A delegation from the UN Security Council visited South Sudan at the beginning of September 2016. UN Photo/Isaac Billy.

By Jonathan Rozen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2016 (IPS)

Nearly one month after UN Security Council members visited troubled South Sudan, disagreement reigns over even the limited outside measures proposed to try to bring the security situation in the world’s newest country under control.

“To fix South Sudan you will need 250,000 soldiers, you will need four or five billion dollars per year. Who is going to do that? Nobody.” Berouk Messfin, Senior Researcher with the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa, told IPS.

While it is clear that neither an arms embargo nor an additional 4000 UN troops – two measures currently on the table – will be a panacea for troubled South Sudan, there is a slim hope that they may pressure the country’s leadership to act in the interests of its people.

As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told a high-level meeting on South Sudan’s humanitarian situation on September 22: “Time and again, (South Sudan’s) leaders have resorted to weapons and identity politics to resolve their differences.”

For three days in early September Security Council members traveled to South Sudan. At the end of the visit a ‘joint communiqué’ was issued that seemingly brokered an agreement with the interim Transitional Government of National Unity. It outlined the strengthening of the existing 12,000-troop UN peacekeeping mission (UNMISS) through an additional 4000-troop Regional Protection Force, and the removal of restrictions to humanitarian access. But in the days since the communiqué, South Sudanese officials have insisted that specifics of the additional force remain unresolved.

“We have agreed in principle … but the details of their deployment, the countries that will contribute … that is the work that is left now,” Hussein Mar Nyuot, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management for the South Sudan government told IPS. “I don’t see the difference that this [4000] will come and do.”

The proposed additional force would be under the command of UNMISS and was endorsed in July by the east African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) body leading the South Sudan peace talks. Building on UNMISS’ existing mandate, which already calls for the “use all necessary means” to protect UN personnel and civilians from threats, the Security Council believes the additional troops would strengthen the security situation.

The force is to be deployed as soon as possible, Hervé Ladsous, Under Secretary General for UN Peacekeeping Operations, told reporters Friday. Though he also said they were trying to elucidate “contradictory statements” from the capital, Juba.

In this context, human rights advocacy groups, along with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have continued their calls for the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo to stop both sides’ continued militarization.

“It’s going to be more difficult for parties to the conflict to get access to ammunition and supplies,” Louis Charbonneau, UN Director for Human Rights Watch, told IPS. “Combine it with the boosting of UNMISS … [and] it’s going to make a difference for civilians.”

However, the South Sudanese government, whose soldiers have been implicated in ethnically motivated killings, rape, and looting, disagrees on the value of an embargo.

“[The] issue is not actually the arms that are coming … even if you have an arms embargo there are already arms in the hands of the local people … the arms that are coming in are not actually the ones causing any problems,” Hussein Mar Nyuot told IPS.

If they say they want to have [an] arms embargo, ok, but what will you do with the arms that are in the hands of the people?” he continued. “We should encourage the government to disarm the civilian population.”

Peacekeepers and UN police officers (UNPOL) with the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Credit: UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein

As a party to the conflict, South Sudan’s government is not impartial in their position, however they are also not entirely alone in their hesitance. “[An embargo] has to be a last course … we are not there yet,” Mahboub Maalim, Executive Secretary of IGAD, told IPS.

Despite the existing arms in the country and the potential for continued illicit inflows, targeted sanctions by the Security Council may signal deeper commitment to ending the violence and protecting civilians. Nevertheless, neither an embargo nor 4000 additional troops will cure the political divisions among South Sudan’s leadership, which lie at the heart of the conflict.

Paths forward

“The South Sudanese have a string to hang on now … and that is the implementation of the [August 2015] agreement,” Maalim said. “It has had some problems because of the July incident, but it’s going to come on track,” he added referring to violent clashes which took place in South Sudan in July, bringing the country to the brink of all-out war.

However, not everyone agrees on the viability of the previous agreement.

“You have two sides that are not negotiating in good faith … who do not understand how to implement peace agreements they have signed,” said Messfin.

So what is to be done? Beyond the intended value for the protection of civilians, additional troops and restrictions will only go so far without political commitment from the country’s leadership.

Conflict prevention in South Sudan is about strategically applied political leverage, Cedric de Conning, Senior Researcher at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, explained to IPS.

A protection force like a reinforced peacekeeping mission can only implement what is agreed to politically, and the warring parties are not committed and remain mistrustful. While immediate action is necessary to save lives, there will eventually need to be a “reset” and a new administration, he continued.

