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RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #0259/01 0331352
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 021352Z FEB 06
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1273
INFO RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KHARTOUM 000259 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS, SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV SOCI EAID SENV SU
SUBJECT: STARTING FROM SCRATCH IN SOUTHERN SUDAN 
 
¶1.  (U) SUMMARY:  In courtesy calls on a dozen ministers 
of the GoSS, CG Juba has been impressed by the frankness 
of the ministers in describing the difficulties of making 
the broken institutions of Southern Sudan functional. 
Virtually every meeting begins with an inventory of what 
must be done balanced against a list of what is needed - 
and in most cases lacking -- to get things done.  Recent 
calls on Minister of Education, Science and Technology 
Michael Milli Hussein and Minister of Environment and 
Wildlife Conservation James Loro Siricio are illustrative 
of where Southern Sudan finds itself.  End Summary. 
 
------------------------------------- 
In the Basement of Sub-Saharan Africa 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Milli Hussein pointed out that Southern Sudan is 
at the rearguard of African education.  With an estimated 
1,000,000 primary age students not attending school, only 
27 percent of potential students are enrolled.  Although 
education ranks with clean water and health as top GoSS 
priorities for delivering a peace dividend, the obstacles 
to improving the situation are daunting.  There is a 
shortage of teachers - the GoSS needs to recruit 2,000 
more primary teachers in 2006 - that can be addressed 
only by hiring teachers who have themselves just 
completed secondary school but who have no pedagogical 
training.  He praised USAID for its support of the 
Teachers' Training School in Maridi. 
 
¶3.  (U) Hussein said that Maridi had taken the lead in 
development of a new syllabus that would shift the 
Islamic focus of Khartoum to a model more relevant to the 
cultures of the South.  He observed that this would 
include a shift from Arabic to English as the primary 
language of instruction, which would in turn require 
English language instruction for many current teachers. 
Hussein said that he had just returned from talks with 
UNESCO in Paris, where he had requested UNESCO assistance 
in training planners and at a lower level managers who 
could run the schools effectively. 
 
------------------------ 
Doing Everything at Once 
------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (U) Hussein said that demand for education at every 
level of southern Sudanese society was massive.  His 
ministry needed to maintain and expand the traditional 
8/4/4 structure (primary/secondary/university) while 
trying to organize a compressed four-year course of basic 
study for a lost generation of older southern Sudanese 
who had received no formal school during the war.  This 
group was separate from older Sudanese who required adult 
literacy training.  It also flowed into the need for 
vocational training -- it was impossible to find the 
electricians, masons, plumbers, and other artisans that 
would be required to rebuild the South.  And this, he 
concluded, was connected to successfully demobilizing 
SPLA troops into the job market. 
 
¶5.  (U) The Minister invited the CG to visit the local 
campus of the University of Juba, which was moved to 
Khartoum sixteen years ago.  The Juba campus was in 
surprisingly good shape, although a major rehabilitation 
is needed.  A quick visit to the library revealed that 
the scholarship of the last quarter of the 20th Century 
had never made it to Southern Sudan.  Hussein said that 
there had been good progress in moving the universities 
of Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile back to Wau and Malakal 
-- both vice chancellors and much of the student body 
were from the South -- but that the University of Juba 
posed a problem.  The vice chancellor, a northerner, was 
reluctant to return.  Hussein cited space as the greatest 
constraint.  An institution of 800 students and 100 
faculty when it moved to Khartoum, the University of Juba 
had burgeoned to 15,000 and 800 respectively in Khartoum, 
with a 50/50 split between northerners and southerners. 
Colleges had grown from five to twelve.  He said that one 
faculty had returned and that he hoped that other 
colleges could be returned gradually as the necessary 
housing, classroom space, and faculty expertise became 
available. 
 
----------------------- 
Wildlife Not a Priority 
----------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) Minister Loro frankly admitted that Wildlife 
Conservation, while important, ranked well below the top 
priorities of the GoSS for a peace dividend in the South. 
He said that his ministry was more concerned with the 
 
KHARTOUM 00000259  002 OF 003 
 
 
physical environment, including the salubrious state of 
cities like Juba.  He said that the basic function of his 
ministry had been abandoned for twenty years.  He had 
inherited two people for wildlife protection and two four 
tourism, one of whom had been poached by an NGO.  His 
total ministry staff now numbered five.  He claimed that 
his own vehicle comprised the entire ministry motor pool, 
although we learned from another source that there are 
three vehicles, plus another three in other parts of 
Southern Sudan, a region Larger than Texas. 
 
