Sudan: A Beginner’s Guide

On the 9^th of July 2011, Southern Sudan will declare its independence from the rest of Sudan and become the world’s newest country. It’s a moment that the Southern Sudanese and their supporters have been anticipating for many years, and comes off the back of more than five decades of warfare, punctuated by only brief breaths of peace.

Yet the news now is full of concern rather than celebration. A fresh outbreak of war seems pending, as analysts scramble to work out what’s going to happen next. Some of that analysis is far from rosy.

But what’s actually going on in Sudan? If you’re new to the Sudanese context it can be pretty confusing. What’s the fighting about and who is involved? How does the civil war that keeps getting talked about relate to the ‘genocide’ in Darfur? How did this all come about? If you’re a bit bamboozled by the bylines, this post should give you a high-level picture of how we got this far.

Map: Detailed map of Sudan’s states

Ancient History

Sudan’s a big place. The largest in Africa, the tenth largest in the world. It’s got about 40 million people, spread over nearly 600 ethnic groups- making it one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world. Over the last couple of millennium, it’s variously consisted of some 50 states.

Colonialism, in all its glory, whacked this mob together within one solid black line and called it Sudan. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain and Egypt (with some customary flip-flopping) shared governance of the realm. Egypt (as a proxy caretaker on behalf of the British) governed northern Sudan from the new capital of Khartoum, while Britain administered southern Sudan at arm’s length.

The divide was more than administrative. Islam had been diffusing across northern Sudan for many centuries, while the south was largely animistic in religion and culture. The north was predominately desert and scrubland, while further south the ground grew wetter, with mixed woodland and, eventually in the far south, tropical rainforest.

The colonial division of Sudan meant that the north was effectively run as an Arab-Muslim kingdom, while the south was administered as a British colony in the order of other East African states (Kenya, Buganda, Tanganyika…), with Christian missionaries running many of the services in an otherwise sparsely-explored, -developed or even -penetrated land.

Thus, pre-existing differences in geography and resource-allocation were further entrenched through very different styles of political governance, through the adoption of opposed religious practices, and through an increased sense of Arabicization in the north versus more prominent sub-Saharan African ethnic groupings in the south.

Map: Northern Sudan in light yellow, Southern Sudan in light purple

North-South Civil War

In 1956, Sudan was granted independence as a single nation, to be governed from Khartoum and the old Arab-dominated administration left by the Egyptians. The south, resentful and distrustful of the north and its policies, had already laid the seeds for civil war with a military uprising in 1955 that led to all-out civil war. This war between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) lasted, with a brief interlude from ‘72-’83 and with various surges and lulls, until 2005, when a comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) was signed, brokered largely by the Americans.

As well as the underlying divide, the conflict also played out as part of Cold War politics. The Soviets poured weapons and funding into Khartoum in order to maintain control of Sudan’s rich oil reserves, situated largely in territory allocated to the South. (While the Cold War has ended, this continues to play a major component in the politics of war and peace in Sudan, with the Chinese blindly investing in the North in order to access rights to its resources, and the West taking an unusually intense interest in the outcome of Southern independence as well.)

The war was Africa’s longest-lasting civil conflict and claimed over 2 million lives, with 2 to 4 million people displaced as refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Decisions by the north to impose Islamic laws on the south and push for the spread of Islam (such as putting money into building mosques over other service provision) provided further incentives for the south to keep fighting. In 1989 a coup by military officers put now-President Omar al Bashir in control of the Khartoum government, and he maintained a hard stance in the conflict and in terms of pushing for the Islamicization of Sudan. (Bashir is now wanted by the International Criminal Court for war-crimes in Darfur).

The war was an uncommonly brutal one. The North made use of extensive bombing campaigns using Soviet aircraft that targeted civilians, not just military targets. Very little infrastructure was left standing in the South as a result (and at the time of the signing of the CPA in 2005, the country effectively had to start building itself from the ground up). Mass displacement led to widespread famine and disease- responsible for a large portion of the two million fatalities. As the SAF seized control of major towns and roads, the SPLA withdrew into the countryside, fighting a vicious guerrilla campaign which brought more suspicion and suffering on civilian populations. Mines were laid extensively. Human rights violations abounded.

A particular (and particularly important) facet of the war was the use of proxy militias. The political and ethnic fragmentation of the Southern portion of the country leant itself to domination by warlords, whose forces would then ally with one or other of the major warring parties. For the most part, the SPLA provided a rallying point for most of the southern militias. However at times, internal politics or external greed prompted various groups to switch sides, sometimes returning at a later point when allegiance suited. These militias often operated with a large degree of impunity and used the context of the larger war to settle local scores with neighbouring groups, resulting in more civilian casualties and atrocities. Skirmishes with these warlords and their militias have continued since the signing of the CPA.

In the midst of this, the international community launched what was at the time the largest humanitarian operation in history, Operation Lifeline Sudan. OLS was run out of Kenya, with its Forward Operating Base, Lokichoggio, a vast relief city in the desert of Turkana. Food, aid and expatriates were flown into Sudan on a daily basis in support of the southern population- arousing suspicion in Khartoum which remains to this day. At its peak, Loki was the third busiest airport on the African continent, the town thrumming each dawn with the roar of WFP cargo planes taking off for their routine food-drops. The sheer volume of aid added a new dimension to the war, with both sides attempting to manipulate this supposedly ‘impartial’ aid delivery to its own ends, forcing civilian populations this way and that to suit their resource needs.

Darfur

 As hostilities between North and South were drawing down to a tacit ceasefire, simmering unrest in other parts of the nation were starting to bubble over. Khartoum’s policies of centralization, Arabicization and Islamicization had marginalized other groups. Most notable among these were a couple of prominent factions in the remote West of Sudan in a region known as Darfur: the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

From 2003, triggered by Khartoum’s exploitation of new oil reserves and seeing the level of international recognition the SPLM/A had received as a result of their push for freedom from Khartoum, the SLA and the JEM took up arms against Khartoum. Bashir’s response, as well as mobilizing regular armed forces, was to arm a militia, ostensibly made up at least partially of released prisoners, known as the Janjawid. The Janjawid, a highly mobile and often horse-backed group of vicious fighters, became synonymous with the burning of villages, the rape and murder of civilians, and implementing an unspoken policy of ethnic cleansing.

The resulting conflict became very messy, very fast. Between two and four million people fled their homes (out of a starting population of 6 million), settling in a series of IDP camps across a desolate and arid area the size of France, largely lacking roads or other infrastructure. Chad, resentful of the support that Khartoum had given to opposition rebel groups during its own civil war years earlier, poured support into the Darfur rebels which resulted in a tense and lawless cross-border situation. The humanitarian operation was stymied by a Khartoum government which was both belligerent and distrustful of the incoming aid agencies, and also had no vested interest in seeing the population supported. Red tape was thrown up at any opportunity, while aid agencies were frequently punished with expulsion and the revocation of permits.

The fighting continued. The war was characterized as being one between Arabs and ‘Africans’, although on ethnic terms the differentiation was hazy at best. However at day’s end, as well as the macro-level context of an uprising by a marginalized people against a non-representative and distant government, this was really a resource conflict. The players polarized themselves largely along the lines of groups that traditionally practiced sedentary agriculture versus those that traditionally practiced more nomadic livestock rearing. The conflict, at its most basic, was about who controlled wells, grazing land and firewood and, from a government perspective, the small but significant new finds of oil.

Over the next few years, the conflict fragmented. The government lost control of the Janjawid, while the rebel groups split into around 30 different forces, with alliances shifting so rapidly they were almost impossible to track, let alone resolve. Banditry- partly to resource fighting, partly for profit for its own sake- blossomed, and aid workers with their shiny Land Cruisers, disposable cash and walkie-talkies were prime targets. Anarchy reigned.

Meanwhile, Elsewhere…

At the same time the SLA and JEM were consolidating their struggle for recognition, groups in the far east of the country, in Kassala and Red Sea States, were instigating their own rebellion. With support from the SLA and JEM, militias like the Beja Congress under the flag of the Eastern Front also started a low-key insurgency, and while it didn’t get far, it remains a tense point to this day.

In Kordofan, like Darfur consisting of three states- West, South and North- the conflict from Darfur was spilling over. For a while analysts were concerned that it was going to explode in the same way as Darfur, but while there were a number of reports of village massacres, the focus remained on Darfur.

Several areas remained, however, flashpoints for violence. Kordofan had been deeply divided during the North-South wars, with militias (most notably the Nuba) aligning with the South while the state remained occupied by the North. Likewise portions of Blue Nile (belonging to the North) and Upper Nile (belonging to the South) were made up of a patchwork of proxy militias and their complex alliances, which continue to simmer to this day.

There is, of course, the contentious Unity State. Unity- never a more inappropriately named location- is apparently sopping with oil, and is subsequently claimed by both the North and the South. Under the 2005 CPA, Unity’s future was supposed to be determined by a state referendum, but neither the North nor the South could agree on a structure to the referendum, particularly because the North wanted Arab nomads who crossed the territory to be given a vote (as they would vote to join the North) while the South did not.

One of the biggest threats to the stability of Southern Sudan as a nation is its very ethnic diversity. Conflict between ethnic groups, clans and even families at a very local level has strong currency in the micro-politics of the area. Disagreements, usually over cattle or women, used to be settled with spears, bows and knives. Today they are settled with 7.62mm rounds on fully-automatic. Interclan tussles used to score their casualties in ones and twos. Now they’re counted in twenties and forties. While the North-South war kept a lid on much of this and provided a common enemy to unite otherwise-belligerent factions, since the signing of the CPA there has been a marked increase in ethnic tension in Southern Sudan. If war with the North does not eventuate, the SPLM will still need to contend with this very real threat to remain viable.

In the last few years, the despicable Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), pushed ever northwards by the Ugandan army, has established itself in the forests of Western Equatoria, in the far south of the country. Known for its brutal campaigns against villages- seizing children as soldiers, porters and sex slaves- it has continued its trademark attacks against Sudanese villages and continues to create tension in that area.

Map: Zones of tension in Sudan
Orange: Northern Sudan
Blue: Southern Sudan
Pink: Kordofan, Blue Nile
Green: Darfur
Purple: Eastern Front
Yellow: Abyei

Spiralling Towards Independence

In many ways, Sudan and its constituents are holding their breath. This year’s referendum, timetabled by the CPA and independently monitored, clearly stated that the South (as voted on by Southerners) would cecede- a vote of 99%. This is clearly not in the interests of the North, but for now, the North has little power to stop this from happening without angering the entire International Community. This doesn’t stop it playing games. Like cutting off the South’s access to its oil pipeline for export.

From there, SAF incursions into Unity State (Abyei) late in May made international headlines as the potential signal for an impending civil war post-independence. Whether designed to test international waters and the Southern reaction, whether planned as a pre-positioning of forces, whether a statement of ownership, or whether to drive out pro-South populations, the move demonstrated the weakness of the UN resolve to step in and intervene.

It also demonstrated the unwillingness- for now- of the SPLA to respond with significant force. This can be chalked up to the SPLM’s concern that nothing should jeopardize the handover of independence in 2 weeks’ time. After the July 9 transition, their restraint may be weaker.

The United Nations has been instructed by Khartoum to end its mandate in Sudan once the South has its independence. That means from July 9, the UN will need to withdraw its peacekeepers from any territory controlled by the north, including South Kordofan.

(Rumours that the UN in the South may also be asked to leave- possibly an internal political manoeuvre relating to dissatisfaction with bilateral donor support for the SPLM- are currently unsubstantiated, but this also would create a significant concern in the light of increasing tensions.)

A tentative agreement has been reached by both the North and the South that a contingent of Ethiopian peacekeepers will take control of Abyei while a long-term solution is agreed. Of course, it’s been 6 years that a long-term solution has been discussed and still hasn’t been reached. But it’s better than slinging it out.

Meanwhile, Khartoum has refocused its efforts on Kordofan, with evidence of troop buildup, ethnic cleansing, arbitrary execution of political dissidents, and 60- to 100,000 people displaced from their homes (claims of up to half a million by local leaders). Strategically close to Abyei and Unity State, Khartoum may well be prepositioning itself for a much larger incursion.

Rumours of instability in Blue Nile are growing, with concerns about militia groups there and across the border in Upper Nile. Should conflict between North and South erupt, this will almost certainly become a major area of concern- and probably a highly complex one.

Although the war in Darfur is ‘different’ to the North-South conflict, many of the drivers- fear of Islamicization, Arabicization, marginalization, resource exploitation- are the same. The SLA and JEM (as still the major rebel figureheads negotiating with Khartoum) very much take their lead from what happens in the South, which they see as setting a precedent for their own struggle. What impact Southern independence, or a possible return to war with the South, triggers in Darfur remains to be seen. However with anarchy and banditry continuing to dominate, with the ongoing belligerent attitude of Khartoum towards NGOs, and with the UN having to close its mandate in the North, some impact is certain.

