VZCZCXRO3674
OO RUEHROV RUEHTRO
DE RUEHKH #0386/01 0780909
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 190909Z MAR 09 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3307
INFO RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/CJTF HOA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 000386 
 
DEPT FOR AF A A/S CARTER, AF/SPG, AF/E, DRL 
NSC FOR MGAVIN AND CHUDSON 
DEPT PLS PASS USAID FOR AFR/SUDAN 
ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR USAU 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ASEC PGOV PREL KPKO KDEM SOCI AU UNSC SU
SUBJECT: SPLM LEADERS TRY TO PROTECT AID TO THREE AREAS 
 
REFS:  A. Khartoum 365 
¶B. Khartoum 332 
¶C. Khartoum 306 
 
¶1. Summary.  Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan 
(GoSS) Riek Machar, and SPLM representatives from Blue Nile and 
Southern Kordofan states and the Abyei Administration traveled to 
Khartoum on March 15 to participate in a meeting with Government of 
National Unity (GNU) Vice President Ali Osman Taha and 
representatives from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs (including 
the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC)) regarding the INGO expulsions 
from the Three Areas.  Machar and his team were prepared to lay out 
the implications of the expulsions on the Three Areas and lobby for 
a reversal of the decision in a meeting on March 16.  Emboffs 
recommended to Machar and the other SPLM representatives that they 
also press the National Congress Party (NCP) to modify the legal and 
bureaucratic environment in the Three Areas in which INGOs operate 
so as to ease their ability to register, obtain travel and work 
permits, and carry out their programs. After initial SPLM-GoS 
meetings, SPLM officials indicated that the NCP appears divided on 
the issue and a "face-saving" solution is required.  They reported 
that the NCP is floating an idea that would allow some expelled NGOs 
to return to Sudan by re-registering under a new name.  Their assets 
would allegedly be returned and their staff would be allowed to 
re-enter.  SPLM officials underscored that this is just an initial 
idea and that the process of responding to the expulsion crisis must 
evolve.  End Summary. 
 
US OFFICALS MEET WITH THREE AREAS LEADERS AND MACHAR 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
¶2. (SBU) On the evening of March 15, emboffs (USAIDoffs and poloff) 
met with Southern Kordofan representatives Ramadan Shameyla and 
Abdalla Tia (both Nuban parliamentarians) and discussed with them 
the potential impact of the INGO expulsions on Southern Kordofan, 
and in particular, the formerly SPLA/M-controlled areas (refs A and 
B).  Both Shameyla and Tia, who were appointed as Southern Kordofan 
delegates for the committee working to resolve the issue, indicated 
that they were aware of the serious implications of the expulsions. 
They expressed concern over the loss of support and indicated that 
it would lead to further instability in the state if the situation 
was not rectified. In addition expressing hope that a solution to 
the expulsions will be found, they agreed with the need to improve 
the legal and bureaucratic environment for INGOs to work in the 
Three Areas, including the provisions of the CPA that would allow 
the state governments in the transitional areas to set up a legal 
framework for establishing direct relationships between these 
states/area and implementing partners. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Emboffs off also met with Abyei Administration Secretary 
for Agriculture Choul Arop on the evening of March 15. Choul 
explained that Abyei Administrator Arop Majak had asked him to 
attend the meeting on his behalf. Choul said that Majak is still 
adamant about remaining in Abyei (not traveling to Khartoum) until 
his Administration receives funding from the Government of Sudan 
(GoS).  While Choul was not up to speed on the reason for the 
meeting, he was aware of the implications that the INGO expulsions 
would have on development support to Abyei. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Emboffs also met with GoSS Vice President Riek Machar on 
March 15 to discuss the expulsions and his upcoming meeting with 
Taha and the HAC.  VP Machar was intimately familiar with the 
implications that the expulsions will have on the Three Areas.  VP 
Machar asked USG officials what was needed for effective assistance 
to continue.  Emboffs discussed the need for the legal and 
bureaucratic environment to be modified, perhaps through joint 
North/South jurisdiction over permission and registration to work 
and travel to the Three Areas.  Machar indicated that he, on behalf 
of the SPLM and the GoSS, would push for a reversal of the decision 
to expel the NGOs across northern Sudan, including Darfur.  He noted 
and understood the importance of easing INGO access to the Three 
Areas in order to conduct donor programs and said that he would 
discuss this in his meeting with Taha. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Emboffs met with Blue Nile State Governor Malik Agar on the 
morning of March 16 - the same day in which the Taha-Riek-Three 
Areas reps meeting was initially scheduled - in order to gather his 
views on the way forward in the Three Areas (ref A).  Governor Agar 
was keenly aware of the implications that the INGO expulsions would 
have on the Three Areas, and Blue Nile State in particular.  He 
listened to emboffs explain the need for the decision not only to be 
reversed, but for the legal environment in which the groups work to 
be improved. He explained to them that the situation must be dealt 
with in a step-by-step manner, and the first step was to convince 
the NCP to reverse the expulsion decision.  He thought a face-saving 
compromise might be possible, for example expel certain individual 
 
