The Sudan Handbook

284 thE sudan handbook

in 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).