When I began my doctoral research among the nei ti naath of South(ern) Sudan in 1980, I did not set out to study civil warfare and military violence. My first two years of field study were completed during a period of relative calm between two devastating North/South civil wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005). After war erupted again in 1983, I continued to take shorter field trips to South(ern) Sudan, returning eight times between 1989 and 2003 for periods of study ranging from six weeks to six months before that war ended in 2005. I also expanded my research activities to include war-displaced Nuer communities located in greater Khartoum as well as refugee populations in Ethiopia, Kenya, USA, UK and Australia. Here I describe several dangerous situations I faced during my Sudan-based war-zone research activities and some lessons that I drew from them.

As political tensions in the south rapidly approached boiling point and security threats of all kinds intensified during late 1982 and early 1983, I, like many southern Sudanese women and girls, faced a rising ethos of sexual entitlement on the part of both southern and northern government soldiers then filtering down into the south. Were it not for my white skin and my American citizenship, I doubt I would have been able to complete all of the warzone research I did without having been raped. After all, I carried out my field research entirely on my own, without the support or company of a Nuer translator or research assistant. Like everyone else around me, I had no independent means of transportation and, like them, I often traveled long distances alone and on foot throughout rural regions of “Nuerland.” Everywhere I went in the countryside (rey cieng), I was welcomed and protected by Nuer men, women and children—a collective kindness for which I am deeply grateful. Regional cities and towns were different. I needed to take more precautions, especially if there was a population of northern soldiers present. In fact, the only times I felt truly vulnerable during my field research were all triggered by interactions I had with “government” military personnel.

One dangerous situation I faced began while I was traveling on a small, open-aired skiff or motorboat, together with a dozen Nuer men and women, along the upper White Nile. The skiff was owned by the “Egyptian Irrigation Department” but its Nuer pilot took on passengers for a fee. As I sat chatting merrily in Nuer with fellow passengers and taking photographs, off in the distance, a large unmarked merchant boat appeared. This was in early 1983, just months before the full fury of Sudan’s second civil war descended on this region. Unknown to passengers on the skiff, a Sudanese army patrol had commandeered the merchant boat. Spotting my camera, an Arabic-speaking Sudanese army soldier shouted at us through his bull horn and ordered our Nuer pilot to dock his skiff alongside the larger merchant boat. I was immediately ordered out of the skiff and onto the “army boat,” where five, uniformed, northern Sudanese soldiers aggressively interrogated and threatened me. Responding to their questions in Arabic, I explained that I did not photograph their boat. Nor could I have known that it was a military boat because it was not so labeled. I apologized for this misunderstanding, removed the film from my camera and gave it to them, as these soldiers demanded. But my compliance only seemed to make them angrier. They told me that they had the power to detain me indefinitely and that I would definitely be spending the night on their boat (with them). I was terrified. Meanwhile, the Nuer passengers in the skiff remained strapped to the side of the larger boat.

Just then, the boat’s Commanding Officer descended from the pilot’s look-out cabin. Unlike his soldiers, he was a southerner and a Dinka, who, I soon learned, also spoke Nuer. I was ordered to accompany him to the pilot’s cabin, where I spent the afternoon at his side, while he searched the river banks for southern “bandits.” By that time, I had learned quite a bit about his military career. He had fought against the central government during Sudan’s first civil war and was integrated into the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) as part of the final peace agreement. During our very civil conversation, I asked him if he expected to remain allied with SAF in the event that full-scale war returned to the south. He said, in that case, he would probably leave and join forces with the south.

As dusk fell, the Commander informed me that I would be spending the night on his boat. He gave me a “choice” between spending the night on the open lower deck (with five northern Sudanese soldiers) or remaining with him in the pilot’s cabin. Realizing that my chances of surviving a night below without being gang-raped by five northern soldiers were slim, I “chose” to spend the night on the upper deck with their commanding officer in his cabin.

The Commander’s expectations of me, although left stated, were obvious. I thought fast: How could I possibly survive the night unharmed? I began by expressing empathy for the Commander’s situation and by acknowledging how lonely he must feel during extended patrols far from his family. I then told him that I was very worried about the possibility of my becoming pregnant so far from my family and, for this reason, he and I would need to reach a “compromise” agreement. I would be willing to hug and kiss him, I said, but only if he first agreed never to touch me below the waist. He listened but said nothing. I then insisted that we shake hands, thereby formally accepting these “terms of engagement.” In struggling to protect myself as I did, I was drawing on a fairly deep understanding of rural Nuer courtship norms at that time, which held that it was the girl or woman who should determine “how far things go.” I was also calculating that Nuer courtship norms would be known to most Dinka men as well, even if not fully shared. The handshake was a foreign twist.

