Humanitarian Situation in Sudan -- A Scene-Setter for the Trip to Northern and Southern Sudan of USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios

MR. NEWMAN: We are pleased to have with us today, on my immediate left, Roger Winter. His name is misspelled in some of the publicity that we sent out and I apologize for that. Winter, as in the season, is the correct spelling. And he is the Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at the US Agency for International Development.

And to my far left is Keith Brown, who is the Acting Assistant Administrator at USAID for Africa. Their biographies are out on the table. And there is also a press release fresh today from the State Department on aid to Sudan that I think has been distributed to you. If it hasn't, there will be copies of that as well.

The format is that Mr. Brown will speak first, give remarks for just a few minutes, then Mr. Winter, then we will open it up to questions.

As usual, wait for the microphone, identify yourself and state the name of your organization. And one other thing about the questions. The topic today is humanitarian aid to the Sudan. These gentlemen are experts on that; they are not experts on the political situation in the Sudan. So we would appreciate it if you kept your questions to the topic of humanitarian aid.

With that, Mr. Brown.

MR. BROWN: Thank you very much. Andrew Natsios, the US Agency for International Development Administrator, was announced by the President on May 3rd as the Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan. In that role, his mandate has five objectives. Those objectives include increasing stability, social and economic stability in war-affected areas in Sudan, reforming Operation Lifeline Sudan and other assistance delivery mechanisms, coordinating US interagency humanitarian response affecting the Sudan and neighboring countries, coordinating relationships with the public, Congress and other donors, and increasing attention on human rights abuses.

Now, since he has been named the humanitarian coordinator, Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Mr. Natsios has approved a change in the policy allowing US assistance to go to drought victims in northern Sudan. Previously, US humanitarian assistance was provided only to war-affected populations in the north. He has also approved 40,000 metric tons of food aid to Sudan and he has diverted a ship to deliver 17,400 metric tons of wheat to the Port of Sudan and that food is in Sudan now.

He has also established a task force to help him undertake his mandate. And he has traveled to Nairobi and talked with John Garang, Operation Lifeline Sudan, and NGOs working in southern Sudan. Now it is time for the Administrator to go to Sudan.

The basic objectives for his assessment mission to Sudan are to assess the severity of the drought in the north and the conflict in the south, assess the prospects for development interventions in nongovernment-held areas of the south. He is also going to raise the visibility in the US and Europe of the humanitarian assistance issues in Sudan. And he will emphasize to all parties in Sudan that the US Government has reestablished the principle of neutrality in the provision of humanitarian assistance. North or south, assistance will be based on need. And he will also continue his dialogue with European donors on narrowing the gap between US Government and European positions on providing humanitarian assistance to Sudan.

The trip to Sudan will be from the 13th of July through the 21st of July, with us arriving back here in Washington on the 22nd. The individuals that will be going to Sudan with the Administrator include myself; Mr. Winter to my right; Kate Almquist, his special assistant; James Duncan, a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa; Michael Miller, the Director for African Affairs at the NSC; and Brian D'Silva, who is on the Sudan task force. In addition, Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder News Service will travel with the delegation.

The delegation or the trip will be divided into two parts. We will be leaving here and going directly to Khartoum. In Khartoum, we will be meeting with Government of Sudan officials, with internally displaced people, NGOs, and other donors in the capital. That part of the trip will take July 14 to the 18th. From the 18th through July 21st, we will travel to southern Sudan and we will be talking to various NGOs, UN humanitarian relief operations, and to various community groups in southern Sudan. And we should have a press conference in Nairobi at the end of the trip on the 21st of July.

Now, I am going to turn to Mr. Winter for a bit more detail on the trip and other remarks.

MR. WINTER: First of all, the war in Sudan, as many of you may know, has a long life. This is a conflict which, in this current phase, has been going on for 18 years. Yet we continue to view it as an emergency, because of the humanitarian aspects of the large number of people involved and their large-scale vulnerability.