Sudan has it all. Beligerent governments. Long-standing ethnic grievences. Oil and resource conflict. Warlords with wavering loyalties. A harsh, unsupportive and disease-prone environment. Poor infrastructure. High aid dependency coupled with suspicion towards the international community. A contested border. High levels of international ‘interest’ in the outcome. And a lot of guns. And I mean, a lot.

Many observers agree that the Southern government is unlikely to embrace any large-scale response to hostilities this side of July 9. The government is occupied with managing transition- and ensuring it goes ahead. Even beyond that time, the SPLA does not have the training or equipment that the SAF possesses (not to say that certain western governments aren’t doing their damnedest to correct that imbalance). Whether we see a return to all-out war between North and South in the near future isn’t clear; it may not swing that way. However with the build-up of tension and troops in flashpoint areas such as Southern Kordofan and mutterings along the Nile, the chances of low-level conflict remain very high.

A likely campaign from the North, based on past performance, would involve the use of proxy militias in sensitive areas. These would be used to drive out pro-South populations and secure- de facto if not de jure- the areas it wants to control. The South may respond with similar tactics, or pour in more regular troops which could considerably escalate the conflict. Whichever path results, the outcome for civilian populations caught in the middle is grim.

That said, there’s no war yet. Negotiations over Abyei and Unity continue. While the North doesn’t want to lose its oil, if it declares war on the South it will exacerbate its international pariah status and find that China really does become its one and only ally- something which Bashir may be okay with, but will not do Sudan as a nation any favours over time. Likewise Southern Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, despite his cowboy appearance, has no wish for his fledgling nation to be embroiled in conflict while trying to consolidate a functioning state infrastructure. The South’s struggle to lift itself from what is undoubtedly one of the lowest rungs of the Human Development ladder will be hard enough without a war.

Note: I realise that many of my readers are going to be Sudan ‘experts’ with knowledge and information beyond what I have expressed here. Please do feel free to add commentary, facts or analysis I may have missed in the comments section- and yes, I know I have oversimplified some of what is a crazy complex context in this post!

Images: All photos (c) MoreAltitude 2011

1. Orange Palm: Sunset in Yambio, Equatorial Guinea, 2004

2. Forest Landing: Yambio airfield, Equatorial Guinea, 2004

3. Welcome to Rumbek: Rumbek Airport, Lakes State, 2004

4. Purple Palm: Sunset in Yambio, Equatorial Guinea, 2004

Map Credits: Image sources linked within images

The Ambush (Part 3 of 3): Evac

Note: This is the third in a three-part account of a security incident I was involved with in late 2007, in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.  Click here to read the first part, and here to read the second.  I’m sharing this story for World Humanitarian Day (19 August), which honours aid workers, and remembers those killed and injured in the line of duty.

Please note that the story contains an account of violence that readers who have been exposed to critical incidents themselves may find disturbing.

Evac

The stretch of sun-seared bitumen from Nyala airport into the town itself passes along a desolate acreage of dry scrubland- bare earth pocked with low grey houses, rising to a couple of low scraggy hills in one direction, and otherwise opens out to the brown and barren expanse of the semi-arid Sahel. Not far from here is the vast sprawl of Otash camp, the makeshift home these past four years to tens of thousands of internally displaced Sudanese relying on international assistance to survive.

I’m sitting in the back of another logo’d Land Cruiser eerily similar to the one I left this town in earlier today, under vastly different circumstances; in some ways a vastly different person.

It’s an ambulance-style setup as well, with bench-seats running along the hull and facing each other over an empty bay. I can’t help thinking of Abdul and how, seven hours ago I was kneeling by his head trying to keep him alive as we jarred our escape along the vehicle-tracks of the savannah south and west of here.

I’m sitting opposite Emmanuel. His face is drawn and weary, but there’s also inexpressible relief there. He looks at me, and although there’s nothing funny about today, he smiles and shakes his big dark head.

“Truly,” he says, “You are a child of God.”

I thank him, a wry smile that is part acceptance, part bemusement twisting my lips. It’s an odd compliment. It’s an odd time for it. But I take it.

He elaborates.

“They shot you,” he says. “But nothing happened.”

I nod, and get a funny feeling. I think he’s talking about the way our assailant emptied his clip through the windows of the four-by-four and the dozen or so bullets that must have whipped through that tight space but leaving us alive.

But I’m wrong.

Flight Out

The chopper comes about four in the afternoon. The attack happened a little before eleven, which means we’ve been out here for a little over five hours. Hot, thirsty, exhausted. But we’re all alive.

It’s a big Mi-8 Hip, a behemoth of an aircraft that seats 24 passengers plus crew, with round portal windows and a ramp that drops down at the back.

We’ve been hearing word that the thing is on its way for a few hours when it finally materializes. It wasn’t really until about half an hour earlier that we get confirmation that yes, this time it’s actually taken off. Then we hear that the pilots can’t find the village. ‘Bul-Bul’ isn’t a helpful reference, and they’ve had to put down a couple of places already, looking for us. But at least this confirms to us that it’s actually airborne.

We hear it whopping through the air a couple of minutes before it comes into sight over the low scrub, and the sheer release of tension I feel finally seeing it hovering over the village makes up for the growing frustration I’ve been feeling as reports of our pending evacuation begin to to feel less and less believable.

There’s a big open patch of ground in front of the health hut, at least the size of a soccer pitch, and the brute hangs there like a giant airborne cricket before slowly putting down, back-wheels and then front-wheels. It is all white with a black-stencilled designation on the airframe.

The ramp at the rear drops down, and four medics carrying a stretcher between them come running out, heads low beneath the thumping blades. They could only have made a more dramatic entry if they’d parachuted into the village from on high. The whole community has turned out to watch them. Soldiers are stacked in the tray of the pickup truck, leaning nonchalantly on their weapons as though they aren’t totally digging the fuss.

They put the stretcher down in the open area in front of the compound, and inside I organize a few men to transfer Abdul back onto the bench, after which we litter him outside and transfer him over. The lead doctor pours over him, consulting in Arabic with the nurse. Within a minute there’s another drip in him, being held aloft by a female orderly.

There are orders now. There’s an Africa Union official with the flight, fair skinned but fluent in Arabic, and I suspect he’s Egyptian, or maybe Moroccan. He’s telling us to get onboard quickly. They don’t want to stay on the ground longer than absolutely necessary.

There’s a brief discussion going on. The drivers are talking about staying with their vehicles and driving them home. Emmanuel is telling them no way. Eventually they acquiesce. I watch the proceedings, standing by with my backpack until I’m waved onboard through the rear ramp. When I get into the cabin, Mohammed and Essam are already seated, and Mohammed’s head is being rebandaged.

I sit near the front by one of the round windows. The escape exit is marked with Cyrillic words. I muse to myself that I never thought I’d be so happy to be inside an aircraft stamped with Russian letters. Then they’re loading Abdul into the back on his stretcher, a calm little hive of activity, and the ramp is closing. The curious villagers are waved back.

The engine rotations increase and the noise level in the helicopter ramps up. I’m handed a pair of earphones. There’s a curious feeling as the vehicle goes weightless, and then we’re hovering.

I look out of the window. The whole village is there, in a giant semi-circle, must be three hundred people. The two technicals loaded with armed militia. Men in their robes. Women in bright coloured print dresses and headscarfs, all fluttering in the wind. Our exit is like something from a Hollywood movie. I note it at the time.

Then the nose dips, and we’re heading east.

***

I’m in a funk of exhausted relief. There’s not a whole lot going through my head. I’m staring out of the windows watching Darfur slip beneath us a few hundred feet down. Flat-topped acacia trees and thorny scrub, little clusters of villages and the outlines of pasture-lands. Wadis are marked by lines of dark green where foliage taps the underground moisture. In the late afternoon sun, the brown landscape takes on warm hues.

The confused euphoria of survival sets in.

Nyala

Approaching Nyala, the helicopter banks over the outskirts of town. I can see the IDP camps laid out beneath us, white and brown speckled over the dusty landscape like a skin-rash. They’re vast. I’ve noted them every time I’ve flown in and out of here.

Touching down on the apron moments later, and I see the Sudanese helicopter gunships lined up a few dozen yards from where the UN Humanitarian Air Service flight disgorges its daily quotient of arriving aid workers. It’s one of the blatant ironies of this corner of the world.

The blades go still and the vibrating leaves a remnant that tingles in all the muscles. The ramp opens. Hot daylight and the perfume of AvGas spills into the cabin.

I’m the last of us out, and I step into a mob of chaos. It seems half of Nyala is out here to meet us. I can see a score of people from our office. Family members of the staff involved surge forward. Emergency personnel and aid-workers with some of the medical charities are there. There’s a small fleet of four-by-fours and an ambulance.

By the time I’m out of the chopper, a throng of people has surrounded Abdul’s stretcher. There’s crying and loud voices. Over it all, a set of jet engines is whining loudly. People are trying to make decisions, others are trying to keep the crowd thin. I stand well back.

I feel awkward and a little left out. A couple of the senior expats from our office come over and welcome me back. They look worn and a little haggard. They haven’t been with us in person, but they’ve been trying to manage the crisis from this end, knowing only that their friends and colleagues are in serious trouble. It’s been an incredibly distressing experience.

I see the freshly-bandaged Mohammed being led away.

“You’re being medevac’d to Khartoum,” I’m told. “The plane is waiting.”

The UNHAS flight is the one standing nearby, jets idling and the rear door still open. I can see white faces peering through the windows at the commotion on the apron, but I shake my head.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I want to stay here.”

There’s a little pressure to convince me, and Essam too, but in the end Mohammed flies without us, a nurse staying with him until he reaches the hospital. He’ll be stitched up and treated for a mild concussion, and released without serious physical harm.

There’s still a mob around Abdul. The medics are deliberating. He’s still having fluids pumped into him. They’re very concerned for him and he’s not out of the woods yet. He’s fragile and his blood pressure has bottomed out. They want to fly him to Khartoum at once, but he’s too weak to fly so they’ll need to keep him in Nyala overnight. It isn’t good news.

I’m standing a little to one side when a Sudanese solider walks up to me and starts yelling. He looks nineteen, and he’s got some serious agro. I’m a head taller than him, and I suddenly feel a burst of intense fury, the likes of which I’ve rarely felt in my life. I’m standing there, covered in the dried blood of a colleague, having just had the most intense day of my life. There’s a whole knot of people clogging up the runway, and this punk has the audacity to pick on me. I heckle up and raise my voice back at him, gesturing the injured man on the stretcher, and his attitude arcs up in response. We’re nose-to-nose, and the only thing that stops me taking a swing at him is the knowledge that he has two comrades with assault-rifles nearby, watching. I back down, but stay furious for hours afterwards at the memory.

Later I get a taste of more of the attitude that was coming our way. Abraham, our office manager, tells me that as I stepped out of the back of the aircraft, one of the other soldiers started gesturing at me, yelling in Arabic,

“Why is he okay? They should have shot that one!”

I’m shocked to hear the story. I’ve never been the subject of such hatred before.

***

The full story doesn’t come out until we start to debrief. We have a lot of those over the next few days. First off, we report back to the office managers what happened- myself, Emmanuel and the two drivers. Essam comes back from the hospital a little later after getting stitched up, and travels to Khartoum the next day.

After the first debrief, we report in to the Africa Union base commander. We thank him for sending his chopper to get us out and explain what happened. He’s a Nigerian soldier, thickset and short in stature and temper. He bawls out the office Manager for allowing us to be travelling on a road so unsafe that even his own armored personnel carriers won’t travel on- unfairly, as Abraham wasn’t in town that morning and it wasn’t his decision.

I’m checked out by the base medic, who washes my arm and examines the shrapnel punctures. He scolds me for spending the day covered in blood and reminds me that it’s a risk of infection, especially when I have open wounds of my own. To be honest I’d stopped noticing the stuff. The clothes I’m wearing are still caked in the stuff and I don’t really realise. When I get back to Melbourne I’ll need to have a blood test for Hepatitis and HIV, just to be safe, but I come back clean.

We walk out between the rows of prefab huts, past shirtless grunts kicking around a football in the post-dusk glow, and eventually past the sandbagged nests where sentries with 7.62mm machine-guns crouch outside the wire gates beneath their kevlar helmets. When we get back to the office, the light is fading and fast has broken, and there is a tranquility over the city as families share the start of the evening meal. Beside our gate, four men in off-white robes sit on a thatched mat and invite us to join them in a piece of shared flat-bread. We greet them and gracefully decline. The normalcy aches.

It’s not really until I hear the whole story first-hand from Issa and Essam, both of whom were awake throughout the assault, that I begin accepting what happened that morning, and even then it takes me a couple of days to release the last of the denial.

Details

I run it through again in my head.

