An ancient ritual, performed by Muslims, unique to northern Sudan.
They are whirling dervishes.
And, if it's strange to our eyes ..... then it's just as alien to the people of southern
Sudan.
For the southerners are Christians and Animists.....
And such differences make Sudan a religious, tribal and cultural cauldron.
This is a story about black Africa meeting Islamic north Africa. It's a meeting of cultures
and religions that was destined for conflict.
When Sudan gained its independence 37 years ago, the colonial powers decreed- for their
own vested interests - that it should remain one country.
It set the Sudanese on a course that led - inevitably - to a conflict that has led to the war and
famine that blights this nation today.
To reach the rebel-held south you must start in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Journalists in this part of the world need a guide ... someone like Jacob Akol ... a
Dinka tribesman of southern Sudan.
the war zone. But it will not be easy.
In Kongor there is fighting not so very far from the famine triangle - so it could happen
there is fighting there - but if there is fighting we will not be able to get in anyway.
There is another problem. The wet season can make travel impossible.
It's touch and go, we just have to go up to the border and listen to what people say
The first rite of passage is a visit to the (Nairobi) headquarters of the main rebel group
- the Sudan People's Liberation Army The SPLA's military wing holds much of southern
Sudan. Here they issue permissions to travel and propaganda.
The centre of power in Khartoum - it must be dismantled - because we are not there.
Like most of the SPLA Dr Justin is a Christian opposed to the Islamic regime in the north.
If I am not acceptable because I am a Christian and all these things then something must be
wrong about Sudan.
The SPLA gives us a guarantee of safe passage ... but it's an uncertain guarantee at best
... In one incident alone last year rebels killed three aid workers and a journalist.
Lokichokio - north Kenya - the frontline of the international food aid programme.
It's where the big planes are forced to stop ... the annual flood of the Nile headwaters
makes impossible swamps of the rough airstrips of southern Sudan.
So from here we travel with aid workers who fly light aircraft - often for hours - across
war zones - on to muddy strips - in unsafe areas.
The aid workers do it daily.
Jacob's own childhood was spent barely fifty kilometres away from this village of Thiet.
Like these children, he too was a young refugee ... he fled alone and on foot in the face
of civil war.
It's almost like a continuation of my life. Thirty years ago I was displaced from southern
Sudan by the same war. ... And it is sad to see that it is continuing for so long
What strikes you first about southern Sudan is just how lush it is...
It seems like some terrible mistake: people starving to death amongst such plenty.
But this is rainy season ... the harvest isn't in yet ... and in the past when harvest time
comes so does a new military offensive.
This is the result - year after year it happens ... hundreds of thousands of half-starved
people leaving their crops to wither .... fleeing the fighting ... descending on feeding centres
and dying in their uncounted thousands.
There are only a handful of feeding centres scattered through this, the largest country
in Africa.
Across hundreds of thousands of square kilometres no one really knows what's
happening. There are no body counts out here.
Nature has bequeathed southern Sudan lavish wealth in its fertile lands - and its plentiful
oil reserves ... yet its children starve, its economy is decimated.
They remain free from the clutches of the hated regime in the north... but locked into
a terrible cost.
We set out along one of southern Sudan's countless water logged tracks.
How are we going to get through this
I don't know, we may want to go around this way. It looks like its a bit more sandy on
this side.
We are soon hopelessly bogged and suddenly at the mercy of a band of guerilla fighters.
Our safety is supposedly guaranteed but only by the main SPLA faction. We have no such
agreement with renegade factions which now fight each other as bitterly as once they
fought Government troops.
Luck is with us. We've stumbled upon a friendly unit.
The commander tells us he's retreating form a front-line position facing Government troops
because his home town is threatened by a breakaway rebel force.
After 10 years the SPLA has started splitting into tribal based factions.
Colonel Garang it seems to me as an outsider that you have something of a disaster on your
hands ... ceasefire not holding, you have thousands of your own people in the south
starving or close to starving, and you also have an appalling split within your own ranks...
do you see it that way, yourself?
Well, it's ... any war is a disaster including our own (even the second world war, including
the first) all wars are a disaster. What has happened in the SPLA is that a portion of
the movement ... has technically joined the enemy. It's a defection not a
split. Somewhere on our side they have now gone on the Sudan Government side. Some do
defect from the Sudan Government side to come to our side. That
is the meaning of a civil war.
Defection or split, it's a catastrophe for the rebels and a godsend for the Government
in Khartoum
Where once the only thing delivered from the north was bombs today its grain donated to
the United Nations by the regime in the north.
Initially the administration out rightly refused to receive the grain from Khartoum for fear
it was poisoned.
So, anything coming out of Khartoum is immediately treated as being suspicious presumably. Is that right?
that right?
Without a doubt, immediately presumed as suspicious.
It's a gift from the enemy ... for the Khartoum regime with an international reputation for
massive and shocking abuse of human rights has launched a new "propaganda war".
Sudan's Islamic capital Khartoum. After years of self-imposed isolation the regime is courting
international opinion. It's become known as Khartoum's "charm offensive".
A "charm offensive" though, is that a fair enough description of what you're working
on.
A "charm offensive". That's an interesting term, I would say.
Is it an accurate one?
It's not. I don't think it's exactly a "charm offensive". It's an attempt at trying to make
the world perceive us as we are. To perceive the regime for ourselves, we're
allowed to see Sharia law in action ... Islamic courts seen in the west as infamous
This is the outlook of the west and it is because of the punishments provided in Sharia
- for example in theft the amputation of the arm in adultery, the stoning and the lashing
- which are viewed by the west as being cruel and unusual - actually for us Sharia has been
extremely tolerant.
But, the Christians of the south don't trust the alien principles of Sharia and cannot
believe Government assurances that the Sharia will not be forced upon them.
For although Islam preaches forgiveness and tolerance the Khartoum regime stands accused
of utter intolerance.
Can you tell me how do you feel being Minister for Justice in a country that has been slated
by organisations like Amnesty International for having the worst human rights record in
the world.
this does not fit with our character - our religious beliefs
and with our tolerance. These accusations are the product of the opposition which is
in exile.
Mostly because they say they are afraid to come back.
Yes, and they want to come back as people in authority.
But the southerners say what they really want is simply to share the power.
The issue is that of justice, is that of freedom, is that of democracy, is that of development
opportunity for all irrespective of race, irrespective of religion and we are not unique
in this. This is how nations are formed.
So you have not been defeated but under the circumstances can you hope for victory.
Well, it depends on what you mean by victory, military victory - I don't think the Sudan
Government has any illusions that
They can achieve military victory over us. We don't have any illusions that we are going
to overrun Khartoum tomorrow.
Jacob Akol has heard the arguments countless times before. Not once have they seemed any
closer to resolving the plight of the victims caught in the middle.
"Almost all of them are agreed that this war cannot be solved by continuing to fight yet
they can't find that political solution and the people who are suffering from that are
the innocent people - the people we are looking at the moment."
Jacob's brought us to a place called Kongor ... in what's called south Sudan's death triangle.
As many as a quarter of a million people have already perished in this region. There's been
so much fighting aid workers daren't stay overnight ... and the mainstream SPLA says
an attack by renegade commander Colonel Riak
is imminent.
Commander, I have been informed you're expecting an attack from the Riak forces soon is that
true. Yeah, I can not deny - it can be true - because
Riak has no objective - his objective is to destroy SPLA - is to fight us.
He's not fighting the Sudanese Government so now his target is here.
The reports proved accurate ... within 12 hours of our leaving, Kongor was under attack.
These men were in battle.
The relief centres were closed ... the staff evacuated....