Meanwhile, civil society groups have also reported increased repression of their activities, indicating a further weakening of South Sudan’s social resilience.

“There has been a steady uptick in press freedom violations in South Sudan in recent months,” Murithi Mutiga, East Africa correspondent for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IPS. “We have seen a number of cases of newspaper outlets being arbitrarily closed down, the most prominent cases being the Nation Mirror and the Juba Monitor.”

Press freedom can support the pursuit of a sustained cessation of hostilities, urged CPJ, because accurate and accessible public information allows citizens to better understand how to react to crises without turning to violence. A well-informed population may also be better positioned to define a peaceful future for their country.

The importance of uninhibited civil society for conflict prevention also matches the priorities outlined in two identical resolutions passed by the UN Security Council and General Assembly in April, which recognize pathways to “sustaining peace.” Notably, this includes the development and maintenance of social, political and economic conditions necessary for conflict to be prevented.

South Sudan has experienced persistent violence since 2013, when armed conflict broke out between groups loyal to president Salva Kiir and opposition leader in exile Riek Machar. Fighting escalated along ethnic lines, pitting Dinka against Nuer, until a peace agreement was signed in August 2015. But fighting continued and escalated in July 2016 with a series of clashes in Juba, which left approximately 300 dead. Over the last three years thousands have been killed, over 1.6 million people remain internally displaced, and roughly 4.8 million currently suffer from food insecurity, according to the UN.

While the implementation of September’s joint communiqué will be reviewed with next steps considered at the end of the month, South Sudan’s Humanitarian Response Plan is severely under-funded at just over 50 percent; despite there being no doubt that South Sudan needs immediate assistance.

But this will only serve as a stop-gap against man-made famine. While the Security Council may still unite for the application of an embargo, the fate of South Sudan ultimately lies with its leadership. Their ability to find a lasting agreement, with support from the UN, the African Union, and IGAD, hinges on their willingness to stop the conflict.

“The lives and future of an entire generation hang in the balance,” Anthony Lake, Executive Director of UNICEF, said Thursday. “Literally the future of South Sudan.”

A man and his daughter return to Bor town, Jonglei state after the fierce fighting in the state and across the country largely ended in January. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Charlton Doki
JUBA, Feb 27 2014 (IPS)

Gatmai Deng lost three family members in the violence that erupted in South Sudan on Dec. 15 and lasted until the end of January. And he blames their deaths on the government’s failure to use the country’s vast oil revenues to create a better life for its almost 11 million people.

When the country gained independence from Sudan in 2011, many hoped that their new government would provide them with the services that successive Sudanese governments had denied the South Sudanese, Gatmai tells IPS.

“But that government is no different from the Khartoum governments that marginalised South Sudanese citizens. Where are the hospitals? Where are the schools, where is the clean drinking water they promised us?” Gatmai asks.“It became easy to recruit those who felt excluded from the country’s wealth into hostile activities.” -- Dr. Leben Nelson Moro, professor of development studies at Juba University

South Sudan earns 98 percent of its revenue from oil exports. Between 2005 and 2012 – when the country stopped production because of a pipeline dispute with Sudan – South Sudan earned more than 10 billion dollars from oil exports, according to both government and World Bank officials.

When South Sudan resumed oil production in April 2013, the Ministry of Petroleum reported that it made 1.3 billion dollars in the first six months of production.

But despite this, most parts of the country are inaccessible by road. So far, South Sudan has slightly more than 110 kilometres of tarmac roads in the capital, Juba. There is only one 120-kilometre tarmac highway linking Juba to the border with neighbouring Uganda.

“I think the oil money is benefiting [President] Salva Kiir and his ministers,” Gatmai says from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, where he sought refuge following the outbreak of violence in his country. The fighting left thousands dead and wounded, displacing 863,000 others.

According to an interim human rights report released by the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan on Feb. 23, mass ethnic-based killings, gang rapes and torture were carried out by government troops and various opposition militia. Battles were fiercest in Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Central Equatoria states.

But analysts agree with Gatmai that the economic conditions here, characterised by high unemployment amongst the youth, an almost non-existent private sector and an over-dependence on the government as the biggest sole employer, may have contributed to the current conflict.

Dr. Leben Nelson Moro, professor of development studies at Juba University tells IPS that oil has been more a curse than a blessing for South Sudan. Moro says once the violence started, “it became easy to recruit those who felt excluded from the country’s wealth into hostile activities.