The attack is brutal, without warning and, even now, without clear motive beyond banditry. Nobody in our vehicle sees the assailants in the bush, and no effort is made by the attackers to stop either vehicle peacefully.  The attack begins with murderous intent.

In the two or three seconds of that first attack, as far as we can surmise, the gunman squeezes off the better part of an entire clip through the moving vehicle. Looking at the shot-out windows, the number of holes in the fuselage, and the injuries suffered by the staff, we estimate no less than a dozen bullets travel through that tiny space, and possibly more. Each one of us is spared death by pure chance. Millimetres of change in the angle of the muzzle, fractions of seconds’ difference in the firing of the rounds, and any one of the three bullets that go into the strut behind my head could have gone through it instead; the bullet that embeds itself in Essam’s bicep may have gone through his chest- or simply torn out the artery in his upper arm and bled him out; the round that lodges in the sill above the driver’s window could have struck Issa directly; and either one of the slugs that strike Mohammed or Abdul could have killed them outright. In Mohammed’s case, two or three millimeters lower and his head would have blown open. In Abdul’s, a single millimeter lower, and the ensuing damage would kill him in minutes, if not instantaneously.

In those early seconds, Mohammed and Abdul are both knocked unconscious, the former landing beneath the latter. Essam, who immediately realises what’s happening, collapses into his seat and pretends to be dead throughout the entire episode, but concentrating intently on what’s happening. Only Issa and I interact with the gunmen. Essam makes no sign that he’s alive even as his body is roughly searched for valuables by the first attacker, and although he turns his radio down, he keeps it close to him. It’s Essam, listening to what happens next, who may well have saved all of us.

It’s after I’m back in the car, when I’m began to sense that something is really wrong, that things start to go badly. I hand over my money, while Issa stands helplessly by as the two gunmen start talking.

As I’m looking forward through the windshield, my hands still raised, the first gunman, who did all the shooting, raises his weapon and points it at me. According to Issa, he’s agitated and aggressive, highly nervous. Issa wonders whether he might be on drugs. The other guy seems far more frightened, and quieter.

The first gunman addresses Issa.

“Tell him,” he instructs, jerking the gun at me, “That I’m going to kill him.”

Issa, mercifully, does nothing of the kind. He stands there, helpless. I, in my ignorance of Arabic, have no awareness of the plans in store for me.

The gunman adjusts his grip on the gun where it’s levelled on my chest and, ten paces from where I’m sitting, pulls the trigger.

Both Issa and Essam hear the gun click.

The gunman, frustrated, turns to his companion, standing there watching events unfold.

“You finish them off,” he orders.

The other refuses. Issa says he appears reluctant.

“Okay,” says the first, irritated. “Give me your gun. I’ll do it.”

We’re still not entirely sure what happens next to change things. What we know is that Essam, playing dead in the back seat and listening to our murder being discussed, knows that there are few options left. He’s turned his radio back on and is crouched in the back seat, trying to raise the other vehicle. With the volume turned up, its his radio that now chatters to life as Emmanuel comes back to us over the net asking what’s happening.

Although we’ll never know, it’s very possible that the sound of the voice over the radio startles the two gunmen into realising that there are more of us out there, and that perhaps help is on its way. At any rate, without a further word, both men turn and walk off into the bush, leaving us alive. Issa bolts for the driver’s seat, and champion as he is, drives us the mile or two to our first stopping-point in a heavy four-wheel-drive on soft sand, with one of the tyres shot to hell.

We have a lot of heroes to thank that day.

***

We also learn about doings in Nyala. About the sheer panic in the office when the news first breaks that we’ve been attacked and that several of the team- it isn’t clear who or how seriously- are shot. Then about the rapid response that’s undertaken to get us home safe.

The message reaches Nyala about ten minutes after we get to Bul-Bul. They’re eventually able to make contact via cell-phone by standing on the top of a pickup truck. That means it’s not quite an hour since the shooting. From there, the office mobilise and contact the Africa Union. Within forty-five minutes of the news coming through, there’s a chopper on the apron in Nyala, fueled, with a crew and a medical staff, ready to lift off.

The Sudanese military takes three subsequent hours to give it official clearance to lift off and get us.

When I first hear that information I don’t have much energy left to respond emotionally to the news. Now, it makes my blood boil. I think how close Abdul came to dying on that table in the bush while we sat waiting for some piece of bureaucratic machinery to creak over- or worse, some malicious officer who would have been quite happy for some unwanted NGO worker to perish.

Aftermath

Abdul lives. Against all the odds.

We visit him that night in Nyala hospital. I remember the warmth of the evening air, and of families crowded into the hospital’s central courtyard around lamps, waiting for loved ones on the wards, bringing them food and themselves sharing the evening break-fast seated in circles on the ground, stew in coloured plastic pots and broth in copper kettles.

He lies on another guerney, under a fleece blanket and stripped to the waist, conscious but weak. We don’t spend long with him. We speak briefly with his brother, and there’s a draining concoction of gratefulness and concern. We pray for him that evening at that office, hoping he’ll make it through the night.

He does, and the next morning he’s flown to Khartoum, where his skull is x-rayed and it’s discovered that there are bone fragments piercing the brain, causing critical swelling. He undergoes emergency brain surgery to remove the shards and relieve the swelling, and by some miracle survives that too.

I spend several more days in Nyala, debriefing with the team, floaing through a strange sense of the surreal. My experience is at once intensely tangible and seared onto my brain in visceral clarity, and yet has left me oddly emotionally calm. I feel no grief, I sleep well, my appetite is not diminished. Although I get a little anxious retelling the story of what happened, the psychologist who is flown in to counsel us informs me I’m healthy and that I shouldn’t expect to experience any symptoms of psychological harm as a result of the experience. She’s right, and I don’t.

I leave Khartoum on an Emirates flight, in business class which the insurance company has agreed to pay for because my itinerary has had to be changed, and these are the only available seats; I’m very glad that we have an emergency travel policy.

The day I leave, I visit Essam and Mohammed. They’re both staying at our team-house in Khartoum for a few days before returning to Nyala. We’re glad to see each other, and as we re-tell our stories- with Mohammed for the first time- both men shed tears. Later I visit Abdul in hospital. He is happy to see me. He’s there with his family, about eight of them living out of a dingy room, but thankfully he’s got privacy from the rest of the hospital.

He doesn’t get up, which doesn’t surprise me, but it’s only later I realise it’s because the injury to his brain has left him paralysed down one side of his body. Although he regains some of his movement and the pain diminishes, he still hasn’t made a full recovery. He still works for the same organisation, but is confined to desk work, and walks with a cane. His is the one sad legacy from an experience that is otherwise miraculous- but even here, his survival is in the face of overwhelming odds.

The same is true for all of us. This particular set of circumstances could have been rolled on cosmic dice a hundred times, and in ninety-nine of those cases, not all of us would have lived.

The flight is delayed a little out of Khartoum. I wait in the business-class lounge with growing anxiety, and in my mind I recall that same sense of foreboding I had waiting for the helicopter to evacuate us from Bul-Bul, but thirty minutes behind schedule I’m shown through to a brand new business-class seat that goes completely flat. It’s going to take me twenty hours to get back to Melbourne and I know I should sleep. But it’s way too nice a berth for me to waste time unconscious, and I sit awake for several hours, sip white wine, and watch movies.

The constant hum of the engines eventually lulls me to sleep.

End

Images:

1. Untitled, from http://www.operationbrokensilence.com: ‘Rebuilding Darfur: How do we do it?’ (link embedded in photo)

2. From http://www.time.com: ‘Darfur Descends into Chaos’ (link embedded in photo)

The Ambush (Part 2 of 3): Flight

Note: This is the second in a three-part account of a security incident I was involved with in late 2007, in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.  Click here to read the first part.  I’m sharing this story for World Humanitarian Day (19 August), which honours aid workers, and remembers those killed and injured in the line of duty.

Please note that the story contains an account of violence that readers who have been exposed to critical incidents themselves may find disturbing.

Flight

“Stop the car!” I yell, looking back at the three wounded men behind me. “I need to help them.”

We’re twenty yards from the scene of the shooting. Issa is wrestling with the wheel, trying to steer the Land Cruiser in deep sand with one tyre shot out. He gives me a single look that says, You’re crazy, white man, forget it, and I instantly see the logic in his decision and I feel foolish. In a day during which I reckon I did a fair job of keeping my cool, this was the one moment where I definitely said something stupid.

I’m a Wilderness First Responder, and the sight of my three colleagues, injured and worse, makes me anxious to do something.

“Give me my first aid kits,” I tell Essam instead. I have two. He rifles through my pack and passes them to me. Unzipping one I pull out a pair of surgical gloves. The first one I try to pull onto my sweating hands tears, and I throw it away in frustration before unsatisfactorily fumbling two more on. It’s a simple gesture, a selfish (and ultimately futile) act to protect me from whatever bodily fluids I’m about to deal with when I finally get my hands onto my patients. It’s Mohammed who later tells me that this is the point when he starts to feel like they are going to be okay, that somebody with them knows how to help.

I wish for his confidence.

We bounce through the bush, the car banging loudly around the dusty potholes. The first vehicle starts rolling before we reach it, and the two of us lurch off in convoy again, as fast as we can over the broken terrain. As I look helplessly at the heavily-bleeding Abdul, I continue to pull items from my first-aid kit I think might be useful- spare gloves, a variety of bandages and gauze.

We pull up and stop. The first vehicle is waiting for us in a sandy clearing. We haven’t come far, just a couple of minutes. I guess maybe a kilometre, not more than two. It feels uncomfortably vulnerable, but I’m now thinking of the three shot men in the back and how to stop them from getting worse.

We yank open the back doors and start to manhandle Abdul out of the vehicle. Both Essam and Mohammed can walk unassisted. I try to tell them both not to help with the carrying because I don’t want them exacerbating any wounds they might have. They don’t listen, and anyway, Abdul is too heavy. I guess he’s at least a hundred kilos, and we need the hands on.

I try to explain to them how to carry him without twisting his spine as I’ve been taught, but now we’re having language difficulties. I’m speaking loudly and quickly without realising it, the adrenaline still coursing through my arteries, and I’m barely making sense to myself, let alone the rest of them who are Arabic mother-tongue. I try to support his head as best I can while they lug his limp body out of the back and set him in the sand. Within seconds I’m soaked in his blood. It’s smeared all down my front and my gloves are wet with the stuff.

Abdul is bleeding heavily and he’s my main focus, but I’m aware that I have two other men, both also wounded, one of whom looks really bad. My attention can only go one way at a time however and I focus on Abdul’s head-wound. It’s nasty. The bullet seems to have skipped off his cranium and it’s torn the scalp apart into three large flaps. I can see the pink-white of his skull where everything else has been ripped away. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before.

The blood is dribbling past my fingers. I squeeze the pieces of scalp back into place then press it tight in an effort to stop the fluid loss. My gloves are slick and I have to ask Essam to open a pack of gauze for me because my digits can’t get purchase on the plastic wrapping. I clamp that into place over the wounds and keep the pressure on. The pad is soaked through in moments. The blood is curious- it is warm when it splashes onto my hands, but then quickly cools in the Sahelian breeze. Through the microfibrous gloves I can feel the texture of Adbul’s scalp beneath my fingertips. It is wet and spongy, the tight curls of his hair now sticky.

I press hard and watch dark beads of fluid gather in the sand as they form a dirty puddle. Essam is crouching beside him, trying to talk to his friend. Abdul is conscious but it’s hard to communicate with him. We’re all having a hard time hearing, our ears still ringing from the impact of the gunshots. Abdul is shocky and not able to understand everything that’s said to him. I’m talking too fast and Essam is having trouble interpreting my requests. I’m trying to gauge Abdul’s level of consciousness, but I can’t get through all the questions before something else happens. I try and take his pulse, but my fingers are throbbing in the aftermath of the surging adrenaline.

I look at Essam and at the bullet-hole in his arm. There’s blood wetting down the front of his sleeve and the material is torn, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Every time I ask him about it he dismisses it and returns his attention to Abdul. I’m worried in that wounds can be deceptive to those who receive them, but he’s showing no signs of shock or internal blood-loss, and the fluids leaking out of him aren’t prolific either. I do my informal triage and move on.

Mohammed scares me more. He’s standing a little to one side, looking a fragile but oddly calm as he watches on. I’ve never seen so much blood on one person before. There’s a slick stringy substance all down his chest and I’m terrified he’s taken a bullet through the lungs but can’t feel it courtesy of shock. He tells me he’s fine, but I don’t trust him until he’s taken his shirt off and turned around for me while I watch him, still kneeling at Abdul’s head and clamping off the bleeding.

Mohammed’s only wound appears to be the one to his head, and that’s now nearly stopped bleeding. The rest has come, he says, from Abdul, who fell on top of him. I later learn that both he and Abdul were knocked unconscious in that first barrage of shooting when both were struck in the head, and he has no recollection of the rest of the ambush.

