Kiwis help build a country

ELEANOR AINGE ROY Kiwis help build a country Image Reuters

YOUNG AT HEART: Sudan is only six months old and trying to create an identity.

Just over a year ago nearly 99% of the people in South Sudan voted for independence from the North. After decades of civil war dating back to the 1950s, the world's newest country was born.

But the road ahead for South Sudan is fraught with trials. Two million people died in the conflict and up to four million were displaced. Although the country is rich in oil it is chronically under-developed, and has the highest infant mortality rate in the world.

Adding to the challenges are tribal conflicts that have flared up in Jongeli state, and ongoing tensions with Sudan over border demarcation and oil reserves. Around 5500 UN peacekeepers are currently stationed in South Sudan, and its future is in no way certain.

Since independence, entrepreneurs, aid workers, businessmen, diplomats, missionaries and voyeurs have flooded into the land-locked state of 8.5 million. Some have come to make a buck, some have returned home, and some are there to help establish the country. From education to roads to security and health, every facet of South Sudanese life is being rebuilt – or built – from scratch.

Sister Margaret Scott, 54, Teacher trainer

Sister Margaret Scott grew up in Napier and has spent the last 20 years working in Aboriginal communities in Australia. When the offer to work in South Sudan arose in 2008 she jumped at the chance, and has just signed on for another three years.

I am based in the town of Yambio, the capital of Western Equatoria State in the south of South Sudan. The government was looking for help before independence and they invited religious groups here.

Our group focuses on training teachers for the government schools. The education levels here are limited and many of the teachers came to it during the war, so some of them might not have even finished primary school themselves. But they are committed and they want to do something to help. One of the priorities for us is teaching English because the government has mandated that English is the language of instruction. But the further away from the towns you get, the harder it is for people to maintain their English, there's just no need to keep it up.

When I first came I lived in a village that is 30km from Yambio. Throughout 2009 and 2010 The Lord's Resistance Army [an armed Christian fundamentalist group] were attacking our village frequently. They would attack and steal food and they were prone to kidnapping young males to train into soldiers and if anyone got in the way, they would either harm them cruelly or kill them. There was a lot of loss of life and a horrific fear among the people.

I think because I had no experience to fall back on I wasn't as fearful as some of the others. They would usually attack at night so if you heard a rumour you would just go to ground – there was not a lot you could do.

We often ended up being together for the night and just sitting around and being very quiet; no lights, nothing to attract attention. We could see the local people walking past our houses and disappearing into the forest where they would hide for the night.

I was more fearful for them than myself, generally. I suppose just being naive and coming from somewhere as safe and peaceful as New Zealand, I just knew so little. But we felt it was important to stay there to show the people it's OK and give them courage.

Since the referendum and independence, the new government has really made a big effort to get rid of the LRA. And since then it's been very quiet here, very peaceful.

It's the beginning of a new country and there's a real sense that the people are free now. And they feel education is so important. For further generations it's going to be the key for development so they won't have so many interests involved and the people will be able to do things for themselves.

Major Chris Fitzwater, 41, Soldier Major

Chris Fitzwater from Wellington has had a 20-year career in the New Zealand Defence Force. He has been attached to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) since September, in the troubled state of Jongeli. Over the past few months Jongeli has been beset by tribal warfare, which has led to tens of thousands of people being displaced and hundreds of deaths.

Jongeli does not represent the country, Jongeli is a special case. The rest of the country is very stable but Jongeli is affected by inter-communal differences. You could say that it is where everybody is righting the wrongs of the past.

At the moment we are in the second wave of response to a fairly large mobilisation of The White Army. They have launched a number of large-scale cattle raids and attacks which have been successful in killing people. There have been a couple of occasions where we've had to get into our protective body army but we're basically OK.

Day to day, our mandate is to focus on the protection of human life, so we are trying to reduce and limit the violence that is taking place. We are doing some reconnaissance helicopter flights, monitoring the two tribal groups, administering a bit of triage and evacuation and supporting the South Sudanese Army.

It's busy at the moment but it's not stressful. We are well trained and well prepared and you learn to react very quickly. It feels normal to me.

Jongeli state has a large area of marshlands and people live a very traditional lifestyle. The main town has shanties and cattle walking down the main street. In the grasslands, families carry their belongings on their heads and move from water point to water point with a herd of cattle, some traditional weapons and a couple of AK47s.

It's an honour to be here during the initial period of post-independence because you are trying to establish a new country. The country has their own identity and the challenge is to stop the violence and move away from the traditional values that are causing them to have these problems.

As Kiwis, we don't have cultural hang-ups and we don't bring a lot of cultural baggage. I think we can respect their situation and understand that they will have a different approach. We've got to take a long-term view of the current situation. They are still within six months of independence and they are still shaking themselves out and sorting themselves out. But they have a huge sense of pride and desire and in five years' time this will be a piece of history none of them will be proud of.

