105 - Sudan - Approaches to Armed Groups Kuol ... - The ICHRP

depend on memory to highlight some of the cases that may reflect the nature and the application of
the customary laws in that period.
94. I also spent time working in the Azande area of Western Equatorial Province from 1990-1994. This
period was marked by the establishment of the main seat of the court in Yambio town. I travelled in
order to convene the court in the other districts in the province. This legal survey will also consider
some of the legal and administrative aspects of Western Equatorial Province.
95. The members of the Dinka community that feature in the first period (1985-1989) are pastoralists
and cattle is central to their litigation. On the other hand, the Azande community featured in the
second period (1990-1994), are a farming population and money is the primary means for meeting
liabilities. It is essential to consider that the areas of both communities have been devastated by the
on-going civil war. The loss of lives and property, in addition to displacement and forced migration
across the natural borders, have affected the lives of the people including the exercise of the customs.
96. The cases in this paper are intended to comparatively show how the Dinka and Azande communities,
in struggling for survival, tried to cope with the new political and legal situation in relation to some of
their social activities governed by the rules of customary laws. The coping mechanisms locally
promoted by those peoples to preserve the social integrity may symbolise the responses of most, if
not all, of the other southern Sudanese communities to current social strains.
97. This legal examination is also intended to set the social context in which the SPLA and International
agencies are about to launch some ambitious rehabilitation and development programmes. A senior
SRRA official recently revealed to me that a STAR programme which stands for Sudan Transitional
Assistance for Rehabilitation has actually started. It is an American initiative to start with
rehabilitation activities during war in southern Sudan. It is based on strong conviction to the need to
rehabilitate now rather than waiting for the war to end. The programme is three dimensional. It
proposes to include economic recovery, to train the political leaders of the opposition organisation
(including SPLA) known as National Democratic Alliance, and raise the capacity of civil authorities.
The economic component covers the economic activities initiated by various institutions of the civil
society in ‘relatively stable counties in Western Equatoria and Lakes Provinces ‘ as put by the SRRA
official.
Southern Courts Under the Civil War and Islamic Laws
98. The few years that followed the start of the second Sudanese civil war in May 1983 witnessed rapid
and dramatic changes in Southern public life. The judicial administration was not exempted from
those changes. Southern Sudanese from various occupational backgrounds quit their positions and
joined the newly formed Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/SPLA) in large
numbers. Insurrection in the army, police, prison and wildlife forces was reported in each of the
Southern provinces. Armed men defected in various fashion and not all did so for purely political
reasons.
99. Some of these defections were tainted by criminal acts. In one incident in Rumbek in 1984, a group
of police officers attempted to assassinate Mr. Gabriel Mathiang Rok, the commissioner of Lakes
Province, when he went to visit his family in the police residence. He narrowly escaped, but those
police officers ended up gunning down two children. Two years later, the family sued the police
officers before an SPLA court and succeeded in getting compensation for the murdered children.
Later, in 1994, the same Commissioner became a member of the SPLM/A which the police officers
had joined earlier.
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