Over 5 Million People are at Risks of Dying in South Sudan; Why is the World Silent?

[Elisabeth Janaina]

Over 5 Million People are at Risks of Dying in South Sudan; Why is the
World Silent?
Feb. 25 Politics, Uncategorized no comments

By Dr. Gatluak Ter Thach* FEB/25/2017, SSN;

The international and regional media outlets are silent of seriously
informing the world about man-made catastrophes in South Sudan. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), together with
South Sudanese regime in Juba, have announced that a grave famine hit
South Sudan, especially Unity State and other regions in the nation.

This news did not surprise anyone since most civilians in South Sudan
depend heavily on agricultural productive services while the
disastrous civil war displaced them from their destroyed homes and
they did not cultivate. A new UNHCR report published recently
disclosed unbelievable statistics of South Sudanese who left their
homes.

The report stated that hundreds of thousands of people who are
displaced from their homes suffered inside the country, “with many
facing threats of kidnappings, rapes, armed attacks, [killings] and
“acute food shortages.”

South Sudan refugees who reached Uganda are over 698,000 with more
arriving every single day. Ethiopia ranks second, according to the
UNHCR report with 342,000, while more than 305,000 are in Sudan. Kenya
and Democratic Republic of Congo are other countries that host
significant number of South Sudanese refugees.

About 1.5 million South Sudanese had left the country for refuge in
the neighboring nations. This statistics of refugee displacements
places South Sudan on top of any refugee country in the continent
Africa and third in the world behind Afghanistan and Syria
respectively. More than 60 percent of South Sudanese refugees are
children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition and
traumas. Thousands of women and girls have been raped; their homes
were burned with all their properties destroyed.

The economy of South Sudan crushed since the inflation rate ranks
highest and is more than 800 percent; it is alarming percentage in the
moment, which makes it difficult to import goods from other countries
since the new nation does not produce its own goods.

It is also a problematic for everyone, including the heavily weights,
to place food and feed families, let alone the average poor. The UNHCR
report indicates that “opposition to UN and AU transitional
administration could be mitigated through a combination of politics
and force— by working with important South Sudanese constituencies
frustrated with [South Sudanese] President Salva Kiir, former First
Vice President [and current SPLA-IO leader] Dr. Riek Machar, and their
cronies; and then deploying a lean and agile peace intervention force
to combat and deter the remaining spoilers once they have been
politically isolated.”

I think this suggestion will exacerbate the situation. My humble
recommendation is to deal with both Pres. Kirr and Dr. Riek to bring a
real peace instead of sidelining anyone of them.

What really went wrong in South Sudan?

Personally, I struggle to point solely on one tangible rejoinder to
this query because no logic seems to make sense in South Sudan, and
whenever one states the facts, others take the evidence differently
since inventors’ aims are to frustrate and ensure people remain
incomprehensibly abstruse.

In my humble attempt to share what I know, I can piece this question
into three categories. First and foremost, South Sudan historically
got its independence in 2011 from Sudan, but its founding leader died
few weeks before he assumed his role. The successor (Pres. Kiir)
lacked the capacity to carry on the tasks he had in hands to drive the
nation forward.

Though the successor had initially made a fair decision to bring
on-board Dr. Riek as his deputy, but due to fear of unknown, as well
as pressures from within his closed circles, relationship between the
two leaders (Pres. Kiir and Dr. Riek) did not go as expected, and with
no diligent working relationship and collaboration among the leaders,
fruits of a political production could not easily be engendered as
what people wish.

The second point is vision. The Pres. Kiir did not have a vision for
the country. This is not my opinion alone on him. There were numbers
of discussions made about his vision. One was when Pres. Kiir himself
made with former US President Bush, Jr, and he was asked to articulate
his vision for the country. However, Pres. Kiir relied on his
subordinates to share what they thought was the vision for the
country. Contrary to how anyone who leads anything, leave alone a
country can do.