Rebecca Hamilton, 34. Journalist

Rebecca Hamilton is a special correspondent on Sudan for the Washington Post. She first travelled to South Sudan in 2004, before the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed that ended 22 years of civil war with the North. Since then the Aucklander has returned frequently to report on Sudan, and was recently in Juba after independence was declared on July 9.

During my first trip in 2004, I was speaking with people who had grown up with the war. Some people had been born into it and lived in a situation where they had to be consistently on the run.

Visiting these people was a matter of trekking for six to eight hours a day through bush land. It would take two days to get a message to some of the most isolated groups to come to a meeting point. So it was a very intense initiation into Sudan.

Over the years there has been a huge amount of development into Juba but what you notice is, if you go even 10-20km outside the capital, the development doesn't filter out very well. At the moment there are a huge amount of international workers and paved roads and you can get a beer – things that would have been unimaginable before. But that's not being reflected in what is happening to the local population.

The day of the referendum was the most incredible experience of my reporting life. The luxury for me is I have funding through the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting so, while most of the news organisations had to fly people in, I was able to base myself there six months in advance. By the time the referendum came I had all my contacts very well up and running and I made the decision to get out of the capital because it was such a media pack. I went to an area called Bentiu, which is a rural, oil-rich area close to the border with northern Sudan.

In Bentiu it's very difficult to get an internet connection and cellphone reception can be on and off. Worst case scenario, you're using a satellite phone and dictating to your editors in a different time zone and trying to manage your crew and translators. It requires a lot of focus and discipline to get the story out.

The local people kept saying to me, "It doesn't matter what else happens in my life now I have cast my vote for freedom and I believe my grandchildren will be safe and I can die now." I heard that time and time again on referendum day, it was amazing.

South Sudan is an incredibly diverse place and I think for a long time the glue that held them together was the united enemy of the North. Now they are independent the lid has been lifted and they need to find a way to create a national identity that is more than just being in opposition to the North.

There are very few places in the world that have had such chronic under-development so this new government is playing catch up on decades and decades.

Sudan is a whole range of things for someone who has watched it from the split to a new nation. I was too young to have been there for the independence of so many nations across Africa at the end of colonialism.

So this is my chance to be a witness to that momentous history.

Glenys Checchi, 63, Nurse

Glenys Checchi, from Wellington, is a hospital administrator and surgical nurse, and has been working for the Red Cross for more than 20 years. She began her Red Cross career in the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodia border, and in 1988 was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal. Checchi has recently returned from South Sudan, where she was working as a hospital administrator in the capital, Juba, and helping set up the South Sudanese branch of the Red Cross.

I first went to South Sudan for two years with the Red Cross in 2006 and 2007. It was quiet then, there were few cars and I think there was one tar-sealed road by the time I left. It was just a little African town, really, and the people were still quite nervous and thinking peace might not hold.

I was very excited about going back to South Sudan and I really wanted to be there for independence and see how it had changed. When I returned in October 2010 there were so many people, the place was bustling and everybody was there – aid workers, entrepreneurs and South Sudanese returning home. There were traffic jams, shops everywhere, markets full and a huge population explosion. It's truly developing into a capital city and it's quite amazing.

Leading up to independence on July 9, they really started moving, it was very impressive. The roads were all swept, rubbish tins came out, people were cleaning the streets and planting flowerbeds and they had signs that said "Keep Juba Clean and Green". We've got more than 180 local staff so you can't help but be a part of the excitement and celebration really. Independence Day was fabulous – I've never been in a situation like that before. There were cars tooting and people dancing in the streets, they were so happy it had finally come.

The ICRC has quite a big investment in South Sudan. My first role when I arrived was to get emergency supplies in strategic places in case there was going to be any trouble. And the second thing was to decide which training hospital we were going to invest in for the next five years and doing some hands-on nursing. So it was a pretty big job.

The ICRC decided to support the Malakal Teaching Hospital in the Upper Nile State, so I travelled there a lot. In Malakal we are really starting from zero. There's not a paved road in the place and after the rainy season it's just mud, mud, mud. Outside of Juba there has not been much change at all.

The health minister for the Upper Nile has a very good strategic plan and vision for healthcare. But now it's a matter of translating that into reality and services for people. And people are expecting that.

The atmosphere of a place certainly does change with a big expatriate community like Juba has now. We have a compound and there are guards posted morning and night, but we are free to come and go around town.

The people in South Sudan say we won't say goodbye because if you drink water from the Nile you will return. If someone said tomorrow, "Go back to South Sudan" I'd say, sure. I've got a deep fondness for the people and a lot of friends there. It's been exciting to see them develop and they've become more confident in themselves.

I think they were a bit shell-shocked when I went there in 2006. They are doing things at their own pace now but they are pretty determined to succeed.

Kiwis help build a country