I look over and I see the two drivers gathered around a jack. I think to myself, What are they doing changing a tyre at a time like this? I don’t learn about the shot wheel until later in the day, and to this day still have no recollection of the additional rounds fired into the vehicle. I find the process disturbing, however, as I’m starting to feel very exposed. We’ve been out here for several minutes, and I’m starting to have images of the gunmen re-emerging from the bush and reneging on their decision to let us walk.

Abdul is plunging into shock. In my limited experience with patients I’ve never come across anything like it, although I know exactly what’s happening. His skin temperature plummets and he sweats hard. He’s in a great deal of pain and his eyes are rolling around a lot. He and Essam are talking as best they can. It’s taken mere minutes, but he’s cold to the touch and his colour is a sickly purple hue. After a couple of minutes, he retches. We roll him onto his side and let him vomit bile into the sand. It’s Ramadan, and none of the men have eaten or drunk anything. This realisation and its implications for patient care hit me immediately.

I look up, and Issa is sweeping the mat of broken glass and congealing blood out of the back of the vehicle, where it clumps into the sand. I feel a burst of desperate irritation. I just want us moving. I don’t know where we’re moving to, because we’re only getting further away from Nyala, but I know we can’t stay here. But the ex-policeman is, once again, right.

I again give poor directions to the guys as we load Abdul head-first back onto the floor of the four-wheel-drive. I control his head and try and position him as comfortably as possible. I manouevre him into the recovery position so that he can keep throwing up as needed. He tells me his head hurts. He’s in a lot of pain. In moving him the bleeding has started up again and I try and get it back under control, while keeping his body in position and protecting his head and spine. I crouch on the balls of my feet beside him on the floor of the vehicle and it’s awkward.

We drive. The journey is hell. I don’t know where we’re going, I don’t know how long we’ll take to get there. I do know that the closest thing to medical care is in the other direction, and between us and it is the ambush site. We have no option but to press on into the bush.

Physically, it’s tortuous for me. I can’t begin to think what it is for Abdul. The car pitches and jolts across the back-country terrain. I’m locked into a crouch, holding a heavy man on his side, trying to stop him from rolling back, trying to protect his head from banging each time we yaw into a pit, trying to keep him from bleeding out. Every couple of minutes he vomits again, bringing up more bile, or just dry retching. Before long my legs and back are screaming with the pain of the position I’m holding.

The fear is worse. Because I’m not longer really doing anything, this is the first time I’ve really had a chance to be scared. In some ways this seems odd, because the rest of us appear to be out of danger, but then we’re still in a war-zone, and we have no idea what lies ahead. There could be another ambush. My imagination spins. I wonder what will happen if we’re stopped and they find that everything of value has already been taken? Maybe they’ll just execute us on the spot. I look down at Abdul and I know he’s in mortal danger. I wonder whether he’s going to die in my arms. When I look at Essam and Mohammed, crouched in the back with me, I see the same fear.

We pray, Muslim and Christian together. I to Jesus, they to Allah. I in English, they in Arabic. We agree with each others’ words. I punctuate my agreements with al-Hamdulillah: Thanks be to God. Crouched over our mortally wounded friend, there’s no religion. Only faith.

I don’t know how long we travel for, but in hindsight I guess it’s somewhere shy of half an hour. Then we reach Bul-Bul.

Bul-Bul

I don’t really get a chance to see it as we arrive, and my memory is one of a tremendous sense of relief as I learn that we’re pulling up to a police checkpoint. After the journey we’ve just had, it feels for the first time that I can breathe normally again. My concentration is still on Abdul, but I’m briefly overwhelmed by a sense of lightness.

Emmanuel and the driver in the first vehicle begin to explain our situation to the soldiers at the checkpoint. No sooner is the sense of relief over me than I feel a pang of irritation. We’ve got a guy who could be dying here, I scream in my mind. Stop messing us around.

Curious faces appear at the window. I glower at them. Their expressions visibly yaw as they take in the four of us in the back, dressed in macabre crimson robes, then wave us hurriedly on with orders to go straight to the health hut.

We pull up outside the little compound. The village is classic Sahel. It’s open and set amidst a cleared area in the grassland. Round mud-walled huts with dry reeds for roofing- I know them as Tukuls- are dotted around at generous intervals. Some properties are walled with cracked-mud walls. There are patches of grass, and patches where the grass has been trodden into hard-packed ground.

The health-hut is a simple two-roomed mud-brick clinic staffed by a small grey-haired man who I learn is a trained nurse. We look around for something to use as a stretcher and eventually settle on a bench that we load Abdul onto and manouevre inside, setting it on the poured-concrete floor. The nurse immediately puts a drip into the man- an act I have no doubt saved his life- while I find more gauze and set about stopping the bleeding that has once more resumed.

People are moving everywhere. Things are still frenetic. Emmanuel explains to the officials what has happened, then he goes to try and raise Nyala. The two vehicles have both had CODAN HF radios fitted in the past, but both are defunct. Our Motorollas don’t have the range on them to reach the city, and there’s no cell network out here. There are rumours of a landline telephone and he and the driver disappear in an effort to find it.

With Abdul temporarily stabilised, the nurse and I turn our attention to Essam and Mohammed for the first time. Essam’s wound looks relatively minor. A bullet or significant portion of one has pierced his right bicep, a clean entry wound like a pair of pursed lips and no exit; we guess the slug is resting close to the bone. He still has movement (I can’t get him to stop moving it) and the bleeding has stopped. He refuses any fuss over the thing and quickly steps out to help Emmanuel arrange our evac. Ordinarily gracious with a quiet tone and manner, he seems to be smouldering this afternoon, and I sense a fierce anger in him that he none the less keeps to himself. Later, the word I find wraps itself around him with ease is ‘stoic’.

Mohammed is cheerful but a little weak. His loss of consciousness coupled with poor food and fluid intake means he’s fragile, and the nurse takes him to the other room and puts him on a drip too. Later he gets his head bandaged. In a while, when Abdul’s wound finally stops bleeding, I go in to see him where he rests on a guerney. He smiles sadly but his words are encouraging, and he assures me he’s fine. We have a discussion as to whether or not God will frown on him for having a drip when he’s supposed to be fasting. I’m humbled. Later, he sleeps.

Outside, Essam and Emmanuel are trying to get the news through to Nyala that there’s been a security incident and we need an emergency evacuation. It’s that, or drive back the way we came, and that doesn’t appeal as an option.

I only hear Emmanuel’s side of the story much later. How when they hear the gunshots they move forward a safe distance, then wait for us to come. How they try to reach us on the radio they get nothing back. Then a garbled message saying we’re on our way, and to go quickly.

Emmanuel tells me without shame how when the vehicles first stop and Abdul is carried semi-conscious from the back of the truck, he sees us all covered in blood and he’s so stunned he can do nothing but stand there and stare. How when he reaches Bul-Bul he stays in the car for ten minutes talking to the police officers and explaining what happened, not because he doesn’t want to get out and do anything else, but because his legs are shaking so hard he can’t physically stand. I think of my own fingers, throbbing with adrenaline, and I understand fully.

***

I stay with Abdul. My training says I should continue to care for my patient until I hand him over to somebody more qualified to look after him. Ordinarily a nurse would suffice, but I have no idea how well trained or experienced this one is.  I can’t speak to him, and I doubt he’s been prepped to deal with gunshot wounds. Drip aside, he’s certainly not paying much attention to Abdul, save to periodically check his heart-rate, which he doesn’t write down and doesn’t share with me. I’m worried, because I want to monitor his vitals, but I’ve lost my translator and can’t communicate with the nurse to see what he thinks. I try to take Abdul’s pulse myself, but my own fingers are still trembling and all I can feel is my own heartbeat racing through them. This won’t change for the rest of the afternoon.

Curious villagers come to see the commotion. Women, weeping tears of sympathy, gather around Abdul’s bed and coo. Then the soldiers barge in. They’re local militia, government-allied troops there to maintain safety. On the one hand I’m kind of pleased to have them nearby because it gives me hope we won’t be attacked in the next few hours. But they’ve come into the small cell out of morbid curiosity. They quickly fill the space, jostling around shoulder-to-shoulder to see the injured man. I grow tense when one inadvertently pokes my face with the muzzle of his Kalashnikov assault-rifle as he manouevres for a view. A little too close to recent events for comfort. I start to shoo them outside, and then we barricade the doors with a bench to stop more intruders.

I start to feel exhausted. It’s now early afternoon, a couple of hours since the attack. Abdul is in and out of consciousness. He speaks, but is having a hard time hearing. He tells me often in broken English that his head hurts. We wrap him in a blanket to counteract the chills of shock, and eventually move him onto a table so the warm draft can’t get at him from underneath. Then he complains he’s too hot. We strip off the blanket and I wet his fingers and fan them to cool his bloodstream. He still vomits periodically. One time he brings up some pink blood in his bile, and I have a pang of panic, but reassure myself that he’s probably ruptured a vessel in his gut from all the retching. Flies buzz. It doesn’t smell great in here.

I use my walkie-talkie to find out what’s going on from the others who have spread out in the village, but news is vague. They’ve managed to contact HQ who have been in touch with the Africa Union peackeeping base in Nyala. A chopper is being despatched. It’ll be here very soon. Maybe in the next half an hour. But half an hour passes. Then another. And a third. I start to feel very, very tired. Somebody brings me a bottle of water. I look at Abdul. He’s not cold any more, but I’m worried about him. I know he’s lost a lot of blood, and I don’t know enough about drips to know what effect they have, or whether he needs another one. I’m concerned about decompensatory shock, but because I can’t access his vitals I can’t tell what’s going on. I only know that he’s disoriented and showing signs of head injury, which is a bit of a no-brainer really, as he’s been shot in the head.

I take a walk outside to get fresh air and clear my head. I greet some women sitting in the courtyard and they look at me with wide eyes, returning ‘Salaam Aleikum‘ with hesitation. I realise I look horrible. I am drenched in drying blood. It’s splattered on my cap, it’s on my face, it’s soaked into my vest and into my pant-legs, it’s all over my boots and it’s caked solidly up to my elbows. I’m directed to a lightless side-room where there’s a plastic jug with a stopcock on it. I scrub at my hands and the water flows from my fingers pink. I discover that I’ve been cut by shrapnel and flying glass. There’s a thin cut running up my elbow from where my hand rested along the seat-back when the first blasts blew out the windows. Later I’ll find several bullet splinters embedded in the flesh of my upper arm.

Out in the courtyard there’s a debate going on. I see two olive-colored pickup trucks with a bunch of uniformed gunmen in them. One has a fifty-cal machine-gun mounted onto the cab. Elsewhere it’d be called a ‘Technical‘. Emmanuel and Essam are discussing what to do next. The soldiers have offered to escort us back up the road to Nyala with their guns. We still have no confirmation as to when- or even if- a chopper is really inbound. What do I think?

I consider driving back through the ambush site and my stomach clenches. I recall the roar of gunfire pounding through the Land Cruiser. In my mind I imagine what a stray burst of bullets would do fired out of the bush as we pass by once more, and I have all the fodder I need. I think it’s truly terrifying. Then I think back to the journey away from the attack site, crouching holding Abdul’s body. I think of the pain in my own body. I think of the way his head slammed against the floor and against the bulkhead each time the car hit a rut. I know there’s no way I can manage him for over an hour back to Nyala like that, and I’m pretty dubious about his chances of survival in his fragile state. I tell them as much, pointing out I can’t guarantee that he’ll make it back home if we do that. They nod, take my counsel on board, and to my great relief, agree that they’ll wait for the chopper for now.

The thought of spending the night out here with Abdul slowly waning doesn’t fill me with hope, but selfishly it’s still infinitely preferable to riding back along that road.

I wander with Essam and Issa to our Land Cruiser. It’s the first time I’ve seen it properly. It’s a grounding sight. Glass in most of the side-windows on both sides of the truck has been shot out. There are bullet holes in the fuselage. One above the driver’s door a couple of inches above the man’s head.

I don’t really do the maths until later. It’s funny what sticks in your head. For some utterly illogical reason I assumed just three shots were fired, because I heard three loud bangs. This fit with the three bullet wounds that my colleagues had. Seeing the car for the first time, I begin to realise this is far from the case. More likely, the gunman just squeezed off whatever was in his magazine.

I climb inside. Blood is dried everywhere. Splashed on the seats and pooled on the floor. Dribbled down the inside walls. I think of photos I’ve seen from the Middle East after militants are assassinated in their vehicles- broken glass, bullet-holes, dark red-brown stains.

I look forward. The strut behind my seat has taken rounds. Two dark holes are torn into the frame, inches behind my back, between myself and Essam. A third has gone straight through the bolt mounting the shoulder-strap of my safety-belt into the vehicle, right behind my head. I take the information in with considerable detachment. It doesn’t really compute just yet, but it explains why I’m still having a hard time hearing anything out of my right ear.