Fortunately, I was wearing jeans for the boat trip, not my standard dress, so as to better protect me from the river’s insatiable mosquitoes. As I lay with the commanding officer on his narrow berth/bed, I tried to soften him with every touch. However, there came a moment, as I feared, when he broke our agreement and forcibly tried to remove my pants. The narrow berth was high above the floor. When he persisted, despite my resistance and verbal protestations reminding him of our agreement, I managed to catch him off balance and, using the strength of my legs, I heaved him off the bed. He crashed hard against the floor. I held my breath. I thought: “Either he is going rise up furious, beat the hell out me and rape me or he is going to remember our handshake.” The Commander slowly picked himself off the floor, turned and glared at me for a moment, but then turned away and silently left the cabin. In the morning, I was formally released, together with the tethered skiff and its other passengers.

Although this was the nearest that I came to being raped during my Sudanese research activities, I experienced other close calls. Nevertheless, the central lesson I took from this incident—namely, “It’s never too late to negotiate”—proved helpful in defusing other tense encounters with representatives of “the government of the right” that did not run the risk of rape.

After Col. Omar Hassan al-Bashir seized control of the Government of Sudan in 1989, I continued to carry out field research in war-battered Nuer communities within the southern warzone as well as in the north, where I followed growing numbers of war-displaced Nuer men, women and children fleeing the expanding military destruction in the south. My first responsibility as a scholar and foreign researcher was to protect the personal identities and security of the many Nuer men, women and children with whom I collaborated from becoming known by agents of “the government”—however defined by Nuer communities visited. This was especially challenging during my research trips to Khartoum, where uniformed and non-uniformed government agents seemed to be everywhere. When working there, I decided that it was best to be as transparent as possible about my research activities, although not all of them. I also relied, whenever possible, on the good will and support of Nuer friendships and acquaintances that I had earlier forged in the south. I also used my fluency in Sudanese Arabic more strategically. Sometimes I revealed my linguistic skills to try to impress or confuse hostile government security agents. At other times, I pretended not to understand Arabic. It is amazing what people will say in your presence when they assume you will not understand.

My primary research language, however, was always Nuer. Sometimes when in Khartoum, I would invite three or four, English-literate, Nuer research collaborators to have tea with me in the public lobby of my hotel. There we would discuss and exchange drafts of my research writings for hours at a time, switching our conversations freely between English and Nuer. Whenever suspicious hotel or government security agents approached me to inquire about the purpose of these meetings, I answered honestly, saying: “I don’t think it is right when foreign researchers come to Sudan, collect a lot of information, return to their home countries and publish their research findings without first verifying that conclusions are valid. That’s why I am here now in Khartoum. I want to consult with as many Nuer men and women as possible so that I can make sure my research findings are correct before publishing them.” I would then cheerfully offer to provide my interrogator with a sample of my unpublished writings—an offer that, much to my surprise, was never taken up. These open and forthright explanations of part of my research motives proved remarkably effective in disarming skeptical government security agents. However, this approach was not always effective.

For instance, I was detained in Khartoum by a plain-clothed government security agent during December 1989. My offense? Fluency in the Nuer language, an ability revealed during an animated conversation I had with a young Nuer friend while drinking “Pepsi” in a public café. When I got up to pay our bill, the agent approached my friend and demanded in Arabic to know who I was, how he came to know me and why I spoke his language so well? My friend, who was not skilled in Arabic, answered as best he could. He then suggested the officer redirect his questions to me, adding: “She speaks Arabic.” So, I, too, answered these questions, freely and openly. But the security agent was not satisfied. He ordered my friend to leave and ordered me to accompany him on foot to the central office of the Khartoum Police. While I stood waiting nervously in the lobby of the police station, which was crowded with northern and southern Sudanese police officers milling about, one of them approached me. Lifting his wrap-around sunglasses, he took a closer look at me and announced in Nuer: “You’re Nyarial! Don’t you remember me? I am Gatluak. I knew you years ago when you were living out in the countryside near Bentiu [Western Upper Nile].” “Remember Muhammed,” he continued, “who was head of the Bentiu police? Well, he knew you then, too, and now he is Chief of the Khartoum Police.”

Moments later, I was ushered into the Muhammad’s office, where I was received with remarkable warmth and good will. Muhammed reminded me of a lift he had once given me in his Toyota between Bentiu and Mayom in 1982. I responded warmly and, over a cup of tea, I explained my research aims in coming to Khartoum, and asked him whether or not it would be possible for him to provide me with an official letter so that I could visit “my Nuer friends” from Bentiu now living in spontaneous settlements scattered throughout greater Khartoum. He readily obliged. The next day, I went to the University of Khartoum, where I had been an official student during my dissertation research, and where I successfully requested a second official permission letter—this one allowing me to carry a camera and take pictures as long as I refrained from photographing any military sites or personnel.

Consequently, when I was arrested a few days later while taking photographs of a small Nuer settlement scheduled to be forcibly demolished later that day, I had with me all the required government paperwork necessary to justify my presence and activities. I was dressed very modestly, wearing a lengthy, long-sleeved dress, complete with a colorful head-scarf tied at the back. This was my standard dress code when working in Khartoum, and part of my broader efforts to project and maintain a more neutral or ambiguous social status that could not be readily characterized by suspicious government security agents as favoring one side or the other of Sudan’s intensifying civil war.

