UN mission in South Sudan cannot replace government

[Elisabeth Janaina]

UN mission in South Sudan cannot replace government

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May 30, 2013 (JUBA) - The United Nations Mission in South Sudan said
this week that it was not able to replace the role of the government
in providing security to civilians in the young nation.


Hilde Johnson, speaking to reporters in Yambio, Western Equatoria
state, July 17, 2012 (ST).
There has been a spike in violence in Jonglei state in recent months
where the army is fighting a rebellion.

Marking UN peacekeeping day on 29 Ma, the head of the mission said
that peacekeepers were trying to provide balanced protection to
civilians in the troubled eastern state were 19,000 people have been
displaced in recent months.

David Yauyau’s rebels are fighting to establish an independent state
for ethnic minorities, he claims are being discriminated against in
the young nation, which seceded from Sudan in 2011.

Hilde Johnson, the Special Representative of the Secretary General of
the United Nations, said the mission has conducted well over 1,000
military patrols of long and short duration across Jonglei state since
August last year.

“We have recently increased our military presence throughout the state
to six companies, equally present in the areas of Jonglei’s three main
communities (the Bor Dinka, Lou Nuer and Murle). We are not the
peacekeepers of one community; we are the peacekeepers for all of
them”, Johnson said.

The top UN official in the country, however, stressed that the mission
cannot contain the whole conflict even if it were to deploy its “last
pair of boots” to Jonglei, or other states facing security challenges,
because peacekeepers were not in South Sudan to "replace the
Government, the police or the military".

"The primary responsibility to protect the population rests with the
Government of the Republic of South Sudan. Like all UN Peacekeeping
missions, UNMISS can only support the country’s institutions to help
them fulfill their responsibilities as a sovereign state.

"We put at their service the resources that UN member states so
generously give us to achieve the goal that they and the Government of
South Sudan have set for us: to help consolidate peace and security,
to help extend and consolidate the authority of the Republic
throughout the entire territory of South Sudan, and to help establish
the conditions for development”, Johnson explained.

Indian peacekeepers marked UN peacekeeping day in Bor, the capital of
Jonglei state, on Wednesday by paying tribute to the five blue helmets
and seven civilian members of UN staff who died in an ambush in April.

No group has accepted responsibility for the attack, which the South
Sudanese military have blamed on Yauyau’s rebels.

"As we observe the International Day of the United Nations
Peacekeepers on 29 May, we pay tribute to sixteen of our bravest
colleagues who died in two senseless tragedies: the downing of an
UNMISS helicopter on 21 December 2012 and an ambush on a UN convoy on
9 April. Among the dead were four Russian crew members, five Indian
soldiers—who died while fighting to protect their colleagues—, and two
South Sudanese civilians", Johnson said.

The UN helicopter was shot down by the South Sudanese army (SPLA), who
believed it be a Sudanese plane re-arming Yauyau’s rebels.

"Both tragedies happened in Jonglei, a state most afflicted by
insecurity and instability and which is the focus of the UNMISS
mandate to protect civilians" she said.

In the face of adversity the UN mission was following "the inspiring
example of the people that it serves" by remaining resilient, her
statement said.

"Last year, UNMISS received threats by anti-government armed elements
against one of our bases in Pibor County. Our response was to increase
our military presence in the county."

Yauyau’s rebels briefly occupied Boma, a strategic town in Pibor
county near the border with Ethiopia, earlier this month, before it
was retaken by the SPLA.

(ST)