I try again to find out what’s going on with the chopper. It’s now mid-afternoon, but I have the same response. They’ve been told the chopper will be coming soon. But nobody knows whether it’s actually left Nyala yet, or if we’re being told something by somebody who doesn’t know anything.

I go back inside to sit with Abdul. He’s in and out of consciousness and when he’s with it, he tries to smile and tell me he’s okay, but he’s in a lot of pain. I can’t possibly know it right now, but the impact of the bullet slamming into his head has fractured his skull and shoved two splinters of bone into his brain tissue. He’s paralyzed on one side of his body, and his blood-pressure is becoming critically low.

I wander to the window that looks out over fields and the bush at the back of the village, and in my mind’s eye I see hordes of Janjawid fighters hurtling towards us. I really, badly want to be gone from this place.

Part 3: Evac, next

Images:

1. Stuart Price/African Union Mission in the Sudan, via Reuters, from http://www.david-kilgour.com: ‘Despite Aid, Malnutrition in Darfur Rises’ (link embedded in photo)

2. Uncredited, from http://www.studentsoftheworld.info (link embedded in photo)

World Humanitarian Day 2010: The Ambush (Part I of 3)

Tommorrow, August 19, is World Humanitarian Day. As I shared with you last year, it exists to commemorate the lives of the tens of thousands of people who work in disasters and emergencies in an effort to help people affected by tragedy and hardship. Held for the first time last year, it also remembers those who lay down their lives in the line of such work. On August 19, 2004, a truck-bomb was driven into the compound being used as the UN headquarters in Baghdad. 22 people, including the UN’s top humanitarian worker in Iraq, were killed in the aftermath.

The bombing of the Canal Hotel marked a shift in the aid context, after which humanitarian workers were increasingly seen as targets by people who- in contravention of international law- chose to attack them, whether for ideological, political or financial motivation.

It would be nice to be able to say that this trend is decreasing. However last year (as I’ve written previously) a higher portion of humanitarian workers were violently killed, injured or abducted than UN Peacekeeping soldiers. Earlier this year, seven staff working for the international NGO World Vision were corralled by extremists into their office in northern Pakistan and murdered with guns and grenades. Two weeks ago today, ten staff with the long-standing and highly-respected International Assistance Mission in Afghanistan were stopped on the road and executed, an attack claimed by the Taliban. There are many other incidents that happen each year, which get little notice globally, beyond the small community of international humanitarian workers.

In this vein I want to share with you a story that happened to several colleagues and I with the organisation I was working for at the time, during a field visit in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region. Those of you familiar with Darfur in late 2007 may recall details of the incident itself. The story is not a light one, and for those of you reading this who may have been exposed to violent situations yourselves, I’d ask you to exercise some discretion in deciding whether you want to keep reading.

In any critical incident it’s natural that memories of what happened differ slightly among various witnesses. During several rounds of debrief, both official and informal, several of us, including the three of us who were able to recall the whole incident, told our stories repeatedly, and they came up remarkably similar. The story below is my own perspective, but it matches closely enough to those of the others that discrepancies are insignificant, and gives a coherent and pretty accurate overview of what happened.

This is the first time in nearly three years that I’ve succeeded in writing out this account in its entirety, although I’ve told the story multiple times face-to-face, including to the Herald Sun who ran an article on it in early October 2007. I’ll share this over three consecutive posts, as it’s quite long (in true MoreAltitude style- would you expect anything less?).

Background

For those of you not familiar with Darfur, it’s a large and highly impoverished region in the west of northern Sudan. Roughly the size of France, it has a population of a little over 6 million people. Due to a complicated array of factors- including political disenfranchisement, social marginalization, religious colonialism, disputes over mineral resource rights, and tensions over natural resources such as water points and pasture land for cattle- a civil revolt took place in 2003 against the Khartoum-based government. Several rebel groups were involved, the largest and most significant being the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Khartoum responded by sending in conventional forces, and also armed a militia group, the Janjawid, with interests in the area (allegedly populating some of its ranks with released prisoners). A brutal put-down ensued in which the civilian population bore the brunt of the violence. Thousands were killed, and up to three hundred thousand reportedly died from the knock-on effects of the war (displacement, disease, malnutrition). Villages were burned to the ground. A quarter of a million people fled to the deserts of eastern Chad, and two to three million fled to displaced persons camps in sites around the region.

The situation remained fluid and complex. The government lost control of the Janjawid, and the rebels split after various members signed different agreements with the government. Pre-existing ethnic tensions and resource disagreements created new lines of conflict in an area that was largely anarchic. Peacekeepers, under-resourced, without a clear mandate, and further crippled by Khartoum’s meddling, were unable to cover the vast, roadless terrain, and for the most part remained bunkered down behind wire fences in their bases.

By late 2007, the warfighting had broken down into a highly complex series of sub-conflicts with shifting battlefronts and alliances that changed weekly. There were at least twenty-seven different warring factions, and that number was changing. Banditry was rife. NGOs, habitually unarmed, made easy targets from which radios, vehicles and money could be pilfered with little risk or resistance. Between 4 and 5 million of Darfur’s population were considered ‘war-affected’, and at least half that number were reliant on UN and NGO support in some way.

I travelled to Darfur in September of that year on a brief support mission, to check in on some of the projects my office was funding in Darfur, and to spend time with our office in Nyala (capital of South Darfur) to see how they were doing, and what could be done to support them better. About a week into my trip, I went on what was planned to be a multi-day field visit south and west of Nyala, towards an area called Rehed-al-Birdi. I was with six colleagues, travelling in a pair of clearly-marked NGO Land Cruisers. We anticipated it would take us about four hours to reach our destination for the day.

Part I: Ambush

After the shooting stops, what I notice most is the silence. It is humming, tangible, pressing itself with force into my ears like some wrapped cloak protecting me from reality. But any sense of protection must be an illusion.

There’s no crying. No shouts of pain. Nobody yelling ‘Get Down!‘ Just that pressurised whine inside my head telling me something’s wrong.

I’m lying across the bench-seat at the front of the four-by-four, head towards Issa the driver who’s down here with me. My nose is inches from the dials of the heater and tape-deck. Black, plastic, slightly rimed with dust. The image of this mundane feature of the dashboard is seared onto my brain with crystal clarity even years later, so intensely is my brain seizing data.

Beads of safety glass have exploded across the inside of the vehicle. They’re sharp-edged little gems of crystalline aqua-marine and they’ve doused the foot-wells, blanketed the front seat, accumulated like blown sand in the creases in my utility vest.

The first conscious thought that goes through my head I hear with startling clarity: This is it. It’s really happening. It’s not a drill this time.

It’s followed moments later by a prayer, shot flare-like skywards in a moment of desperate faith: Jesus, I put this situation into your hands right now and trust you to get us out of here.

I stay very, very still and realise with a curious detachment that these may be my last moments alive.

It will be hours before I realise just how close I am to being right.

Earlier

The confluence of tiny decisions and circumstances that lead to the resolution of an event of magnitude can seem almost fickle. So minute are the influences that you’re left with a stark choice as, in truly human fashion, you build a narrative around them: either chance is supreme, without mercy or interest, and any coincidence is at best the random interaction of a million events preceding it or some outworking of chaos principles to which people are programmed to ascribe motive; or there is indeed some being we call God, whose fingerprints we find on those spectacular moments that define our lives, and by inference, the mundane and profane happenstance of our daily existence as well.

I recall the prickling sensation I have on the back of my neck standing at the checkout counter while replenishing my first-aid kit from a local pharmacy a week before leaving Australia; an odd sense I’m aware of even then that I’ll be needing the supplies.

I remember, today taking due note of irony, the fervour with which I wrestle my visa from the hands of the hostile bureaucracy of the Sudanese Embassy in London, and the relief I feel reaching Heathrow Airport with just forty minutes to spare before my flight.

I see myself sitting on the British Airways jetliner between Amman and Khartoum, dark in the middle of the night, a flight so empty that there are more flight attendants than passengers, and I am the only person sitting between bulkheads, musing on why nobody would want to be going to Sudan right now.

The entire trip to Darfur almost unravels when, upon reaching Khartoum, I discover that the local admin staff have failed to lodge my travel papers, and I spend a frantic three days unspooling red tape just so I can escape the capital. Speeding myself towards events of which I have no awareness.

***

Then the minutae of that morning, leaving Nyala. Events that don’t seem relevant in any way in the moment, and yet ultimately give rise to the fractions of seconds and tiny angles of trajectory that mean the difference between death and survival for five of us. Forgetting my travel documents in the compound so that we waste forty minutes going back to collect them. Waiting even longer on the edge of a dusty wadi at the end of town for Abdul. He isn’t meant to be in our vehicle at all but is hitching a ride down to Rehed to see his mother on his week off.

Before leaving the team house that morning, I go back to my room to put more money in my pockets. Just in case we’re stopped and robbed, I tell myself. It’s a principle we’re taught in security training.

I never hear about the local staff member who, walking through the Nyala market that morning, overhears rumours that there’s hostile activity on the road we’re going to be travelling. He deigns to tell his superiors that little gem of a factoid, and our mission is cleared to depart.

***

We stop beyond the second police checkpoint with the other vehicle, just as we hit the bush, and the four of us with walkie-talkies do a quick radio-check. We switch from the town channel to the one we can use out in the field and make sure we can all talk to one another. After just one week out here the Motorolla VHF handset already feels natural on my hip.

Then we’re traveling across the Sahel, all brown dust and long white grass and knots of leafy thorn bushes. The road is an unsealed vehicle track, double-rutted and sloughed with sand. We’re passing goat herders who show no signs of alarm. Emptied villages. Dry river-beds which we slow down to ford. A transport, passengers waving to us as they come towards us. No signs of danger. We’re all looking.

We’re the second vehicle. In the first is Ghanaian Emmanuel, the team leader, with a driver. We keep a distance from them. Two days ago we had two vehicles involved in an ambush on a road north of here. Because they were riding too closely together, both were snatched in one go. We don’t want that happening to us.

Behind me, back to the glass on the ambulance-style bench-seats, sits Essam- tall, gentle and quiet, with large hands. Opposite him is media man Mohammed, a warm, charming Sudanese man with a voice soft like a plush carpet. Next to Mohammed is Abdul- rotund, cheerful, loudly spoken. He speaks little English and although I’ve just met him we’ve been exchanging spurts of dialogue in our shoddy representations of each others’ tongues. I’ve recently learned Mafi Mushkila. Loosely translated, it means No Worries. I say it, and everybody laughs. Then I lapse into silence and watch the bush slip by.

They’re the last words I have any recollection of before the ambush.

None of us sees the uniformed gunman hiding in the bush to the left of the track as we slow to pass through a tight copse of woody brush. We know nothing of his stance as he raises the AKM assault rifle, whether he fires from the hip or whether the butt is ensconced in his shoulder. We never see his expression, and we can only guess vaguely at his thoughts as he pulls the trigger and rakes the weapon in a single burst from tail to nose, at head-height through the windows of our passing Toyota.

I hear an ugly noise like the roar of machinery, and for a split second my reaction is one of annoyance as I’m catapulted from my private thoughts. I hear three very loud, distinct, bangs, as though a body-builder is driving a sledge-hammer against a steel box, with myself on the inside. I think, for just an instant, that Issa has struck an overhanging branch.

And then, I don’t really remember how, I’m on my side, staring at the tape deck and covered with shattered glass.

Held

Long seconds ooze by. The vehicle is stationary, idling. Issa and I don’t move. I hear nothing from behind us. I sense our attacker is still there. I’m waiting for a face to appear at the driver’s side window, for a burst of gunfire to hose us down while we lie there, but there’s nothing.

So I raise my hands.

Gradually, cautiously. I inch my fingertips up above the level of the dash, keeping my head low. If they start shooting again, and I feel they might, I want to be able to get down in a hurry. I feel spectacularly vulnerable, and almost as though I’m slowly immersing my fingers into molten steel. But there’s no more gunfire yet. So with a feeling of considerable disbelief, I raise my head, first brow, then eyes, then finally face visible.

I see a second gunman, one I didn’t know about, standing in front of the vehicle about twenty paces away beside the bush he’d been concealed behind. His rifle is pointing at me through the windshield. I keep my hands up and my movements slothful. I don’t know it yet, but the reason Issa has had to stop the vehicle is that this guy put two rounds into the front tyre, inches from my knee-cap.

Issa’s up now as well. The first gunman, the one who did all the shooting, is at his window. Words are spoken. Issa opens his door and gets out. There’s urgency in his movements. I allow a slight turn of my head to watch what’s happening without making it look like I’m staring. I catch a glimpse of the back seat. I can tell there are people lying down. Nobody’s moving and nobody’s making any sound. There’s blood everywhere, but I can’t tell what’s going on, and now isn’t the time. I keep my hands raised. In a distant place I’m aware of a slight burning sensation along the skin of my left elbow but it’s not a concern right now.

