EXTRAORDINARY situations, they say, call for extraordinary responses. Nobody can deny that the crisis engulfing South Sudan is extraordinary.
The humanitarian and security situation in the world’s youngest nation is worsening day by day. South Sudan plunged into violence in 2013, two years after it won independence from Sudan, when President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy Riek Machar, accusing him of plotting a coup. The two antagonists belong to different tribes (Kiir represents majority Dinka and Machar is from Nuer, the next big tribe) so the fighting soon assumed an ethnic dimension. The civil strife has sparked the biggest cross-border exodus from any Central African country since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The number of refugees has crossed one million, including more than 150,000 since the two sides resumed fighting in July last year after a failed peace deal. One camp in Juba, one of several UN maintains for the “protection of civilians”, holds almost 40,000 people.
There is ethnic cleansing with brutal attacks on women becoming an integral part of the process. Three in five women in UN-administered “protection of civilian” sites around the capital Juba experienced rape or sexual assault, according to a 2016 report by the UN Population Fund. Women across the country, says Yasmin Soak, chairwoman of the UN commission on human rights, are being subjected to sexual slavery. They are tied to trees and gang-raped or passed from house to house by soldiers. Continuing reports of ethnic-based killings inside the country are having repercussions in refugee camps located on South Sudan›s borders.
Latest reports speak of clashes spreading to new areas while ethnic-based militias are mobilizing in the bush. The situation is so grim that some experts are thinking of the unthinkable like a proposal for outside powers to take over and run South Sudan as a trusteeship until conditions improve. They cite the example of East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo. It is true that between 1995 and 1999, the UN established transitional administrations over four war-torn territories — East Timor, Bosnia, Eastern Slavonia and Kosovo.
But there are striking differences between the situation in South Sudan and those in territories like East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo. In the latter, the problem was their former masters, Indonesia in one case and Serbs in others. In South Sudan, the violence is inflicted by one section of South Sudanese on the other. Moreover, there are thousands of armed men intensely loyal to one party or the other to the conflict. While smaller ethnic groups would welcome an international takeover, larger groups like Dinka and Nuer would view it as an affront to their sovereignty. Both may join hands together and make things difficult for the new administration. Iraq and Afghanistan where international bureaucrats made a mess of nation-building experiments will also be cited by the opponents of the trusteeship.
So the only option available is the August 2015 peace deal both parties signed only to undermine it in letter and spirit. The accord can be revived. One hopeful sign is the Kiir government is committed to the deployment of the Regional Protection Force (RPF) as mandated by the UN Security Council. The commitment was conveyed by Minister of Cabinet Affairs Martin Elia to the Special Representative of the UN and head of the Mission in South Sudan, David Shearer at a meeting in Juba on Wednesday. Once the RPF is in place, action can be initiated to implement the provisions of the accord like the formation of a transitional government of national unity, introducing political, economic and security reforms, and establishing a hybrid court to try war crimes suspects. The regional and international powers who have been working for peace in South Sudan should take heart from Gambia that last week showed what the combined efforts of a group of West African presidents and a show of strength by a regional coalition of troops can accomplish.