¶7.  (U) Loro described how the ministry had tried to 
clean up Juba by campaigning for residents to collect the 
ubiquitous plastic bags that clutter the city, cleaning 
out drainage ditches to the river, and instructing Juba 
residents to install pit latrines.  He observed that this 
campaign had at best been a partial success, and cited 
USAID assistance in trying to mobilize the population to 
help clean up. 
 
¶8.  (U) Loro introduced Victor Wurda Lotombe, Director 
General of the Environment, as the resident expert on 
conservation and biodiversity.  Lotombe said that the 
proliferation of arms in the South had caused massive 
poaching and a bustling trade in bush meat.  He opined 
that DDR and the confiscation of arms could reverse this 
trend.  Lotombe continued that the GoSS had assigned 
14,000 SPLA troops to the ministry to convert to eco- 
guards (wardens?); he admitted that this initiative was 
challenging.  For the present, the ministry had no means 
to train these individuals.  There were no boats or 
aircraft to transport them anywhere.  At a recent meeting 
held by UNIP for environmental NGOs at Boma Park, Lotombe 
had to hitch a ride on a UN aircraft. 
 
¶9.  (U) He added that he was the only participant at the 
conference without a laptop, and had delivered his talk 
from handwritten notes.  Communication was also 
absolutely lacking -- there were neither Thuraya phones 
nor a radio net to communicate with the parks.  He said 
that insecurity in the parks was rampant, with mounted 
Mbororo poachers from Darfur in Southern Park, and LRA 
elements nearby.  Lotombe stated that their presence was 
a constraint to any census of wildlife, since the low, 
slow flights required for counting game were vulnerable 
to small arms fire. 
 
------------------- 
No to Jonglei Canal 
------------------- 
 
¶10. (U) Lotombe said that he, as well as most of the 
GoSS, opposed any further work on the Jonglei Canal, 
given the environmental stakes.  He described the canal 
as the pet project of Egypt and the North for which the 
South had suffered.  The Sudd supplied a renewable supply 
of papyrus of enormous quantity, for making paper, and it 
provided rich fishing grounds.  The biodiversity remained 
intact, with large numbers of large mammals and reptiles. 
The Sudd was also the repository for the watershed that 
kept the area moist throughout the year:  evaporation 
fueled the rains.  To open the canal risked draining the 
Sudd, with potentially devastating environmental costs. 
He concluded that the steep banks of the unfinished 
portions of the canal blocked traditional transhumance 
routes and had killed off wildlife that no longer had 
access to dry season water supplies. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶11.  (U) Such stories about a lack of resources play out 
in different versions throughout the ministries.  The 
Minister of Information, for example, has no Internet 
access, no VSAT, and must go to the Ministry of Finance 
to photocopy documents.  The Minister of Health has been 
unable to find transport to some of the hospitals in 
outlying states and thus has not completed a full 
inventory of what health care resources are available. 
It is noteworthy, however, and encouraging, that 
virtually everyone expresses determination to press ahead 
and deliver the promised peace dividends to the 
population.  And there are instances of unexpected good 
news.  An environmentalist told CG that the devastation 
of biodiversity, while serious, may not be as grave as 
thought.  There are credible reports of elephant herds in 
Boma Park, sitatunga in swamps not far from Juba, and a 
rhino recently wandered uninvited into Bentiu.  End 
comment. 
 
-------- 
 
KHARTOUM 00000259  003 OF 003 
 
 
Bio Data 
-------- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Milli Hussein is originally from Wau, of the 
Raja ethnic group.  He is an NCP representative in the 
GoSS but is well regarded by most of our SPLM contacts. 
A medical doctor who trained in Khartoum, he was 
previously the wali (governor) in Wau.  He is a 
practicing Roman Catholic.  Predictions that he would be 
a figurehead to a ministry run by a SPLM Under Secretary, 
a Dinka named William Ater who has held the position for 
several years, have not proven true.  Hussein has 
asserted himself in his dealings with various NGOs 
involved in the education sector. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) James Loro Siricio is a Bari from the hills 
just outside Juba.  We have developed contradictory 
information on him.  One source says that he encountered 
Loro as a southern combatant in Anyanya one.  A second 
source claimed that Loro held a high position in one of 
the following southern governments.  The second source 
said that Loro had been a Major General in the SAF and 
had completed a course of study, but not a university 
degree at the military college in Khartoum, and that he 
was not appointed by the SPLM.  Loro is a practicing 
Roman Catholic.  Lotombe is also Bari and has an M.A. in 
environmental sciences. 
 
HUME