Now Issa’s around to my side of the car. There are words spoken. The gunmen are angsty.

My radio chatters to life. It’s the first car. Emmanuel. They’ve heard the shots and have stopped a couple of hundred yards ahead in the bush, out of sight. They want to know if we’re okay.

One of the gunmen says something.

“Turn it off,” Issa orders. The driver is a former policeman, I later learn. His cool responsiveness and obedient attitude, as well as his ability to translate for me, doubtless save our lives.

I do as I’m told.

“Should I get out?” I ask. Issa nods.

“Get out,” he tells me.

I move slowly, keeping one hand up, using fingers to unlatch the door. I step out onto the tuft of thick grass beside the four-by-four, and there I anchor myself. In the ambush two days ago, the attackers were interrupted by another vehicle on the road and fled. At the time they were in the process of leading our team at gunpoint into the bush, purpose unknown. The memory sticks. I have no intention of discovering for myself.

I’m focused now. There’s no sensation that you could describe as ‘fear’, only a very intense concentration on staying alive. I know that I can’t actually stop these guys killing me if they want to. I already have a pretty good idea that they’re capable of it. I don’t know what’s happened behind me, only that our clearly-marked vehicle has been fired on, and that now there are bodies lying in the back, bloodied and not moving. But if I can avoid doing anything to actually encourage them to shoot me, then I’m going to make it my mission over the next few minutes to make damn sure I do just that. I concentrate on my security training.

I’m wearing sunglasses. I’m conscious that in a situation like this you shouldn’t wear sunnies. It can appear arrogant, and angry men with guns can get the impression you’re staring them down- something you don’t want. The rule of thumb in surviving a hostage situation is to be invisible. Be polite and obedient without being subservient. You want to maintain your personal dignity and present yourself like a human being, because if you start to weep or beg or make yourself ‘less’ you make it easier for a gunman to see you as detached from humanity and easier to put down. Likewise you don’t want to challenge your assailant.

As I stand there, I seek that middle ground like my life depends on it- because it may well. I tilt my head slightly downwards so that they won’t think I’m eyeballing. And I stand straight, shoulders back, maintaining my personal space and making it clear I’m still in control of my posture. My lips are closed and straight. I breathe slowly and deeply through my nostrils.

Behind me, I don’t know this, but the first gunman is going systematically around each of the shot-out windows, reaching in, and robbing the three warm bodies lying back there.

I’m still looking down, taking in the black boots of the second gunman, ten paces from me not moving and his weapon still locked on me. When the first approaches me, I don’t look up. I see his woodland-camouflage uniform, and the muzzle of his AKM assault rifle as it presses into the folds of my utility vest where my solar-plexus is.

Hands go through my pockets. They find a Swiss Army knife. It’s tossed into the long grass and I don’t see it again. Then I’m left alone.

There’s quiet. Things are very tense. There’s a tangible malice in the air. I’ve only felt it a couple of times in my life and it’s a very unpleasant feeling. Being watched, by something that wants to do you harm. In my minds eye I have detached from myself, and I’m looking down as if from above. I see myself, standing by the open door of the Land Cruiser. I see the two gunmen, one at my twelve o’clock, ten paces out, and the other at my ten o’clock, five paces out. Issa is standing close by as well. I can feel the guns on me, both of them, as though little dotted lines are running from their muzzles straight to my torso; it makes my skin tingle. I’m experiencing very little emotion, but considerable discomfort, like something is terribly, terribly wrong.

I have the distinct thought, if they’re going to shoot me I hope they don’t do it in the gut. The same mind’s eye is projecting an image of me, lying curled in a ball beside the wheel of the Land Cruiser, dying slowly and alone. I still have no fear, but the thought is an unpleasant one regardless.

The sense of malice lingers. I’m worried now. They’ve shot us up, and now they’ve robbed us. Why aren’t they leaving? Why are they still here?

I make a decision to do something. If I keep standing here in the open I’m worried they might decide to take me with them, just by default.  I look at Issa.

“Can I get back in the car?”

“Yes, get back in.”

I ease my way back into the front seat under watching eyes. I keep my hands visible, always slow.

Then I hear conversation. It is slightly agitated. I hear the English word ‘Money‘.

“Do you want money?” I ask. “I have money.”

Issa confirms this is what they’re asking for. I reach into my top pocket and find the stuffed banknotes. There’s about one-fifty in USD, another fifty in local currency. I hold these out, and they’re taken from my hand.

Still they linger.

I’m really uncomfortable now. I don’t know what’s going on, but they’re talking among themselves. This is taking a long time. Issa is listening. I keep my hands up and try not to make it seem like I’m staring. I want this to be done now. It’s probably only a few minutes- two or three at the most- since the first shots were fired, but it feels like hours. It doesn’t make sense that they’re still here.

Behind me, a walkie-talkie squawks. It’s the first vehicle again. I find out later it’s Essam’s radio.

Then, with no further word or warning, the two gunmen turn and head into the bush. Issa darts for the driver’s door.

I turn in my seat and see that Essam is sitting upright behind me. He’s been shot in the arm. Kneeling in the well, Mohammed is upright too, but he looks horrible. His shirt is shiny, his entire torso saturated with wet crimson. There’s blood running in star-like limbs from the crown of his head where a bullet has cut his scalp. In his arms, he’s holding Abdul. The big man is hanging limp, facing downwards. I can see the top of his head is open, and there’s blood dribbling from the wound in a steady thread of bright red, like a tap that hasn’t been turned off.

“Is he alive?” I ask. Mohammed nods. His face is grim. Then Issa is gunning the engine, and the car is sliding in the soft sand, and we lurch away from the ambush-site and onward into the bush.

Part II: Flight, tomorrow

Images:

1. Unsourced, taken from World Prout Assembly: ‘In Darfur, Terror from the Air’ (link embedded in photo)

2. Lynsey Addario for the New York Times, from blog jdasovic.com: ‘Janjawid Militia Renews Scorched-Earth Policy in Darfur’ (link embedded in photo)

How to Slaughter Your Own People (Without the International Community Stopping you)

A Guide by Omar al-Bashir and Mahinda Rajapakse

Given the respective experience of our two countries working around the International Community, we thought we’d share some hot tips for any other consolidating dictators interested in suppressing unwanted ethnic groups without having to deal with all those annoying international human rights types who keep harping on about abuses and tribunals.  We hope those is useful for you.

A. The Big Picture

1. Make sure your country isn’t in the Western spotlight. Having a bubbling civil war means you’re less likely to attract lots of tourists who develop emotional attachments to a place, and so long as you don’t have too many valuable trade opportunities or natural resources, the west won’t be as interested.

Omar says: If you DO have resources, expect the west to get involved, but try and keep the slaughter away from the biggest resource fields- that way they’re much less likely to try and invade. Saddam was good enough to share this lesson with us.

2. Wait for a time when the West has its attention and military resources tied up elsewhere. A good war in the middle east or central asia is sure to make sure that western troops and political will are being expended somewhere else. The voting public won’t want to see more troops embroiled in some other little war-zone, and the supporting resources- helicopters, communications equipment and battle-trained coordinating officers- simply won’t be available. They still haven’t forgotten Mogadishu.

3. It helps if you can paint the ethnicity you’re wanting to get rid of in as confusing a light as possible. Call them ‘terrorists’ if you can. If not, then ‘rebels’. Whatever happens, they are not an ethnic minority. They are an uprising. Call it a civil war. Western donors hate getting involved with civil wars.

B. Access- Administration

1. Make sure journalists don’t get in. Western sympathies are fueled by news feed. Keep them in the capital for as long as you can. If you’re planning an offensive, tighten travel restrictions. The longer you can hold them back from the front lines, the more the story will dry up. Westerners have a very short attention-span- too much MTV and Twitter. Three or four days after an event and they’re already bored and moving on to something else. If the story hasn’t materialised, if journalists don’t have pictures, their editors will redeploy them somewhere else.

Mahinda says: Stories will always get out. Even annoying rebel groups have access to the internet. If you can vilify and demonize them enough, however, the west won’t know who to believe. Muddying the waters is a great tactic here.

2. Block expatriates. Make it hard for them to get into your country. This is your legal right under international law! Make them fill out eight different forms in triplicate, sent to four different consulates before being returned with a comment that the background to their visa photo is the wrong shade of grey. This will frustrate them. They may lose interest. Or so much time may pass that without staff on the ground they won’t be able to raise any funds and won’t be able to come in the first place. If you’re really lucky, they’ll mouth off and criticize you, at which point you have every right to ban them from your country altogether- and maybe even kick their organization out.

3. Block expatriates (part B). (Because we think this is an important one: expatriates always cause trouble.) Once they’re in the country, stop them getting to the conflict area. Domestic red tape is a beautiful thing. Ensure they have to get special passes to access the affected areas, and let your administrators know to take their time granting them. Make sure that all your police and soldiers stop westerners and check their paperwork at any given opportunity. If they get caught without their paperwork, get them into trouble. This tactic works great if you’ve got a lot of checkpoints already set up- it can take them HOURS to get anywhere. After a while, they’ll stop trying. And it’ll take so long to get anything done, and be so expensive, that their donors will get tired of giving them money, and they’ll just go home again.

Omar says: When I established the HAC, this battle was pretty much won. We just made sure there were so many hoops to jump through that we exhausted half the agencies’ capacity just getting the right filing done. Then, once they began to understand the system, we went and changed it on them again! I suggest changing your administrative requirements at least once every three to six months, just to keep them on their toes. Nothing annoys an aid worker more than to get all their papers in order, get on a plane, then get sent back to the capital because they missed form 417C.

4. Balance! Don’t overdo this one. You need to make sure that getting administrative permissions takes enough time to frustrate and cost, but is just doable enough to keep them dangling on. If you don’t have the UN and NGOs in your country, you can’t monitor their activities, you can’t infiltrate them with spies, and they just sit outside your borders, barking about how terrible you are and all the horrible things that are happening. This is where you end up with things like sanctions, ICC warrants, and the like. And this is what you don’t want. No, what you want is lots of toothless NGOs in your country, ideally frustrated, ideally wasting donor funding, ideally scared and ideally believing that they are perennially on the cusp of being turfed out of your country. No matter what happens, this is what they really don’t want- it looks bad in the press, it wastes donor money and it really pisses off their constituents. They have this thing called the Humanitarian Imperative and so long as you keep dangling it in front of them, they’ll stick at it.

Omar says: It’s a good idea to pick a couple of particularly troublesome NGOs and kick them out of your country. The others will get the message and fall into line. If you’re lucky they’ll be so excited to get the extra caseload left behind by the departing agency that they won’t want to complain.

Mahinda says: I’ve always found that kicking out the odd UN official reminds everybody who’s in charge.

C. Access- Security

1. This one often takes care of itself, but the good news is, aid workers don’t like to be shot at. They’re pretty soft targets, so if you can get a really nasty little war happening, it’ll automatically keep them at bay. This is tricky, because if you start the war, then you get blamed for it and this makes you look bad. It’s always good if you can make it clear that the rebels started shooting first. After all, you are the government, and you are the ones trying to keep control. The good news is, usually the proximate factors contributing to these sorts of conflicts are so convoluted and confusing that it takes NGOs months and months to figure out who’s who and what’s going on. They don’t have time to communicate all this to their donors, so they sell it as a black-and-white issue. Of course, pretty soon facts start contradicting each other and people realise it’s all kinds of muddy, and then donors start losing interest. Don’t worry too much about the media- they only ever work with 30-second sound-bites and can never explain what’s really happening, so people just get confused. Forget about shows like Horizon, Panorama and 60 Minutes which try and take the time to explain what’s happening- nobody of any consequence watches them anyway.

Omar says: If you really don’t want to cop the blame for starting a war, try and get some proxy force to do it. I found that using the Janjawid was a great tactic. Firstly, it confused everybody. Secondly, there was no way to show I was in any way responsible for what they were doing. Thirdly, because they were all released from prison, they were perfectly happy to be violent, which worked great from the perspective of restricting access!

2. Try killing the odd aid-worker. Nothing forces an NGO pull-out like a dead staff member- and they can’t blame it on you, because it’s the conflict’s fault. This obviously works best when they’re killed by the rebels, but you can’t always make that happen. Where it’s your side that does the killing, it’s important to point out it was their fault for being in a dangerous place. If you can claim that they were working with the rebels when they were killed, that probably works best.

Omar says: You don’t want to kill too many, or all the NGOs pull out and they send in the peacekeepers. A few a year will keep people on their toes. Kidnappings work almost as well.

Mahinda says: If you’re frightened that killing expatriates might attract too much media attention, kill some national staff. Nobody pays much attention to them.