“A lot of the oil revenues were taken by a few people in positions of authority. Services were not provided to large sections of the population. We don’t have roads [and] we don’t have other basic services such as health care,” Moro points out.

“The revenues were not used to generate employment for young people. This generated some grievance against the few people in government who seem to be benefiting from the country’s resources,” Moro says.

In practice, the government has no policy or strategy to increase the social economic integration of its youth.

A large majority of the population relies on the agriculture sector for survival and employment. However, the government is the single biggest employer in the country.

Badru Mulumba, editor of The New Times newspaper and a political commentator, tells IPS that it is this reliance on the government that led to the current conflict.

“In this case politicians who found themselves out of power wanted to get back to positions of power in order to sustain their influence back in their communities,” he says.

He explains that many ordinary, unemployed people looked towards their relatives in government  being in positions of power as their source of income and livelihood.

“If ordinary people had independent sources of income outside of the government, they wouldn’t have followed politicians who took up arms against those in power,” Mulumba explains.

According to the World Bank’s African Economic Outlook for 2012, youth unemployment in South Sudan remains quite high.

“Insufficient labour demand, lack of skilled labour supply, absence of a coherent government policy, and the lack of a sound legal and regulatory framework limit the absorption of youth by the labour market,” the document says.

There are no official figures on the rate of youth unemployment but figures from Oxfam International show that only 12 percent of women and 11 percent of men within the active population are formally employed.  

The reliance on livestock by the country’s largest ethnic groups may have also contributed to the instability here. Both the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups, among others, use cattle to pay bride price, pay compensation and penalties under customary law and even exchange cattle for food.

“A large population of the country relies on a cattle economy, so people somehow accept this culture where you can raid cattle from the rival communities so you can accumulate more and become powerful,” Mulumba says.

Between July 2011 and December 2012 alone, more than 3,000 civilians died in inter-communal fighting connected with cattle raiding in South Sudan’s Jonglei, Lakes, Unity and Warap states.

Anne Lino Wuor, a legislator from the country’s restive Jonglei state believes that if leaders engaged young people and provided them with jobs, they would abandon cattle raiding.

“I do think that the only way to bring stability and peace to South Sudan is through development,” Wuor tells IPS.

Pinyjwok Akol Ajawin, director general for youth at the Culture, Youth and Sports Ministry, tells IPS that the country’s “youth got politically manipulated”.

“They are following their elders and their tribesman. That’s why we are trying to reach out to them [to] enlighten them. Let them know that they are the youth of one country, they belong to South Sudan and they must co-exist so that they see themselves as brothers with those they are trying to fight.”

A National Youth Crisis Management Committee, a community service initiative for the youth, has been created with support from the government.

“This is the only way to keep young South Sudanese busy and to discourage them from joining the ongoing conflict between government and anti-government forces,” Ajawin says.

Edmond Yakani, executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation, believes otherwise.

“It is only thorough economic reforms that we shall bring stability to this country,” he tells IPS.

A contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers arrives in Juba, South Sudan from Haiti on Feb. 4 to support UNMISS, after an outbreak of violence in mid-December between pro- and anti-government forces. Credit: UN Photo/Isaac Billy

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 2014 (IPS)

An interim human rights report released by the beleaguered U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan is being tentatively hailed by rights groups and observers who have pressured the mission to be more transparent with its findings.

The report, delivered to the Security Council Friday and tweeted by the mission, UNMISS, on Sunday, is an overview of evidence collected by its roughly 80 human rights officers dating from the outbreak of violence on Dec. 15 through the end of January.“Malakal is deserted, with houses burned throughout and countless dead bodies strewn in the streets.” -- Carlos Francisco

Jehanne Henry, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, who returned last week from Bentiu and Rubkona, said she welcomed the report but stressed that in a country beset by impunity, regular reporting from the mission would serve as a powerful deterrent against atrocities.

“This is definitely a good step, but it is also clear that this is an interim report,” Henry told IPS, adding that the mission didn’t provide “any recommendations, fact-finding or legal analysis.”

“We would have wanted to see more regular public reporting that might have prevented some of this,” said Henry.

Based on more than 500 interviews with civilians and officials, the report contains accounts of mass ethnic-based killings, gang-rapes and torture carried out by government troops and various militias in opposition.