During this phase of the war, it has been documented by several sources that perhaps 2 million people have died of war-affected causes. If that's an accurate figure, that's probably the largest body count in any conflict since World War II of civilians. There are perhaps 4 million internally displaced people. That's an incredible percentage of the population. They are primarily southerners, but not entirely. It is the largest population of internally displaced people in the world.

Because of the large numbers and because of the long-term nature of the conflict, the US has spent itself more than $1,200,000,000 in humanitarian assistance responding to this emergency. That doesn't count other funds provided by other donors, and that's just a 12-year figure in this conflict, in this phase, going on for 18 years.

What are we trying to achieve with our humanitarian assistance? Well, first of all, this country, our government and our people, have a genuine interest in keeping people alive. For example, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which is part of USAID, has as its primary mission to keep people alive, to save lives and to lessen the human suffering.

This is a mission we take very seriously. And you might note that Administrator Natsios used to be the director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, so it is a philosophy that he exhibits with great personal interest.

Besides keeping people alive and minimizing human suffering, the intent is to try to help make people self-reliant as much as possible, to foster their development, in other words, so that at such a time as peace does come, that the people of Sudan will be able to take advantage of the opportunities that peace presents them.

About 80 percent of the humanitarian assistance provided by USAID is provided to war-affected populations in the south. That means primarily populations that are outside the control of the government, in territory outside the control of the government.

About 20 percent of our assistance is provided to both war and drought victims in the north. And my colleague, Keith, has spoken to you about how it is a conscious policy of this Administration to restore the principle of the humanitarian neutrality of assistance to populations based solely on the issue of their need for that assistance. And so, to some degree, the assistance provided in the North is new, different and quite symbolic, faithful to the internationally accepted principles of humanitarian neutrality for food assistance.

What I would like to do is take this off for one moment, walk over, try to give you -- I'll try to give you an idea about how comprehensive the trip will be.

Starting in Khartoum, where there are about nearly 2 million internally displaced people right now, the majority of them from the war areas of the south, we will leave there and go to Port Sudan. Port Sudan is -- Port Sudan is near the Red Sea Hills. Red Sea Hills is currently an area of drought. And so the expansion of US assistance for drought victims in the north will begin to affect this population over here.

We will be flying down -- not necessarily in this order -- but we will be flying down more to central Sudan and to western Sudan. In this area, for example, it's not only a major drought area but it's also the case that because of recent fighting in this area here, there are a significant number of internally displaced people from that fighting that have headed north. That means that you have people who have left behind, basically, everything they have because of war and they are fleeing where? Into a drought area. So part of our humanitarian assistance is intended to reach those kind of populations, to keep them alive until they can be either permanently settled or able to return to their home areas.

Because the division, as it were, between north and south is roughly here, what we will then do is we will fly from the north in UN planes across to the south. So we are actually crossing sort of the boundary line, if you will, and we will be visiting Rumbek. Rumbek is effectively, at the moment, the administrative capital of the armed opposition forces based in much of the south.

We will be visiting areas in here, which involve people who are displaced by security procedures related to oil development. We will be visiting areas over here which involve the repatriation of both refugees from down here in Kenya as well as displaced people that are currently in these areas who are now going home to places like Bor County. We will be visiting medical facilities in the Loei* area down here near Miridi*. We will be visiting other internally displaced people sites in the south and visiting, for example, demobilized child soldiers who are being assisted by nongovernmental organizations which we support who are in a number of those locations.

If you start to put that package together, what it means is about 50 percent of the time will be spent in the north, about 50 percent of the time will be spent in the south. We are interested in all aspects of the humanitarian program, but we will specifically see drought victims, conflict victims, internally displaced by conflict, demobilized child soldiers, people who have been uprooted by security procedures related to oil development. And when all is said and done, basically covering most of the bases that ought to enable the coordinator to fulfill his responsibility under the assignment he has been given by the President.

And that is a synopsis of the actual trip itself. And, I think, the end of my comments.

MR. NEWMAN: Okay, we will give Mr. Winter a chance to get his microphone back on, and then we will take your questions.