3. Maintain insecurity over time. The more time and money NGOs have to spend investing in security staff, ballistics vests, convoys and protocols, the more money they waste and the less time they can spend seeing what’s going on in the field, leaving you free rein. Remember this little tip: NGOs hate working with the military- even peacekeepers. This is in your favour. If you can keep the conflict simmering just low enough that NGOs feel they can manage the situation themselves without military support, they’ll be wanting to keep the idea of UN peacekeepers as far from themselves as possible.

Mahinda says: Landmines are a fantastic excuse to keep NGO workers away from an area. I suggest leaving them in place for as long as possible. If you can slow demining efforts down, do it!

D. Consolidate Power

1. Control the media. International media will always tear you apart because that’s how they sell papers- but just wait them out. After a few days they’ll lose interest and start bitching about Hugo or Robert again. Those guys are great for diffusing the heat. Where you really want to focus is on your domestic media. If you can keep them onside, you’ll consolidate your power-base. If they get out of line, shoot the odd editor or bomb a printing press. They’ll fall in.

Mahinda says: Be careful of some of these media types though. They’re tricky buggers. Some of them will even have a go at you from beyond the grave!

2. Develop a national rhetoric. You’re not in a civil war, you’re in a war on terror. The West use this language all the time so they can’t condemn you for it. Remember, you’re liberating your people from the clutches of evil.

3. Condemn NGOs. Let’s face it, they’re always making mistakes, so it should be easy to dig up some dirt on them, show everyone where they did a bad job in the past, and generally undermine their credibility. Nothing makes an aid worker want to go home more than the country they’re risking their lives in telling them they’re not welcome. If you can break their corporate spirit, they’ll get very submissive.

Omar says: I love those Christian NGOs. They’re always distributing Bibles. Don’t these guys ever learn?

Mahinda says: Try setting up a national hotline. Concerned citizens can call in if they hear an expatriate badmouthing the government, and you can then kick them out of the country. It’s a great way to get people to toe the line.

4. Don’t put up with dissention. Remember this is all about holding on to power. You want to crush your military opposition, and any domestic political opposition at the same time. Military victory is obviously going to make you look good, but it can take a while. In the meantime, you need to hold on to power. Providing a little targeted persecution of political rivals will polarize them and make them much easier targets in the eyes of your domestic media. If you’re stuck in a ‘democratic’ country, make sure you ‘invest’ appropriately in the election process.

Omar says: I always find giving my political rivals some high-sounding political post with no real authority is the best way to bring them onside without actually conceding any power.

Mahinda says: If you like, you can always invent some trumped-up charges and throw them in prison. I know it’s been done before, but it works great- especially if they’re about to show up before a war-crimes tribunal. And it’s SO MUCH FUN!

E. Final Tips

1. Divide and Conquer. The UN and NGOs are useless at coordination. They all have their own agendas. They’ll want to work through your ministries because that’s what they’re supposed to do. Make sure you give different information to difference organizations so they can’t coordinate. Ensure that processes to get government staff into their projects are onerous and expensive. Ensure there are hefty reporting requirements to hold them to account.

Mahinda says: If in doubt, just disband the UN Cluster system and set your own up in its place. It throws them into disarray and gives you full control.

2. Handling Peacekeepers. If all else fails and the UN do arrive, it’s a tricky situation but all is not lost. Be very clear that any troops who arrive without your permission will be considered an act of war. Dictate very clearly which countries can send troops and which countries are allowed to support the mission. Negotiate. Break them down and wait them out. Rather than saying ‘no’, say ‘maybe’. Give them a little bit, then wait a while. If they want 20,000 peacekeepers, say yes, but then only let them push through a few thousand at a time. They’ll get bored, and distracted, and soon enough somebody else will do something to get their attention. Keep the red-tape pressure up. Make them get permission from your military for every helicopter-flight they want to launch, and make it a slow process. It comes back to that balancing game- give them just enough to keep them interested, so they don’t push too hard. The last thing you want is for them to come in with a Chapter VII mandate, so don’t give them the excuse!

Omar says: Peacekeepers aren’t really in it for the fighting. In fact, the death rate for peacekeepers is lower than that for NGO workers. That should tell you how much they don’t want to get shot at. If you can arrange to get a few missions shot at, this will help keep them all in their bases and behind barricades, where you want them. Remember, peacekeeping missions are inevitably toothless and underfunded, so play to their weaknesses.

At the end of the day, if there’s a take-away lesson for you from all this, it’s that the International Community is mired in its own systems and is therefore both predictable and exploitable.  A world organization isn’t a stand-alone force to be reckoned with, but is made up by its constituent states with all their divided opinions and internal politics and systems.  If you can get a handle on this, it’s easy to get them to fall into line.  Our piece of advice: Tease them.  Give them just enough to think they’re going to get their way, then mire them down in paperwork without actually making any real concessions.  They’ll stall, and you’ll get to play the game however you want to, sans consequence.  Look at us- we’re doing just fine thanks very much.  Take our advice, and ethnic slaughter with impunity is yours for the taking.

Writing Repost: Legacy of an Ambush

Reposting some of my earlier posts which I have now added to the “Articles and Travel Writing” section of the website. This one involves some musings on exposure to violence in humanitarian work.

It’s been interesting returning to what can loosely be described as a war-zone. I should point out that I’m not actually hanging out on the front-lines (for those who read this who might have some concern for my safety), but the places I’ve been spending my time are what you’d call highly militarized. In several parts of the country there are concerns of terrorist attacks, and this is as evident in the capital as elsewhere, where roadblocks are part of the daily commute, and you carry your papers with you 24/7 to show to any friendly uniformed and kalashnikov’d commandos.

I’ve always been a little sensitive to unexpected loud noises. It’s just the way I’m wired. I have a fairly well developed sense of personal security, and have done since I was quite small. This line of work hasn’t really helped me any. In addition to travelling to a number of distinctly dodgy environments and security trainings which involve things that go bang [bang bang], eighteen months ago I was caught up in an ambush in Darfur in which three colleagues were shot and seriously injured, and a neat row of bullet-holes were drilled into a metal vehicle strut inches behind my skull. This was all fairly noisy. It was also relatively unexpected, oddly enough…

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A Reefside Requiem

I wrote the following post while living in Melanesia last year, after hearing of the death of a friend and colleague overseas.

A Reefside Requiem

A friend died the other week. Like most of my friends these days she lived on the other side of the world, so I would be hard-placed to call her a close friend. She was the sort of friend that another friend might say, “I was just in Dubai last week and I ran into so-and-so, and they said to say hi.” My default response to this is usually to think, “Bugger, I really need to send them an email.” She was the sort of friend who used to receive essays like this when I sent them out on my mailing list for people interested in my travels to read. I probably have a hundred or so friends like that. I imagine she did too.

Carol passed away in the back of an ambulance on the way to hospital. She had recently returned from a long flight, and it’s thought she had a blood-clot that worked its way loose. As with the death of any young person, it was a little shocking, and very sad. Carol was on the sunny side of thirty-five. It was frustrating to think that as an aid worker, she had toiled in refugee camps in the war-torn Balkans and eastern Chad, with displaced people following the Bam earthquake in Iran, in relief camps in Asia after the Boxing Day Tsunami, and countless other places I couldn’t begin to list off, yet it was a blood clot a few millimetres thick in southern England, just minutes from high-quality surgical support, that finally took her life.

When Mike and I got the news, we took ourselves away from the office for an hour or so and found a quiet bench above the reef at the top end of town beneath the palm-trees, overlooking the Coral Sea. It was sunny and bright. The sky was blue with wispy white clouds. We could see across the bay to the jagged outline of the Finisterre Ranges plunging into the sea opposite. The water sparkled as it drifted with the currents. The palm fronds cast dark shadows that moved backwards and forwards with the breeze. I sat with my legs dangling and swung them slowly back and forth. Mike sat with his soles flat against the dusty ground. Mike has longer legs than I do.

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Arbre de Guerre

“Regards”, Martin said, pointing through the window of the Land Cruiser at the desolate scrubland passing us by. “Une arbre de guerre.”

“Tree of War?” I thought to myself silently. “That’s an odd name for a plant.” I stared out of the bucking vehicle as it rocked in the potholes of the dirt track winding its way across the Sahel, trying to identify among the scraggy leafless thorn bushes a plant that would earn such a title. I was expecting something twisted, full of spikes and in some way menacing. And then I saw what Martin was referring to. The devastated, rusting remains of an armoured car, blown apart and lying in pieces in the dry dirt.

We were close to the Sudanese border in eastern Chad, in the middle of 2004, when hundreds of thousands of refugees had fled the boiling conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region and settled in the desert wastelands north of Abeche. It was my first field assignment with the aid agency I work for, and I was out in Chad for several weeks, helping put together a response for one of our donors to help the refugees in a remote location in the Sahara. We spent eight hours crossing barren drylands, passing sprawling refugee camps and, between them, hopeless little villages of local herders trying desperately to cling to survival in a hostile landscape. North of Tine the dirt track we had been following all day long evaporated, and we struck out across the sand-dunes with nothing but a set of tyre-tracks from the vehicles that had gone before us to navigate from.

After spending the night in the village of Bahai, where 20,000 refugees were camped exposed in the Wadi, we returned through the dunes. The Trees of War had followed us across the landscape- military trucks, technicals (pickups converted with tube rocket-launchers or mounted machine-guns to be vehicles of warfare) and tanks were littered over hundreds of square kilometres, testament to the battles that had taken place here a decade ago. Now-President Idriss Deby and his militia army had swept from Bahai and their bases inside Sudan and annihilated the government’s army in fierce fighting all the way to the capital N’Djamena on the far side of the country. It was a bloody coup with bloody consequences for the people of Chad, who have known little safety or stability since.

I spotted this tank as we returned to Abeche, when we were just an hour south of Bahai. Alongside the desert track were regular reminders of the battles. Turrets blown clear of their carriages, the crushed remains of a pickup’s chassis- even ammunition. On one occasion an artillery-shell lay motionless beside the track, and we watched with nervous expressions as the wheels of the Land Cruiser slipped past it with no more than six inches to spare.

The entire area used to be dotted with landmines. International agencies have cleared this segment of the desert, however the challenge with dunes is that mines get swallowed and move beneath the sand, so you can never get them all. So long as you follow the tracks of vehicles that have gone before, you should be safe.

“Slow here,” I asked Blandin, our driver, as we came upon this particular hulking wreck, framing it up with my old Canon T-70 and 300mm Miranda zoom lens. Blandin looked at me.

“Would you like a closer look?” he asked, then without waiting for a response immediately veered off the tracks and bounced straight across the dunes towards the destroyed tank. I exchanged a wide-eyed look with my boss Geoff, sitting beside Blandin in the front seat. As he brought the vehicle to a stop I did not get out, but leaned from the window and fired off a quick snap. Blandin looped the hard-top around and we rejoined the vehicle tracks a minute later, and the three passengers breathed a unified sigh of relief.

The image at the head of this post is that photograph.

World Humanitarian Day 2009

It’s World Humanitarian Day today. You may not have realised this. That’s probably for two reasons.

1) You don’t work for the UN

2) It’s never been held before

Without mincing words, World Humanitarian Day is designed to highlight the work of humanitarian workers and operations around the world, joining a long and prestigious list of other international awareness events in the calendar for the globally-minded which raise awareness around issues of international concern such as HIV/AIDS (World Aids Day- December 1), the environment (Earth Day- April 22 (US) or March 20 (UN)), breast cancer (which gets the entire month of October for National Breast Cancer Awarenss Month) , and pirates (International Talk Like a Pirate Day- Arrrr, September 19, me hearties).

Wait.  That was a real word-mince.

The day aims to remember and honour humanitarian workers who have been killed or seriously injured in the name of bringing assistance to people in need around the world, and to highlight the ongoing humanitarian plights globally that continue, most of them largely out of sight of public awareness. According to a Humanitarian Policy Group report published by the Overseas Development Institute, 2008 saw the most attacks against aid workers since the industry began, with increasing trends towards the politicisation of attacks, and the kidnapping of expatriates for ransom in many parts of the world. It is now statistically more dangerous to work as a humanitarian worker than it is to be a UN Peacekeeping soldier.

I should have joined the army.

On August 19 2003, the humanitarian world was changed forever. An Iraqi truck bomber drove into the UN headquarters in Baghdad and blew himself up, together with 22 humanitarian workers, including the UN’s representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. While not the first time aid workers had been targeted, this was the first time the UN had been directly attacked, and marked a shift in perception that aid workers were no longer neutral contributors to the innocent needy, but had become a part of the political landscape and, by inference, a legitimate target in conflict. A few weeks later, the sentiment was reinforced when the Red Cross headquarters was similarly bombed. Within twelve months, nearly all humanitarian operations inside Iraq, helping millions of displaced people, had been suspended for security reasons.