The report focused on allegations of human rights violations in what it called the four “red” states – Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Central Equatoria – where battles were fiercest. It is clear, the authors wrote, “that civilians bore the brunt of much of the fighting and that gross violations of human rights were committed.”

The mission said it was also investigating reported mass grave sites in Juba, Bentiu and Rubkona.

Shortly after fighting broke out in Juba, the report states, “Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers were reported to have engaged in targeting killings of civilians of Nuer origin following house-to-house searches.”

Meanwhile, in the strategic oil city of Malakal, Dinka civilians were the alleged targets of defected Nuer SPLA and national police elements and of the so-called Nuer White Army.

The report came as a surprise to some observers who had expected nothing public until the end of April, when the mission delivers its full report to the Security Council.

But the interim document does not contain charges or name individuals under investigation. UNMISS human rights chief Ibrahim Wani defended that decision Wednesday, saying “the most important response to such allegations is obviously the credibility of the report itself.”

Outside of what it sends the Security Council, UNMISS has released publicly only two human rights reports in its nearly three-year history.

Ceasefire ignored

Both sides in the conflict appear to be ignoring the cessation of hostilities reached by negotiators in Addis Ababa on Jan. 23. Shortly after it was signed, government forces reportedly retook Leer, the hometown of rebel-leader Riek Machar, burning down much of the town and forcing thousands to flee.

On the day of the interim report’s release, the U.N. said it had found 50 bodies in Malakal and more at a local teaching hospital where the medical charity MSF said many had been shot through the head, execution-style.

“Malakal is deserted, with houses burned throughout and countless dead bodies strewn in the streets,” said Carlos Francisco, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Malakal.

On Sunday, the British NGO Oxfam was forced to evacuate all of its workers from the city.

Malakal has already changed hands at least five times and the ethnic makeup of the overflowing U.N. camp there largely depends on what army is currently laying siege to the city.

Last week, the U.N. base there reported that during gun battles outside its walls, inter-ethnic fighting broke out within the camp, resulting in the deaths of six and injuring more than 43. Though UNMISS denied it via Twitter, former BBC journalist Martin Plaut reported fighting took place at the Malakal camp not only between displaced persons but between local U.N. employees.

Pressure on UNMISS

On Feb. 11, a mission spokeswoman informed IPS the interim report wouldn’t be public but rather was “an internal report similar to a roadmap that will indicate trends based on initial findings and lead to” the late April Security Council Report.

Sources at the U.N. who were aware of the report’s delivery to the Security Council Friday said they were unsure until the last moment whether it would be made public. Though the report stresses its findings are still provisional, it does appear the mission changed its mind at some point over the past several weeks and decided to post the 21-page document publicly on its website.

UNMISS’ special representative Hilde Johnson has come under criticism for her perceived closeness with the government of President Salva Kiir. Human rights groups specifically alleged that the mission under her command should have been more vocal, via regular reporting, about human rights violations that foreshadowed the current conflict.

Hilde Johnson, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for South Sudan and Head of the UN mission in the country (UNMISS), speaks at U.N. Day celebrations organized by UNMISS in South Sudanese capital Juba on Oct. 24, 2012. Credit: UN Photo/Isaac Billy

Observers close to the U.N. and UNMISS suggest that when the mission’s mandate is renewed – as it is expected to be – in July, a new special representative will likely be appointed. One diplomatic source who spoke with IPS anonymously said Johnson, feeling heat from U.N. headquarters over her bunker mentality and paralysis over reporting, is perhaps now less inclined to safeguard relations with a government more belligerent towards her by the day.

In a statement that accompanied the release, Johnson spoke of accountability and said “without bringing to justice the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes, revenge and impunity is likely to lead to a perpetual cycle of violence.”

“Some observers say she was too close to the government,” D’Souza told IPS.

“But in this position, it shows that they are working to be seen as more impartial – throughout the report, there were signs that SPLA soldiers were engaged in targeting of civilians, said D’Souza. “By being impartial, you come under pressure from one side or the other.”

Indeed, upon learning of it, a government spokesperson called the interim report “pure fabrication.”

Impunity

South Sudan’s 2011 independence failed to bring about a mechanism for south-on-south justice, allowing longstanding schisms in the ruling SPLM to metastasise into a body politic that only staved off collapse by rewarding rebel leaders with ministries and by applying the salve of oil money to succour displeased leaders.

