284 thE sudan handbookin disseminating humanitarian principles and human rights in southern
Sudan through a series of workshops.
The politics of Sudan’s sovereignty dogged humanitarian operations
for the duration of OLS. When negotiated, OLS was widely thought to
be heralding a ‘post-sovereign’ age as part of a widespread questioning
of state sovereignty and arguments that it could not protect violators of
human rights. Sovereignty was no abstraction, but a practice routinely
used as Khartoum’s card to trump international relief by invoking a
sovereign right to declare ‘no go’ areas to aid. As international humani-
tarianism grew, so did a central state bureaucracy, replicated at lower
levels, that was dedicated to controlling and managing it. OLS–Southern
Sector was a symbol of Sudan’s fractured sovereignty and de facto parti-
tion. Khartoum regularly accused the UN and NGOs of violating Sudan’s
sovereignty. From the other side, however, the UN was accused of not
violating this sovereignty enough; rebel groups and particularly the
SPLA, which enjoyed quasi-sovereign relations with the UN, criticized
the agency’s respect for the sovereignty of a GoS-governed Sudan and
lack of greater military intervention.
The OLS period as a whole saw the evolution of international relief
responses and a more multifaceted operation, from emergency assistance
and service delivery, to institutional development of its humanitarian
counterparts and southern Sudanese civil society. In its later stages it also
promoted interest in development-oriented activities and civilian protec-
tion, and verified and monitored ceasefires or preparations for peace.
The evolution in the profile of international humanitarian personnel
during the OLS period was a reflection of wider changes in the global
aid industry, notably the expansion of humanitarianism as a professional
career and the growing numbers of young, often unattached, university
educated aid workers able to work in conflict zones. Having been the
norm under the SPS, it became rare for careers be devoted just to Sudan,
though many aid workers found themselves returning to the country
after rotations in other crisis zones. Central to the Sudan operations of
international humanitarian agencies were also employees from Kenya,The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors Ethiopia and other African countries.
(www.riftvalley.net).