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.

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In the Basement of Sub-Saharan Africa
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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.

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Doing Everything at Once
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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.

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Wildlife Not a Priority
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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.

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No to Jonglei Canal
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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.

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Comment
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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.

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KHARTOUM 00000259 003 OF 003


Bio Data
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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