Those schemes came to an abrupt halt on Dec 15, when Kiir, a Dinka, accused his former vice-president and longtime rebel comrade Machar of plotting a coup. Machar denied those charges but fled to take control of a mostly-Nuer rebel force, though his command over erratic groups with local grievances has been questioned throughout the conflict.

Soon after violence began, the African Union (AU) began piecing together a commission of inquiry into the conflict. Recent efforts by the AU to distance itself from the International Criminal Court (ICC) has led to suspicions that the inquiry is at least in part an effort to elude the spectacle of yet another African leader on trial in the Hague.

“You can probably argue that some countries want to sidestep the ICC, however the commission of inquiry is still a huge deal,” said D’Souza. “It is very important for the international community to open its own investigation to complement national initiative.”

“South Sudan has a history of impunity which perpetuates the cycle of intercommunal violence. It’s absolutely critical that UNMISS human rights officers are able to interview senior leadership of both the government and the opposition to analyse the command and control structure and see who should be held accountable within them.”

UNMISS peacekeepers hoist the United Nations flag during a ceremony marking UN Day. Credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 1 2014 (IPS)

As South Sudan’s fragile ceasefire threatens to unravel, human rights groups are calling on the U.N.’s mission there to make public its human rights reporting, a step they say will help lay the groundwork for reconciliation that never took place following independence in 2011.

Though the mission, UNMISS, reports to the Security Council every four months and periodically publishes press releases, it is not mandated to make public the information its human rights division collects."In UNMISS a lot of the leadership believed they were there to capacity-build the government. That mindset has to change now – with this conflict it’s very clear that this government is party to a conflict.” -- Jehanne Henry

While missions often elect to put out human rights reports regardless of their mandate, as UNMISS has done twice since its creation in 2011, observers and U.N. officials tell IPS many reports are filtered through back channels to U.N. headquarters or via longstanding private connections to human rights organisations.

With no transparency mechanism, they say, oversight is difficult and self-reflection rare. Complicating matters are Security Council members that rely on their own sources in the country and within the mission.

“We’ve been concerned by the lack of public reporting coming out of the mission, especially when you compare it to the output of other missions such as the one in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Ivory Coast,” said Philippe Bolopion, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch.

“In a country where you have entrenched impunity, including for crimes committed by security forces, it’s all the more important that the U.N. reach out and report on abuses, whoever committed them, and the U.N. Mission has not always done that,” Bolopion told IPS.

In a statement, the mission told IPS that it “does not keep information from the public but we don’t go into specifics, especially not while in the process of collecting evidence – which again will only be possible when we have regained full access throughout the country or at least all areas affected by violence.”

“UNMISS will continue to publish reports and will continue to remain impartial in documenting, collecting and interviewing eyewitnesses from all sides and in all areas of the conflict,” said a spokesperson.

The mission did not respond to questions concerning the private dissemination of human rights reporting.

Observers agree that due to concerns over security and accuracy, releasing reports now is difficult. But complaints well preceded the current violence, says Michelle Kisenkoetter, representative to the U.N. at the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

“FIDH has been calling for a long time for public human rights reports coming out of U.N. peacekeeping missions and the situation in South Sudan is a perfect example of where that is extremely important,” she said.

“[It’s] an area where the U.N. is the only one with access to the community in many parts of the country. They have a mandate to be observing and monitoring the human rights situation and it’s imperative that those reports go public so we can shed some light on what’s happening.

“We’ve brought it up with the secretary general’s office, we’ve brought it up with the Security Council, we’ve brought it up with UNMISS itself, and we haven’t really received much of a response from them on this,” Kisenkoetter told IPS.

The last human rights report from UNMISS was released in April 2013, several months before communal violence in Jonglei state that would presage the current conflict.

One observer at a large international think tank told IPS the public reporting “ has been very limited and systematically downplaying the extent of the abuses, including on the violence in Jonglei, where I believe the ethnic dimension and the government’s (or government officials’) lack of appropriate reaction if not direct responsibility should have been publicly and clearly invoked.”

Bloodshed foretold?

Long-simmering mistrust within the ruling SPLM party erupted on Dec. 15 when rival factions clashed in Juba. President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, accused former vice-president Riek Machar, whom he had sacked in July, of plotting a coup. Machar, a Nuer, denied those charges but fled and took command of rebels and SPLA deserters. Soon after, fighting devolved into vicious ethnic clashes.

On Dec. 24, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said teams had encountered mass graves in both Juba and Bentiu and reported extensive “extrajudicial killings” and “the targeting of individuals on the basis of their ethnicity.”

