Paul Keenan
Photo: CNS Peace is coming too slowly to South Sudan, writes Paul Keenan
It is said that history repeats itself, and nowhere is this more true than in the conflict-riven state of South Sudan.
A bold claim, perhaps, for a country barely five years old – July 9 will see Independence Day from greater Sudan celebrated across the capital, Juba. Yet, in that short span of time, South Sudan’s turbulence has become the scene of appeals and initiatives reminiscent of a scratched record.
Examine the evidence.
In mid-March, having spent some considerable time in Rome, South Sudan’s leading prelate, Archbishop Lukudu Loro returned to Juba to assess the current state of the civil conflict and to call upon the warring sides to make the final push for a settlement.
Those whom his words were intended to reach are current President Salva Kiir and the former vice president Riek Machar, whose ousting in late 2013 amid competing claims of coups and power grabs initiated the outbreak of hostilities. The governing Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) has been tackling the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement In Opposition (SPLM-IO) and any number of tribal groupings ever since, and all to the severe detriment of ordinary citizens.
Appeals
Actually, by August 2015, Archbishop Loro should no longer have been forced to make such appeals; a quick internet search under his name shows him calling repeatedly on behalf of the South Sudanese people for the warring sides to see sense and reach an accord.
And that seemed to be just the case in August, when President Kiir agreed to a (another) ceasefire to allow for the formation of a Transitional Unity Government. That latter element was supposed to be achieved within 90 days (setting a deadline in December at the latest). Yet Archbishop Loro was again taking to the lectern with his same message in March.
Or take by way of further example the fortunes of Mr Machar. Having participated in the fight for South Sudanese independence, he rose to become the nation’s first vice president until the fateful tussles of 2013. Ousted and forced into exile in Ethiopia, from where he continues the struggle against President Kiir, he has watched his story come full circle with the announcement in February, reluctantly made by Mr Kiir, that the best way to achieve the necessary unity government was to designate him as vice president! For the record, numerous observers of the conflict agree that this is, in fact, the sensible road forward.
But what a mockery this makes of the entire state of affairs that has befallen the people of South Sudan in the interim.
In addition to the countless thousands killed (at least 50,000) in the fighting, there are over 1.6 million internally displaced people in need of daily humanitarian assistance. These are in addition to over 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers who have fled to neighbouring countries, including the less-than-stable Central African Republic.
Again, history repeating. Having struggled for an end to colonial rule in 1956, the southern states of Sudan continued to fight for their greater autonomy until 1972, and again from 1983 when that autonomy was undermined, until 2011 when South Sudan emerged as a new nation on world maps. This short timeline is, however, littered with the dead and displaced.
And even the United Nations falls unconsciously into the scratched record mode in its attempts to chart for the world the scale of the suffering that marked what is now hoped to be the final year of the civil conflict. In early March the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) released its report on a catalogue of human rights violations unfolding over 2015.
While implicating all sides, the UN pointed a most critical finger at the South Sudanese army in detailing horrendous incidences of torture and murder (often by burning alive in barricaded buildings), crimes not confined solely to the adult population. Added to these, many recorded incidences of rape came to light from the northern Unity state, where, it has been revealed, groups loyal to the government were afforded the practice in lieu of unpaid wages.
In addition, the UN found that army forces targeted both churches and mosques as the buildings became the last desperate refuge of civilians trapped in the military net. In one incident, the SPLA rounded up some 60 herdsmen from one area and locked them into a metal container within a church compound. All but one suffocated over two days of suffering.
Overall, the UN report found a deliberate and systematic drive against civilians based on ethnicity.
The report only served to confirm the dispatches emerging from South Sudan for a long time. In July of 2015, for example, this newspaper related stories of torture and rape and of the burning alive of victims in their barricaded homes – all allegedly carried out by the army in its efforts to dissuade the populace lending support to the rebels.
At the time, the paper reported the words of Archbishop Loro as he lamented that “our soldiers are now killing one another and killing innocent civilians… we are seeing atrocities against human life and dignity on a scale which we have never seen before. The rule of law is all but disappearing. Our youth are being corrupted by revenge and violence.”
And the result? Following its own report, on March 25 the UNHCR let the world know that it will now establish a three-person commission to investigate allegations of human rights violations in South Sudan. The commission will “monitor and report on the situation of human rights in South Sudan and make recommendations for its improvement”. In a year’s time.
All of which must be little comfort to a civilian population facing yet another piece of history threatening to repeat itself.
For the first time since 1998, at the height of the independence struggle, the word famine is beginning to be heard in and beyond the nation, especially in relation to Unity state. As before, drought plays a key role in this, but so too do the aforementioned human rights abuses, which have driven the displaced into areas very difficult to access.
Aid
The UN has previously pointed out that the bulk of its humanitarian aid must be delivered by air, such are the specific transport challenges posed by South Sudan’s geography. And, as if this were not enough, President Kiir, through what can only be described as bizarre reasoning, has chosen now to sign into law a bill on foreign NGOs, the effect of which is to lower the numbers of such volunteers allowed to access the country.
In 1998, the international community stood accused of being too slow to react to the famine in Sudan. Let’s hope the cycle of history can be broken this time for the sake of the people of South Sudan.