Q: Yes. I am Charlie Cobb with AllAfrica.com. I assume from your remarks that the Administrator or the delegation will be meeting both with the Khartoum government and the SPLA and other armed forces in the south. In a complex situation like the Sudan, with respect to not just talking about politics but in terms of climate, just the whole logistics of say climate and politics, are you going there bringing specific proposals for how Khartoum and the SPLA might function vis-à-vis humanitarian relief?

MR. WINTER: Yes.

Q: Can you tell us what they are?

MR. WINTER: No. (Laughter.) Clearly, there have been repetitive issues that have arisen in humanitarian programs. Many of the humanitarian programs are operated by the United Nations and the US provides a lot of its support through something called Operation Lifeline Sudan. But the US also supports programs outside of Operation Lifeline Sudan.

There are important issues for us. If in fact your doctrine is going to be as we have stated, it's going to be not just neutral but it's going to be focused on people who are truly vulnerable who need that assistance, we will obviously need access. And so issues such as that arise. And because of the complicated nature of the political and the conflict situation, it remains the kind of thing that will be discussed.

But there is an agenda of items like that. We are not in a position to roll through them at this particular point, but they do get quite specific.

Q: (Inaudible) Khartoum. As a Sudanese, I was really pleased, very elated, to hear from the two speakers that they really have the neutrality and giving aid will be based on need. I understand this very well. But I would just like to tell you that there is a perception, and I think maybe Roger knows about it, a perception in the north -- people who are against the government. But there is a perception that there was always a bias towards the south.

I hope that you do your best to spread the word that this is a neutral thing. And I know what happened when people heard about the 40 million -- 40,000 metric tons. They were very pleased. And even now, people now are beginning to see that the United States is trying to help. So I hope that you will emphasize this in so many ways. Because what they get from the religious right, that they are against them, that they are against the Sudanese, the people in the north.

Having said this, I would like to move to the fact that in the last 10 days, it seemed like all sides in the Sudan now are speaking about the Egyptian-Libyan Initiative, and they are talking about peace. It seemed like for the first time you -- so far it is just worse. Everybody is supporting the initiative and wants to have peace.

Would this in any way change your mission? I'm sure it has been in the making for a month or two, but the last week, something is happening, and will that affect your mission in one way or another?

MR. WINTER: The mission is not a political mission, and in fact, the humanitarians coordinate -- the humanitarian coordinator's assignment is restricted into the humanitarian field. There will be an appointment by the Administration of a special envoy, whose mission will be to contribute to, attempt to facilitate a just peace settlement to the conflict. Anybody who has been involved in the humanitarian aspects of Sudan understands that there cannot be a true solution to the humanitarian aspects until there is a just peace.

The war is inextricably involved with the production of the humanitarian problem. It is entirely a drought issue, or a phenomenon of nature. It is very much related to the conflict itself. That is not -- that is the resolution of the war -- it is not directly what we are dealing with.

Those of us who work in the humanitarian field, however, believe that to the extent that we provide good humanitarian services and ease the suffering of civilian populations, that ultimately it is a contribution to peace.

Q: But you are aware of that? What the peace will go to -- so far to help you? I mean (inaudible) help a lot to do your mission and help the people who need the help?

MR. WINTER: If there were peace, we could deal with the humanitarian aspects and get on with the development aspects that Keith is responsible for.

Q: Maria Harkesto*, the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation. And you mentioned people displaced by security reasons from the oil fields. Could you elaborate on that? What do you mean with security reasons?

MR. WINTER: Well, there are a number of UN human rights (inaudible) reports, as well as reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and others that do draw some links.

Now, it is not our interest to try to explicate all of that right now. What we do want to do is have the chance to visit with people who are newly displaced, whose original homes were in areas that are now located in oil concession areas, or nearby, so that we can talk to those people themselves and find out what their circumstances are.

But what we are relying on right now is primarily information from the United Nations and from the private human rights groups.