The U.N. has indicated it will offer information – privately – to assist a recently announced African Union commission of inquiry, the details of which have yet to be fully established.

On Jan. 23, with rebels losing ground to government and Ugandan forces and running out of food and ammunition, negotiators in Addis Ababa agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities. Both sides have since accused one another of breaking its terms.

Though overseen by U.N. headquarters, each mission’s special representative is given broad latitude to dictate internal policies and maintain lines of communication with sources that may also be the target of investigations. Hilde Johnson, appointed to lead UNMISS in 2011 with backing from then U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, has maintained a relatively low profile and according to observers, a cautious, in-house management style.

A large NGO presence and heavy Western funding have fostered allegations the intervention relied too heavily on development to head off lasting grievances, seeing the potential for a north-south conflict but not an internal civil war.

Relations between the U.N. and the southern government soured in May 2011 when Sudanese forces seized the contested border region of Abyei. At the time, U.N. officials said southern incursions had provoked violence.

In November 2012, Kiir expelled a top UNMISS human rights official for “unethical” reporting. Shortly before the January ceasefire, he accused UNMISS of sheltering rebels and “running a parallel government.”

“There’s a constant tension between the importance of having access on the ground and the requirement of fulfilling the mandate as laid out by the Security Council,” said one U.N. official, who spoke to IPS on the condition of anonymity.

“Human rights reporting is always controversial in missions – the category of U.N. staff that gets thrown out of the country by the host governments are inevitably human rights officers. Nevertheless, their work is critical to the U.N.’s credibility.”

But other observers tell IPS the mission played only a small role in peace negotiations and have become preoccupied with maintaining their position in South Sudan.

“The effectiveness of a peacekeeping mission is always complicated by the relationship with the government and understandings of mandates,” said Jehanne Henry, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch who has been compiling reports in South Sudan since the outbreak of violence.

“But it’s very clear that in UNMISS a lot of the leadership believed they were there to capacity-build the government. That mindset has to change now – with this conflict it’s very clear that this government is party to a conflict.”

“Their human rights reporting should have been more regular and public,” said Henry. “You can make the argument very clearly [that] the atrocities that were committed in Jonglei wouldn’t have been committed as they were if the government felt it was really being watched and called out.”

Kisenkoetter says the tenuous state of emergency surrounding the ceasefire furthers the sense that accountability will be pushed down the road. Public reporting and establishing a precedent for transparency is vital in a country where a 2005 peace agreement with the north included no justice mechanism for south-on-south violence, she says.

“This is precisely why the U.N. and international community needs to take seriously its role of ensuring justice and ensuring political reconciliation – if we leave it the military victor to rule, that’s the greatest mistake we can make.”

UNMISS officers provide water to civilians seeking refuge from fighting in Juba on Dec. 17, 2013. Credit: UN Photo/UNMISS

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 11 2014 (IPS)

As the death toll rises from South Sudan’s spiraling political and ethnic conflict, the ability of the U.N. to enforce its peacekeeping mandate in the country is coming under increased scrutiny.

On Thursday, U.N. under-secretary general for peacekeeping Hervé Ladsous told reporters the toll well exceeded 1,000 and reiterated that “the situation in terms of violations of human rights remains terribly critical.” The next day, the International Crisis Group released its own estimates that put the figure at up to 10,000."It's 11 million people across a country the size of France. How could we promise that we could protect everyone all of the time against everybody?” -- Kieran Dwyer of DPKO

Yet since the deaths of two Indian peacekeepers during a Dec. 19 attack by Nuer militia on an UNMISS base in Jonglei State, the U.N. has engaged militarily neither the loose coalition of rebel forces led by former vice-president Riek Machar nor government SPLA troops fighting for President Salva Kiir.

Vastly outnumbered by combatants, peacekeepers have been directed to protect UNMISS compounds where NGOs and the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, have struggled to provide for upwards of 60,000 displaced South Sudanese who have sought shelter.

“We cannot protect those people from being overrun while at the same time doing patrolling in an area the size of France,” said Kieran Dwyer, chief of public affairs at the U.N.’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).

As fighting raged and the government appeared to retake the northern city of Bentiu Friday, Mongolian peacekeepers there remained near the city’s compound, where 9,000 residents had taken refuge.

“It’s not our job to stand in the way of the anti-government forces fighting the pro-government forces,” Dwyer told IPS.