I remember the morning of the 19th quite well. I had only been working in the industry for a few months at that time, but I remember coming in to a very quiet office here in Melbourne. A friend and team-mate was based in Baghdad at the time, and people hearing the news had been instantly concerned for him. In the event, he was fine. He had left the UN building just an hour prior to the bombing, however, and I’m sure he remembers the day far more vividly than I do.

As an aid worker I’ve been very lucky, in that I haven’t lost any personal friends to violence in the field. Many of my own friends and colleagues have not been so lucky. Although the numbers of aid workers killed in the line of duty is relatively small (in 2008, 122 aid workers were killed, 76 injured and 62 kidnapped), we’re a small community.

The saddest issue perhaps centres on the fact that aid workers are now being increasingly deliberately targeted. Issues of impartiality and humanitarian space (both of which I have, or will, discuss elsewhere) have clouded our landscape. Factions with grievances and guns see us as part of the problem, not necessarily as a solution. Countries wreacked by chronic insecurity (what we once called civil war) such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan, are particularly difficult places to work. Last week a team of ours flew back into central Somalia after being evacuated for security reasons. Within four days of their return, a neighbouring humanitarian compound had been attacked and three people killed (for once, the attackers). Kidnapping international aid workers in these places is now a fantastic revenue stream for armed groups struggling to raise money to buy weapons and explosives. It’s often hard to see where political insurgence ends and profiteering begins.

I’ve also been lucky in that I have survived my own run-in with targeted violence in the field, and in a situation where, looking at the circumstances, I probably shouldn’t have come away unscathed. That, too, is subject of another post. But on this World Humanitarian Day, when we think of aid workers who have been injured or killed in the line of duty, I think of my three colleagues with me in the car that day nearly two years ago, Mohammed, Essam and Abdul-Rahman, all of whom were shot and wounded. While two have made full recoveries, the third continues to struggle with a lasting physical disability as a result of the incident. While we are all grateful to be alive, he in particular will continue to carry the scars of his decision to work to help people in need.

One of the biggest challenges we face in the humantarian world is the sheer lack of awareness of what is happening in the wider world. Unless (like me) you’re a relief junkie, most people tend to switch off their minds and their tv sets once news of wars and catastrophes comes on. Not natural disasters, mind. Big earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis get people excited. They watch, they’re interested, they’re sympathetic. But start talking about fighting in northern Uganda or unrest in Guinea, and they’ll quickly glaze over. This isn’t a criticism per se. People can only take so much of this sort of thing. But it makes our job- finding the resources to help an already desperate situation- so much harder. These situations of ongoing violence we refer to as “Chronic Humanitarian Emergencies” or, in our hip three-letter-acronym parlance for which the industry is so renowned, CHEs. And it doesn’t take too long for these CHEs to transition into the pool of what we refer to as the ‘forgotten’ emergencies.

These include places such as:

Democratic Republic of Congo- Fighting in the east of the country since 1997- an ethnic conflict spilled over from the 1994 Rwanda Genocide- has claimed more lives than any conflict since the Second World War, and hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in camps for displaced people, or fear for their lives in remote forest villages.

Chad- Hundreds of thousands of people displaced from fighting across the border in Sudan’s Darfur region continue to live in the camps they have been stuck in since 2002 and 2003, in desperately harsh conditions in the desert and facing the threat of violence from local militia groups- one of the world’s most desperate situations.

Northern Uganda- A combination of ethnic rivalries fighting over cattle and a brutal insurgency lead by the bloody Lord’s Resistance Army has left thousands dead, mostly the innocent. While the LRA has moved northwards into southern Sudan, insecurity between ethnic groups remains in the eastern Karamoja district, and the region remains critically poor and isolated.

Sri Lanka- A little under three hundred thousand ethnic Tamils have been displaced by fighting earlier this year into government-run displaced people camps which are more like detention centres- including the infamous Menik Farm camp, the largest such camp in the world today. Largely lacking in personal freedoms or any quality of life, the displaced people have been exposed to horrendous violence and repeated population movements over the last couple of years, but are still being treated with suspicion and like second-class citizens by their own government, and aid workers still have only limited access to them to meet their needs- in contravention of a ream of international standards.

Afghanistan- Nearly eight years on from the US-led invasion following the September 11 bombings, Afghanistan is a country that continues to be wreacked by ethnic unrest and political rivalries. A country that has effectively been in a state of chronic warfare since a Soviet-backed coup in 1978, rebuilding efforts have been tragically slow, and insecurity (including repeated attacks on aid workers) is currently on the rise again. The country is currently undergoing its first stab at democratic elections- a pivotal time in its history- but with the ongoing violence and staggering levels of political corruption, it’s unlikely very much satisfaction will be drawn from the endeavour.

Pakistan- One of the largest and most rapid people displacements in recent history went largely under-reported in international press earlier this year when, with tacit approval from western powers, the Pakistani government launched a military campaign to shore up the tribal regions near the Afghan border, ostensibly to root out Islamic extremism. Millions of people were displaced in a matter of weeks by violence which included shelling and aerial bombardment, and several months on, only a portion have been able to return home, while fresh displacements continue to occur on a monthly basis. Saddest of all, any gains the military might have taken by force will be more than offset by the alienation of the citizens impacted by the fighting.

Iraq- This one needs no real introduction, suffice to say that six years since the end of the campaign to overthrow President Hussein, Iraq is a country struggling to hold itself together, and while some security gains have been made, millions of people remain in need of basic services, including hundreds of thousands of ‘forgotten’ Iraqis displaced into other middle eastern countries, where they lack basic rights and access to services.

Darfur- One of the most complex and violent corners of the world, since a 2003 insurgency against the government took hold, releasing a counter-insurgency of ethnic cleansing and burning villages, hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have died and millions displaced. Up to two thirds of the 6 million strong population require outside assistance to live, while at last count nearly thirty different armed factions were battling for control of the region.

Southern Sudan- Emerging from the better part of forty years of internal conflict with northern Sudan in 2005 which claimed two million lives and saw millions more flee its borders, Southern Sudan remains one of the poorest and most underdeveloped regions on the face of the planet. Gripped by long-standing ethnic rivalries, violence continues to disrupt development efforts and the political process, which is due to come to a head in 2011 with a referendum on whether or not to join with northern Sudan or seek independence- a move which in and of itself could trigger a new civil war.

Central African Republic- Bordering southern Sudan, Chad and DRC, the CAR never really had a chance. Hosting displaced people from other nations, as well as ethnic unrest of its own, CAR is the archetypal ‘forgotten emergency’- few people even know the country exists, far less anything about it, and there is little humanitarian support to help tens of thousands of displaced people living in harsh conditions.

Somalia- Since the ousting of its President in 1991, Somalia has seen little but violent militia-led warfare since. An abortive US military incursion on the back of a flailing UN assistance operation did nothing to endear the western world to the Somali community, and Somalia has since become one of the most dangerous and difficult locations in the world for aid delivery. The latest iteration of the violence comes on the back of an ill-thought-through Ethiopian operation to quell the rise of Islamic extremism, with the result that Al Shabbab, a conservative and violent group, now controls large swathes of the southern part of the country. Fighting continues to claim lives on a weekly basis, while millions of people remain in acute need of external support which can only periodically reach them.

On the right-hand side of this post, among the clutter, is a list of websites of humanitarian agencies, most of whom have operations in most of these crises. For those that feel motivated to respond in some financial way, I’d never presume to suggest what you should do with your money, but please consider these organizations as a starting point for your thinking. For those that pray, please pray for the people who are affected by these crises around the world, that their lives and wellbeing would be preserved, and for the humanitarian workers who help them, that they might have the wisdom and the integrity to use the resources they have as effectively as possible. Finally, I know that many people, when reading this sort of information, feel a desire to help more practically, for example through volunteering. For those that are genuinely interested in bringing their personal and professional skills to a career in humanitarian work, fantastic. For those curious about more short-term voluntary work, I’d like to recommend to you a rather interesting series of posts on the subject by my friend and fellow blogger J., who raises a lot of the complexities and controversies around this. Not to discourage, only to inform.

You can also count on J. for all sorts of other articulate and thought-provoking insights into the world of humanitarian work. And some highly amusing and frivolous ones as well. I highly recommend his pages to you if this is you area of interest. 

He’s also a lot more concise than I am.

Thanks for your time today.

Today

Today a man died and the world watched. He captivated the world’s imagination first through his talent, and later through his increasingly bizarre persona, and the chronic secrecy with which he veiled himself. By the end of the day there will barely be anybody in the Western world who won’t have heard this news, and probably not a great number of people in other parts of the world either. People will say many things about him in public. Most will be nice, and will overlook the sordid. Some will be sarcastic and unkind. I may even sitfle a snicker at some of these. There will be mountains of flowers, cards and weeping fans. There will be memorial services, and his music will be played ad nauseum for the next couple of weeks. People may remember but will not talk much about the fact that he was accused of inappropriate relationships with children, that he was an emotionally and socially damaged individual, and that he has forced his own three children to live largely as reclusive prisoners throughout their childhood. People may reflect on the fact that he too had his childhood taken from him at an early age, in an industry where a talented and precocious child will be swallowed whole and destroyed without the slightest twinge of concience.

Today, about thirty thousand men, women and children will succomb to complications of the AIDS virus, a disease which effectively disables a person’s immune system, leaving them vulnerable to any disease, however mundane, to invade their bodies and slowly break them down until their shell can no longer support life. Most of these people will die in underdeveloped portions of underdeveloped countries. Some of these people will die alone, in anonymity, or under a blanket of stigma associated with the disease. Some will receive a small memorial service and some flowers. The families of many will not be able to afford such things. Nobody beyond their immediate families and friends will know of their names, know where they are buried, or remember them. Their stories will never be told. The mark they left during their passage on earth will not be known.

Today, hundreds of people will be violently killed in tribal violence in Darfur, Southern Sudan, northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They will die alone with the malice directed at them and their names and fates may never be discovered. Today dozens of people will die in shootings, bombings and air-raids in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We may hear of their fate as a footnote on our evening news report. Today, thousands of children under the age of five will die in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and a dozen other sub-Saharan African nations because they don’t have access to a sufficiently nutritious diet, clean water, and public health care. The youngest may not even have names, and they may be remembered even by their parents as nothing more than a number. “I have six children, and three who died”.

Death is an inescapable part of the world we live in. It is a passage to something new. Some believe it marks the start of a journey to a second life, or to a rebirth here on this earth, and may find cause for hope. Others believe it is the end of the seething brew of cerebral chemical reactions that define who we are as people, and that our molecules simply return to the physical universe from which they were once bonded. The process of death itself may be painful, it may be frightening, sometimes it can even be beautiful. Mostly, when we mourn it, we mourn for ourselves who are left behind by it, and the loss we must move on with in our own lives.

Death brings cause for reflection. It is why we celebrate it with services and wakes, why people in offices across Australia and the rest of the world will make small-talk over coffee-machines and water-coolers about the passing of Mr. Jackson for the rest of Friday, and why, two weeks from now, we will be begging our news providers to please, for the love of all that is precious, stop talking about Michael Jackson.

And so my question for you today is this. What is it that makes the death of a single musician cause for global reflection? Why will one man be the subject of thousands of hours worth of broadcasting time, while the deaths of today’s 30,000 AIDS victims, or the hundreds of people who will die in violent warfare, or the thousands of children who will slowly succomb to disease, will probably not be mentioned? What does it say about our society, about our media, about the authority in our lives, and about our priorities, when we will remain comfortably oblivious to the death of innocents, but publically mourn the loss of a single man as though he represents something about us. A man who suffered terrible social and emotional problems. A man whose last two decades of life appeared, from the outside at least, to merit great sadness and pity in as much as they clearly drew scorn and harsh mockery. A man who probably placed the wellbeing of several children, including his own, in jeopardy. A man who, materially-speaking, had everything a human being could possibly have imagined or aspired to in wealth and fame, and yet lived in tragic isolation and died young. Is this man our spokesperson? Our role-model? Does he represent what is important in our culture? And is our inability to reflect on the suffering of thousands a symptom of ignorance? Of callousness? An unwillingness to be challenged to change? Or will we simply, as we do so often, shrug off the question and say, “yes, well, that’s just how big media is and we can’t expect them to change”?

I don’t write to criticise. I don’t mourn the death of Michael Jackson personally as, to me, he meant nothing. I felt sympathy for him while he lived, and I feel sympathy that by the time his life ended prematurely, there is little about him to suggest he had found peace. There is nothing here to gloat over or to celebrate. But I take it as an opportunity to reflect, as death has wont. Likewise, I don’t criticize people unaware of or unable to grapple with issues of international poverty and humanitarianism. This is my paradigm and I don’t inflict it on others. But I do encourage people to think, to challenge themselves, and to risk asking big questions and so expand their own horizons and ways of thinking.

Thank you.

Note: Many people who read this blog left comments on my Facebook profile a few weeks ago when I raised a similar, less wordy question about the crash of AF447. They were thoughtful, intelligent and measured, and for those responses I thank you.