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EDITORIAL

EDITOR’S DESK

Big Breeders of Bad Publicity for South Sudan

anywhere around the airport? Our airport authorities may
claim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” for free for all
photography at South Sudan’s airports! But, is there such a
law in South Sudan or are individuals in authority acting on
their own, applying outdated practices from the old Sudan?
Internal enemies of South Sudan or of the current government
must already know all the nooks and crannies of that tiny
airport and need no aid from casual photographers or
reporters. Our only acknowledged external “enemy” from
north of the border is even suspected of being privy to all the
results of the weekly meetings of the South Sudan’s Council of
Ministers, leave alone knowledge of the dilapidated, dirty and
chaotic airport, a shameful legacy Khartoum vacated in 2005.
Any suspected potential enemy further afield needs no such
support from two-legged photographers or moviemakers.
Such distant spying moved a long time ago to inner space,
from where even something as small as a saloon car can be
There are four main areas of behavior which breed identified and destroyed, leave alone something as big as a
bad publicity for South Sudan: A growing paranoia building!
against the media, criminality, corruption and Can you remember how former US President Bill Clinton
ignorance. We exhibit all these characteristics each destroyed a suspected pharmacy in Khartoum North in
time we try to assert authority or try to brush them retaliation for President Bashir’s suspected support of the
aside as “normal in the process of nation-building”; terrorists who simultaneously bombed the US embassies in
often ending up looking like a naked person trying Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998? Residents of Khartoum
to cover private parts with bare hands against the could not help marvelling about the wonders of modern
camera! Let’s take a close look: warfare! Was the missile fired from a remote warship
somewhere in the middle of the Red Sea or did a stealth
aircraft delivered it so accurately? They kept asking themselves
As we descended from an international flight at Juba Airport and found no ready answers.
in January this year, a visitor began snapping excitedly All that was about fifteen years ago. Today, in the wake of
at anything in sight. He soon got a nasty shock when an remote spotting of the late Bin Laden’s secret hideout in
individual approached and ordered him to “stop taking Pakistan; the regular liquidation of Hamas leaders in the
photographs” and to “delete”, in his presence, “any pictures Gaza Strip by the Israelis; indeed the recent destruction
you have just taken!” of the Yarmouk military manufacturing facility in south
Fair enough. While it might have been perfectly legitimate to Khartoum by remote hands, blamed on the Israelis by Sudan’s
take photographs at civil airports where the visitor came from, government: there is no longer any hiding place for the likes
it is apparently not the case in South Sudan and in many of Juba Airport from real enemies.
civil airports in Africa. Airports have always been among With today’s space-based technology, the ground camera
the first targets of military coup-makers in Africa and they has been rendered out of date for identifying geographical
have remained sensitive locations even when such coups have locations. The invasive nature of modern technology and
generally receded. spying should really be taken with a sense of humour or as
But, why are airlines flying to South Sudan not issued selfishly as did a South African farmer who, when informed of
with directives to warn their passengers? Why are there no the marvels of modern photography from space, demanded:
“PHOTOGRAPHY PROHIBITED” signs to be seen “Can they identify the guys stealing my avocados?”

4 | Gurtong Focus Monthly February 2013