Dwyer says UNMISS utilises local channels to inform combatants of the location of civilians and threatens them with accountability should they attack, but he admits peacekeepers themselves are fearful of being overwhelmed and killed and even of reprisal attacks within UNMISS camps if they were to engage one side or the other in a firefight.

That state of affairs means little stands in the way of potential human rights violators, says Cameron Hudson, director of policy at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and former director for African Affairs at the National Security Council.

“You can’t do peacekeeping with the mentality that you accept zero casualties,” Hudson told IPS. “If that’s how you enter into these missions, they will never be fully successful and carry out their mission mandates.”

Fighting began on Dec. 15 when Nuer and Dinka factions of the SPLA skirmished in the capital. President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, immediately ordered the arrest of 11 high-profile opposition leaders and accused Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup, a charge Macher has denied. Despite international scepticism of Kiir’s account, Machar fled Juba and took command of rebels.

The rebellion has displaced 400,000 people and pushed unknown numbers into the bush where they remain unreachable by humanitarian agencies and peacekeepers. The fate of those who fled their homes but didn’t make it to U.N. compounds lingers as a glaring question that neither the U.N. nor its critics appear capable of answering.

Human rights

The violence comes as the U.N. unveils “Rights Up Front,” its new genocide prevention initiative – an attempt to address failures to avoid civilian deaths in past conflicts in places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.

Though it remains unclear how many civilians have perished in South Sudan, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in December reported mass graves had been found in Juba and Bentiu and cited “extrajudicial killings” and “the targeting of individuals on the basis of their ethnicity.” Observers believe more will be uncovered.

“It is irrefutable, and needs repeating, that serious human rights violations are the best early warning of impending atrocities,” said Deputy Secrety-General Jan Eliasson, speaking before the General Assembly on “Rights Up Front.”

But in South Sudan, UNMISS has been tentative.

“They don’t have that many forces on the ground,” said EJ Hogendoorn, deputy programme director for Africa at the Crisis Group. “They also obviously have significant logistic challenges in terms of moving around safely.”

Still, in a Christmas Eve letter to the U.N. secretary general, Crisis Group President and CEO Louise Arbour wrote that the U.N. needed to do more to ensure the safety of civilians.

“We feel that UNMISS, using its existing forces until additional troops arrive, should take a number of immediate, specific steps to prioritise protection of civilians, above all other mandated tasks,” said Arbour.

“Clearly not enough is known about what’s going on,” Hogendoorn told IPS. “This is part and parcel of the fact that peacekeepers are not patrolling as much as they normally would.”

From its beginning in 2011, UNMISS was mandated to protect with force “civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.” But despite signs of political instability in the SPLM governing coalition and an uprising earlier in 2013 in Jonglei state, the mission remained unequipped to prevent or intervene in violence on the scale seen in the past month.

On Dec. 26, Hilde Johnson, the U.N. special representative to South Sudan, told reporters, “I don’t think any South Sudanese nor any of us observers in country or outside expected the unraveling of the stability so quickly.”

But others have said those investments meant the U.N., Johnson, and NGOs on the ground were more hesitant to criticise the government and highlight warning signs.

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, says UNMISS was unprepared from the start. After South Sudan declared independence in 2011, peacekeepers that had already been in the country to enforce the 2006 comprehensive peace agreement between the north and south were shifted into the new mission.

“It was the power of inertia,” de Waal told IPS. “There were contracts, jobs, infrastructure and the U.N. said, let’s maintain it.”

“There was no deep analysis – what will these troops actually be doing? So they are really there by default.”

But Dwyer says part of the problem is some observers’ inaccurate expectations of the mission.

UNMISS “was never set for a situation where you have almost a civil war,” said Dwyer. “The primary responsibility to protect civilians is the government’s and our job is to support the government.”

“The U.N. will intervene militarily against any armed group who threatens civilians if we are there and have the capacity to do so.”

The rationing of intervention isn’t a new strategy for U.N. missions. Though DPKO oversees the second-largest deployed army in the world, peacekeepers are spread thin among 15 missions and further divided among bases within countries.

“It’s [South Sudan] 11 million people across a country the size of France,” said Dwyer. “How could we promise that we could protect everyone all of the time against everybody?”

Last month, the Security Council voted to increase troop levels in South Sudan from 7,000 to 12,500, but a lengthy approval process has slowed their deployment. Ladsous, who previously told reporters the 5,500 new troops would arrive by the middle of January, now says they may not all be in the country until March.