My second arrest was made by a group of gun-wielding army soldiers riding in a Toyota pickup truck. After I refused their demands to give them my camera, these soldiers ordered me into their truck and drove me to the central office of, what was commonly known at that time, as “Islamic Security,” where I faced a much more hostile interrogating officer. I was extremely worried that I would be forced to hand over the film in my camera because I knew that it could be used to track my earlier movements and potentially expose the identities of some of the war-displaced Nuer men and women I had met during the previous two days. Seeing nothing but a large, green, leather-bound copy of the Holy Quran on my interrogator’s desk, I tried to counter whatever preconceived notions he may have had about the political leanings of a white American woman discovered, camera in hand, at a spontaneous settlement of war-displaced southern Sudanese civilians who were about to have their make-shift houses forcibly destroyed. I decided to try to impress him with my knowledge of both Arabic and Islam. After handing over my official permission letters, I gradually switched our conversation from English to Arabic, explaining that I had studied both Arabic and Islam intensively during a full year of advanced training in Cairo, Egypt during the late 1970s. At one point, I spontaneously recited for him the opening sura of the Holy Quran for him in well-accented Arabic.

After making several phone calls in my presence to verify the authenticity of my permission letters, he briefly left his office. I quickly removed the film from my camera, replaced it with a blank roll and slipped the old film into my headscarf. The officer returned moments later and, after making a few more phone calls, he demanded the film in my camera, which I gave him. He then said I was free to go. However, I was petrified that the film loosely tucked into my headscarf would fall to the floor when I rose to leave his office. Luckily, it did not. This official, however, retained my permission letters and said as I departed: “Stay away from the displaced camps!”

This put me in a dilemma. Should I obey this command or continue my research program? I am not thinking here about the personal risks of potential disobedience on my part but, more generally, about my obligations as a foreign researcher to a security cabal that had only recently seized power from a “democratically” elected national government administration in a coup d’etat? Granted that this newly installed regime now controlled the Presidential Palace, the army’s barracks and all TV and radio broadcasting stations. But it was also brutally oppressing not only the war-displaced southern Sudanese communities I was researching in Khartoum but also large portions of the then-united Sudan’s citizenry in the south, north, west and east of the country.

Certainly, some information I was gathering, both intentionally and inadvertently, was not in the political interests of the coup’s leadership. Was I supposed to blind myself to the government brutality going on all around me by ignoring, for example, the southern school boys I watched being dragged from public buses, beaten, abducted and, sometimes only days later, being forcibly conscripted and sent off to fight against their southern brothers in the South? Just wandering around the central market square of Khartoum, I could see and speak with southern Sudanese widows being lashed for trying to sell cups of tea and/or beer from their homes in order to feed their children. As a foreign researcher obligated to abide by all national laws, was I responsible for disseminating information about serious human rights abuses I witnessed, or not? If so, when and to whom? And what was I supposed to do detailed accounts of government beatings, extra-judicial executions and rape voluntarily offered by diverse individuals? Let’s say I managed to gain entry to the women’s prison in Omdurman and to document the abysmal living conditions there. What was I supposed to do with this information? Sometimes it was possible to disseminate such information anonymously through various international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the International Crisis Group. However, some information was “too hot” for even these organizations to publish. And this is the sort of information that continued to weigh heavily upon me, sometimes for years. Sometimes I knew things that I wished I didn’t know. Self-censorship, of course, is always an option, and sometimes a security necessity. However, at what point does an ethic of selective silence become an act of complicity?

I faced parallel moral dilemmas while working in opposition-controlled regions in the south throughout Sudan’s second civil war. There, too, I frequently stumbled upon serious allegations of human rights violations and military atrocities, including extra-judicial executions, forced childhood conscriptions, cattle theft and rape overseen by specific commanding officers allied with the Khartoum Government as well as with southern opposition forces allied either with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) or with ever-growing number of spin-off southern military factions and regional warlords, some of whom abruptly shifted their allegiances multiple times during the course of that war. Nearly every commanding southern military leader, moreover, identified himself as “the government” to civilians living within the territories under his military control. Much like their northern government counterparts, they, too, ultimately grounded their “political sovereignty claims” on the demonstrated power to kill others with impunity.

I thus found myself caught up in a war of churning information in which all parties in the conflict tried to bury some “truths”. Within environments as politically explosive as those of Sudan and South Sudan, there are problems both with taking sides and with not taking sides. Neutrality or impartiality is  an illusion. Yet it is a vital illusion that I sought to maintain in order to protect the personal identities and physical security of the many hundreds of Nuer women, men and children who actively protected me while simultaneously contributing to the success of my wartime research activities. Thank you.