Q: But will you try to determine why these people are displaced?

MR. WINTER: We will ask them their stories.

Q: Ben Bangurike*, Kenya News, Washington correspondent. What can you tell us about the conflict itself within the Sudan? Is this a religious war, is it an economic war? I mean, what is the substance of it?

MR. WINTER: We can tell you one thing, and that is it is hurting an awful lot of people. The numbers I used were extraordinarily large. If we think of what that actually means in human terms, there are an awful lot of people, north and south, whose families, whose bodies, and whose futures have been decimated by this war. And that's about all we can tell you. The other aspects, the origination of the war, and those various pieces are really something you need to deal with the State Department and others on. It is not directly within our purview.

Q: Peter Sissa* with DPA, the German Press Agency. I have a two-part question, I guess. One is, I'm not specifically understanding what the US Government -- is there -- I understand you are going on this trip, and it seems very extensive, but is there more money involved going into humanitarian aid? I don't see specifically what the trip is -- are you taking something to each side of the Sudan conflict and saying, we're giving you -- you know, we're going to provide this in additional aid? I didn't hear you say that, if you are.

And then the other part is, what kind of cooperation are you receiving from the two sides in the war zone? There have been reports in the past that aid has gone into these places and just been confiscated by the warring parties.

MR. BROWN: The conflict in Sudan has been going on for a number of years, more years that we would care to really think about. AID has provided over a million dollars over the past decade in humanitarian assistance to respond to the complex emergency in Sudan. There is an increased emphasis by this Administration on Sudan, and coming to a just, peaceful situation for Sudan.

So it is incumbent upon us to get a full understanding from this Administration as to the humanitarian situation in the Sudan, and to look at the conflict and its contribution to the humanitarian situation.

We are also looking at development activities that can be undertaken or expanded. AID is working on development issues in southern Sudan, and I think there are opportunities for expansion in that area to assist in the population, particularly of southern Sudan, to gain a level of self-sufficiency. They have been dependent upon the humanitarian assistance for some time, and now is the time to look at ways in which we can help them become self-sufficient and pursue their development objectives.

So I think those are the two primary reasons. It is not to announce any additional assistance at this particular point in time. We are looking at what opportunities there are to better coordinate US Government assistance in the Sudan, to coordinate better with other donors, to look at those development opportunities and to see where we can cooperate with other donors in development opportunities in Sudan.

MR. WINTER: If I could add, it's important not to get the cart before the horse. The coordinator is new in this capacity, and he's about two months in this role. At a personal level, although he has been to Sudan a great deal in his past, he hasn't been there for a good number of years now. So this is in part to empower him with knowledge and on-the-ground experience so he can see personally all these aspects of the conflict so he can then get on with the job.

I think the kind of thing you were asking about -- is there going to be more or changes, and so forth -- are really what come after the trip. What we would expect is that our experiences on the trip will help shape what we would expect to be a more effective approach. That is the whole purpose of having a humanitarian coordinator.

Q: Ahmad Bashir* again. Would you be still working in that purview of the United Nations, or you will -- you might consider there were some tensions, we know, in the last year or two about that, so is there any development in that area?

MR. WINTER: Some aspects of the US humanitarian program are outside the United Nations. But we do both. Where it is possible to do so, the preference is to do it through the UN system. But where we think that, for whatever reason, there is a value to the civilians on the ground to work outside that system, we do so.

So, for example, in the south, where 80 percent of the humanitarian assistance goes, we operate in both modes.

Q: You said that at least part of the mission is kind of to empower the Administrator with on-the-ground experience. The question that occurs to me, because you yourself -- both of you -- have stressed the length of this conflict, and at least twice you have referred to the delegation or the mission's interests in understanding how the conflict is affecting humanitarian assistance.

What is it, after 18 years, that remains to be learned about the effect of this conflict? And what are -- since you said afterward you thought there might -- you might come up with a more effective approach, I think was your phrase -- what are the shortcomings in your mind of humanitarian assistance, as it has operated up till now?

