning for residents to collect the ubiquitous plastic bags that clutter the city, cleaning out drainage ditches to the river, and instructing Juba residents to install pit latrines. He observed that this campaign had at best been a partial success, and cited USAID assistance in trying to mobilize the population to help clean up. ¶8. (U) Loro introduced Victor Wurda Lotombe, Director General of the Environment, as the resident expert on conservation and biodiversity. Lotombe said that the proliferation of arms in the South had caused massive poaching and a bustling trade in bush meat. He opined that DDR and the confiscation of arms could reverse this trend. Lotombe continued that the GoSS had assigned 14,000 SPLA troops to the ministry to convert to eco- guards (wardens?); he admitted that this initiative was challenging. For the present, the ministry had no means to train these individuals. There were no boats or aircraft to transport them anywhere. At a recent meeting held by UNIP for environmental NGOs at Boma Park, Lotombe had to hitch a ride on a UN aircraft. ¶9. (U) He added that he was the only participant at the conference without a laptop, and had delivered his talk from handwritten notes. Communication was also absolutely lacking -- there were neither Thuraya phones nor a radio net to communicate with the parks. He said that insecurity in the parks was rampant, with mounted Mbororo poachers from Darfur in Southern Park, and LRA elements nearby. Lotombe stated that their presence was a constraint to any census of wildlife, since the low, slow flights required for counting game were vulnerable to small arms fire. -------------- No to Jonglei Canal -------------- ¶10. (U) Lotombe said that he, as well as most of the GoSS, opposed any further work on the Jonglei Canal, given the environmental stakes. He described the canal as the pet project of Egypt and the North for which the South had suffered. The Sudd supplied a renewable supply of papyrus of enormous quantity, for making paper, and it provided rich fishing grounds. The biodiversity remained intact, with large numbers of large mammals and reptiles. The Sudd was also the repository for the watershed that kept the area moist throughout the year: evaporation fueled the rains. To open the canal risked draining the Sudd, with potentially devastating environmental costs. He concluded that the steep banks of the unfinished portions of the canal blocked traditional transhumance routes and had killed off wildlife that no longer had access to dry season water supplies. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶11. (U) Such stories about a lack of resources play out in different versions throughout the ministries. The Minister of Information, for example, has no Internet access, no VSAT, and must go to the Ministry of Finance to photocopy documents. The Minister of Health has been unable to find transport to some of the hospitals in outlying states and thus has not completed a full inventory of what health care resources are available. It is noteworthy, however, and encouraging, that virtually everyone expresses determination to press ahead and deliver the promised peace dividends to the population. And there are instances of unexpected good news. An environmentalist told CG that the devastation of biodiversity, while serious, may not be as grave as thought. There are credible reports of elephant herds in Boma Park, sitatunga in swamps not far from Juba, and a rhino recently wandered uninvited into Bentiu. End comment. -------------- KHARTOUM 00000259 003 OF 003 Bio Data -------------- ¶12. (SBU) Milli Hussein is originally from Wau, of the Raja ethnic group. He is an NCP representative in the GoSS but is well regarded by most of our SPLM contacts. A medical doctor who trained in Khartoum, he was previously the wali (governor) in Wau. He is a practicing Roman Catholic. Predictions that he would be a figurehead to a ministry run by a SPLM Under Secretary, a Dinka named William Ater who has held the position for several years, have not proven true. Hussein has asserted himself in his dealings with various NGOs involved in the education sector. ¶13. (SBU) James Loro Siricio is a Bari from the hills just outside Juba. We have developed contradictory information on him. One source says that he encountered Loro as a southern combatant in Anyanya one. A second source claimed that Loro held a high position in one of the following southern governments. The second source said that Loro had been a Major General in the SAF and had completed a course of study, but not a university degree at the military college in Khartoum, and that he was not appointed by the SPLM. Loro is a practicing Roman Catholic. Lotombe is also Bari and has an M.A. in environmental sciences. HUME