thE intERnational PREsEnCE in sudan 281Juba, its main garrison town. In 1985 it formed the Southern Relief and
Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) with the aim of making it the SPLA’s
humanitarian wing; this also served as a mechanism to support the
armed struggle.
The next, more severe, famine occurred in Bahr al-Ghazal in 1988.
Khartoum’s counter-insurgency strategy against the SPLA depended
upon arming and mobilizing proxy militias and depopulating rebel-held
areas. At this point international relief was mostly flowing to Khartoum,
to government garrison towns in southern Sudan, and to refugee camps in
Ethiopia, with the inadvertent effect of assisting the Sudan government’s
efforts to depopulate parts of the south. In 1988, relief to SPLA-held
areas remained a sensitive subject in UN and donor discussions. This
was influenced by fears of possible government retaliation against
international development operations in northern Sudan, a prevailing
deference towards government priorities, and an unwillingness to
question Khartoum’s definition of the problem. Moreover, the UN’s legal
mandate for working with war-affected displaced civilians was confined
to a definition of refugees as those crossing international borders. This
resulted in the lack of clear responsibility for assisting famine victims and
those displaced within Sudan, including large numbers of southerners
who had moved to the north in and around Khartoum.
Nevertheless, efforts were made to access the south during the famine.
UNICEF made small-scale attempts to facilitate relief to SPLA territory.
It opened a Coordinating Office in Nairobi in June 1988 to assist private
relief agencies wanting to work in SPLA-held areas, but this closed in
October following criticism by the Sudanese government. With certain
exceptions, including ICRC operations and relief flights by the Lutheran
World Federation starting in 1988, no significant relief was provided to
rebel-held areas in southern Sudan until 1989 – after the worst of the
1988 Bahr al-Ghazal famine was over. The defining aspect of international
responses in this period was the lack of a concerted donor reaction to
famine as a political phenomenon: famine was largely defined as a nutri-
tional crisis, disconnected from its political origins and designs.The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors The year 1989 saw the creation of two important and very different
(www.riftvalley.net).