Meanwhile, as the conflict threatens to morph into a wider civil or regional war, information on deaths and human rights violations has become increasingly obscured by the fog of war.

Adding to the dilemma facing peacekeepers is the presence of Ugandan troops fighting for the government. Ugandan President Yuweri Museveni is a strong ally of Kiir, but Uganda is also one of the countries mediating at U.N.-endorsed negotiations taking place in Addis Ababa.

Observers say the talks in Ethiopia are unlikely to achieve a ceasefire until one side has gained a significant military advantage.

All of this only makes a show of force more important, says Hudson.

“There’s no question they could be doing more,” he said. “The humanitarian part of the mission appears willing to accept a much higher risk than the actual armed peacekeepers. That’s not how it’s supposed to be, that’s a fundamental flaw in the system.”

But Dwyer says that at a certain point, little can be done “if two people are really intent on their destruction.”

“The leaders of South Sudan, on both sides, bear responsibility for this conflict and for ending the fighting,” he said.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has declared a state of emergency in two states, according to the government’s official Twitter account.

The decree issued on Wednesday covers Unity and Jonglei, where government troops and rebel forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar have been engaged in fighting.

The declaration came as the rival factions were set to open talks in Ethiopia on Thursday, aimed at bringing an end to the nearly three-week-old conflict, despite reports of an imminent military showdown in Jonglei.

Sources said government and rebel negotiators arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Wednesday.

Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda said the talks would focus on “monitoring mechanisms for the ceasefire”.

Following the fall of Bor, Jonglei’s state capital, into the hands of the rebels on Tuesday, the government and rebels loyal to Machar agreed to meet for talks.

The South Sudan government, however, refused to call it a ceasefire, saying negotiators must first agree on “mechanisms” for talks to move forward.

Fierce battle imminent

For his part, Kiir named eight negotiators to represent his government in the proposed talks in Ethiopia, Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reported from the South Sudanese capital Juba on Wednesday.

Despite the preparations for the talks, thousands of government troops were making their way to Bor in an effort to wrest back control of the Jonglei state capital, setting up another possible fierce battle with rebels.

Our correspondent quoted government sources as saying that “it is just a matter of time” before they retake Bor, which was captured by rebels on Tuesday.

Fighting is also going on in other fronts like Mayom and Malakal, he said.

Violence first erupted in South Sudan on Dec. 15, when Kiir accused Machar of attempting a coup.

Machar has denied this, in turn accusing Kiir of conducting a violent purge of his opponents.

The fighting has since spread across the country, with the rebels seizing several areas in the oil-rich north.

Thousands of people are feared dead, U.N. officials said, while close to 200,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes – many seeking refuge with badly overstretched U.N. peacekeepers.

Jacob Kurtzer, a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Al Jazeera that refugees need immediate help.

The U.N. has said it will do everything it can to prevent further “terrible acts of violence” in South Sudan.

“We have seen terrible acts of violence in the past two weeks, there has been killings and brutality, grave human rights violations and atrocities committed,” Hilde Johnson, U.N. special representative to South Sudan, told Al Jazeera.

The conflict has been marked by an apparent surge in ethnic violence pitting members of Kiir’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer community.

Continuing ‘atrocities’

The U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said “atrocities are continuing to occur” across the country despite efforts to negotiate a ceasefire.

“UNMISS is gravely concerned about mounting evidence of gross violations of international human rights law that have occurred in South Sudan during the past 15 days,” it said in a statement, reporting “extra-judicial killings of civilians and captured soldiers” and the “discovery of large numbers of bodies” in Juba, Bor and Malakal, the main town in oil-producing Upper Nile state.

UNMISS has said it is “actively collecting information” on the atrocities to be used for future official investigations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has already given warning that senior South Sudanese figures “will be held personally accountable” for any crimes against humanity.

Johnson, the U.N. special representative, has said there is evidence that South Sudanese citizens are being targeted “on ethnic grounds”.

“This can lead to a perpetual cycle of violence that can destroy the fabric of the new nation,” she said.

“We need to do everything possible to prevent such a cycle of violence between communities of South Sudan.”

However South Sudan political analyst Matthew LeRiche told Al Jazeera the fighting is “very much a political struggle” rather than an ethnic conflict.

He noted that Kiir and Machar belonged to the same government and the same party, until they split due to political differences.

Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.