KHARTOUM 00000386  002 OF 002 
 
 
but not entire organizations.  He suggested that if that was 
achieved, then he and others could lobby for the improvement of the 
implementing environment for INGOS. 
 
LIKELY NCP SHENNANIGANS HOLD OFF VP-THREE AREAS MEETING 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
¶6. (SBU) While the Taha-Machar meeting to discuss a conciliatory 
response to the expulsions in the Three Areas was originally 
scheduled to take place on the morning of March 16, it was pushed 
back to March 17 by the NCP.  Professor Ali Idriss, Minister of 
Health for Blue Nile State (who was to be a part of the meeting) 
told USAIDoff on March 17 that Governor Malik, Abyei Minister Choul 
and other Three Areas representatives sat outside the Machar-Taha 
meeting on the morning of March 17th waiting to be called in to 
discuss the INGO expulsions.  Machar informed them after his meeting 
that Taha was unwilling to discuss the issue with the full group 
until the Three Areas delegation met with the Ministry of 
Humanitarian Affairs (including the HAC). 
 
¶7. (SBU) On March 18, emboffs were called into a debriefing meeting 
with the SPLM delegation, headed by GoSS VP Machar. The delegation 
had just met with HAC Director Hassabo Abderahman and State Minister 
for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun (an ICC indictee).  Machar 
explained that there are some members of the NCP who would like to 
take action to resolve the issue of the expelled INGOs, but noted 
that as a party, NCP officials are divided.  He underscored that an 
acceptable solution will have to be a face-saving one.  Machar said 
that one of the NCP's tentative proposals is to re-register expelled 
NGOs under different names, return their assets and allow their 
staff to return (except for some senior management, who may be 
relocated to Juba). Governor Malik indicated that while this might 
not be the final solution, its consideration is part of a process 
that needs to take place in order to lead to a practical solution. 
He requested that the expelled NGOs provide feedback on this idea to 
the SPLM without making the idea public. Jason Matus, Strategic 
Advisor to the Three Areas Donors Steering Group, is now in the 
process of contacting the G13 to get feedback on the idea. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Governor Malik added that HAC officials requested that an 
assessment of the situation be carried out in the transitional areas 
(not unlike the one that will soon be completed in Darfur), to which 
Malik reportedly responded bluntly that practical action is needed, 
not further assessments.  According to Matus, in a subsequent 
meeting between HAC officials and UNMIS D/SRSG Ameera Haq, HAC 
requested UN support for an assessment to the Three Areas.  HAC said 
that it would assess the humanitarian situation and that the 
Ministry of International Cooperation would survey development 
programs.  The assessment would led by HAC official Bashir Korsey. 
Matus said that the D/SRSG responded that this request must be a 
joint SPLM/NCP request. 
 
Comment 
- - - - 
¶9. (SBU) It is not unusual for SPLM Three Areas officials (and other 
SPLM officials) to get the run-around from the NCP when coming to 
Khartoum to resolve their issues, but the joint NCP-SPLM meetings 
may provide some small glimmer of hope that there could be a quiet 
compromise to the INGO expulsions from the Three Areas.  On the 
other hand, we recognize that the NCP is expert at stringing the 
SPLM along with vague promises but not actually delivering anything 
(other than oil revenue transfers, which is a redline for the 
SPLM/GOSS).  We also note that VP Taha postponed the meeting with 
GOSS VP Machar twice.  The SPLM appears to be pushing forcefully on 
this issue, as it should since the populations in two of the Three 
Areas (Blue Nile and the Nuba Nountains) already feel abandoned by 
the SPLM.  Over time is it possible that the two CPA partners might 
find an acceptable solution in order to ensure continued assistance 
in the Three Areas, while "saving face" for NCP hardliners, who 
publicly continue to threaten more INGO expulsions and insist that 
no reversal decision is possible.  If assistance to the Three Areas 
is not protected, frustration among the populations in these areas 
will surely escalate and the likelihood of conflict rises, because 
in some locations the affected populations do not receive services 
from anyone else other than the INGOs that have been expelled. End 
Comment. 
 
FERNANDEZ