MR. WINTER: While it is true that the conflict has gone on a long time, and there have been humanitarian programs, the coordinator himself is new in this role, and needs -- because he will be the man on the spot, as the coordinator, for directing a program, he needs to be thoroughly acquainted with the issues. So that is part of the learning experience.

If you look at the statistics also, you will see sort of two things that are important to us. One is that, although there have been humanitarian programs over a long period of time in Sudan, people still die for reasons that could be addressed by humanitarian programming. I mentioned the access issue before as one, and so forth.

So there are either technical, logistical, other kinds of difficulties that nevertheless remain. There are populations that are inadequately assisted and it is going to be a package of responses to what we see as gaps or shortcomings in the current program.

Now, for example, just to be very concrete, we took the position -- the coordinator, I should say, took the position early on, and so did the Administration, in terms of backing him, that our own program needed to be humanitarianly neutral. And that was a decision they could take on the basis of adequate knowledge that didn't have to relate to technical issues or gaps of any kind at a local level, but rather a policy issue.

So they addressed it right away. What we expect to come back with our things that -- if I can use the term "improvements", perhaps reforms in the way we do the humanitarian program -- that's what we are looking to do, as well as to reach populations that are currently either underserved or not reached at all.

MR. BROWN: Yes, I would also like to emphasize what Roger has indicated, that the Administrator is new, he is part of a foreign policy team in this Administration. He is involved in policy deliberations regarding Sudan. So he needs to have firsthand information and an understanding of what is going on on the ground in Sudan.

He will be talking to government officials and others in Khartoum. There has not been a senior aid person that has been to Khartoum in some time. And I think getting this firsthand information is going to be very critical for him to undertake his mandate as the Special Humanitarian Coordinator.

We have activities in southern Sudan that he has not seen. There is a linkage between the development program and the humanitarian program that involves, again, the point that I raised earlier about building self-sufficiency in southern Sudan, and preparing them for peace, if it eventually comes.

So these are very important areas that he needs to look at, review, see how we can coordinate better with other donors, for example. And I think it is very important that he go.

Q: Swedish Broadcasting again. Why has this changed in US policy, come right now, giving aid to the north also?

MR. WINTER: This is specifically an issue of aid for people affected by drought. There has been assistance provided by the US for war-related victims, regardless of whether it was north or south, in the past. So what this is is an expansion of US aid to cover drought victims. Because what we have is an emerging, very significant drought in Sudan. And it is not in any way, shape or form our intent, or the coordinator's intent, to sit down and let a drought simply emerge. We have every interest, because of the humanitarian values represented by this policy, of trying to assure that famine doesn't develop, that a lot of people don't lose their lives who could, in fact, be saved with early intervention.

So that is what is intended by this changed in policy.

Q: Katherine Drew* with South Africa Broadcasting. I'm just wondering, Sudan is a very hot topic these days. Over the past couple of months it has been in the headlines, we see a lot about it at congressional hearings.

I'm just wondering if this sort of aid overhaul is sort of taking advantage of that and the fact that Congress seems to be looking favorably upon the topic, or will Mr. Natsios be going to lots of other areas of conflict as well, and getting to know the situations in other conflict areas?

MR. WINTER: He may travel to multiple areas as Administrator. He is traveling here specifically because he has been tasked as the coordinator for Sudan. And my expectation is that over time he will do some of these other things.

Sudan is a very high priority for the US, for humanitarian reasons. It is also, as perhaps is no other country in Africa and other parts of the world perhaps even -- it is very, as you say, visible. It is something that Americans of wide variety of persuasions are interested in. And so that does help create, I think, attention; it helps create a constituency on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

We are going because we believe -- the Coordinator believes in humanitarian neutrality. He has already articulated it for several other difficult situations in the world. That will be showing up over a period of time. So that is a policy trigger that you are seeing in Sudan, but you are going to see in other locations, too.

MR. NEWMAN: Other questions? If not, I thank our guests very much and thank you all for coming.

Q: Thank you.