Vision is critically important for a leader and how to move a diverse
country like South Sudan forward requires a visionary leadership which
Pres. Kiir does not have, and the country is where it is because of
that.

The third aspect is corruption. According to local and international
analysts, corruption in South Sudan went above human imaginations.
Pres. Kiir himself had at one point produced a list of several
government officials of whom he accused of eating 4 billion dollars
from government pots. Even though there were disputes to his
accusation as some officials of the accused individuals came forward
to clear their good names, evidences are there to display indeed some
leaders, including Kiir himself, robbed the country with scarce
resources deemed to serve and develop the nation.

A number of army generals who recently resigned from Pres. Kiir regime
in Juba encompassed corruption in the lists of their frustration
points, but Pres. Kiir and his closed allies did not care or grasp
corruption as one of the major challenges facing the country.

As General Kamila Otwari Aleardo Paul put it in his letter of
resignation to Pres. Salva Kiir and I quote, “Sir, with your
partiality, favoritism and bias policies, you have dumped the country
into chaos making it an incessant conflict zone.”

Gen. Kamila hails from Lotuko tribe in South Sudan. He accused Pres.
Kiir who hails from Dinka tribe and his regime of squandering public
funds to equip and serve his Dinka tribe only. A sentiment shared by
many minority tribes in South Sudan at the moment.

Number of resigned and defected generals in addition to civilian
members from different ethnic groups blame Pres. Kiir for practicing
tribalism and nepotism as political self-empowerment to continue
status quo in order to remain in power.

Pres. Kiir’s administration is similarly accused of mismanagement and
bias policies, as well as killings of other ethnic groups. In December
2013, over 20,000 ethnic Nuer were murdered in less than a week by new
trained tribal militias recruited and armed by Pres. Kiir’s Army Chief
of Staff, Paul Malong Awan, a close friend and ally to Pres. Kiir and
a member of his tribe.

The same killings are happening all over South Sudan currently, and
both (Pres. Kiir and Gen. Awan) are responsibles of the continuing of
the present conflict in South Sudan. The SPLA army Pres. Kiir leads is
mainly responsible for committed atrocities on civilian population,
along with deterring relief agencies to deliver aid assistance to
people in needs. The SPLA army continues to confiscate properties
without accountability.

What could be done to save the remaining lives?

The world must realize people of South Sudan are dying on daily basis
in alarming rate at the moment, and it has to be stopped with an
immediate action. According to UN agency, more than 5 million people
are at risk of vanishing if nothing is done now to bar their lives. A
conservative reliable estimation of more than 150,000 have already
died as result of the current civil war started in December 15, 2013.

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (PSCAU), at its
411th meeting held at the level of Heads of State and Government, in
Banjul, Gambia, on December 30, 2013, mandated the establishment of
the African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan (AUCISS), which
was headed by H.E. Olusegun Obasanjo, Former President of the Republic
of Nigeria.

The Chairperson of the Commission, in consultation with the
Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
(ACHPR) and other relevant African Union (AU) structures, immediately
established a Commission to investigate the human rights violations
and other abuses committed during the armed conflict in South Sudan
and made recommendations on the best ways and means to ensure
accountability, reconciliation and healing among all South Sudanese
communities.

The Commission was also requested to submit its report to Council
within a maximum period of three months though it went longer than
that, the IGAD-PLUS took the commission report and recommendations for
further implementation. As part of its response to the crisis in South
Sudan, the Commission adopted the Terms of Reference (ToR) detailed in
the Concept Note Relating to the Establishment to:

• Establish the immediate and remote causes of the conflict;
• Investigate human rights violations and other abuses during the
conflict by all parties from December 15, 2013;
• Establish facts and circumstances that may have led to and that
amount to such violations and of any crimes that may have been
perpetrated;
• Compile information based on these investigations and in so doing
assist in identifying perpetrators of such violations and abuses with
a view to ensuring accountability for those responsible.

The Commission interpreted its mandate to consist of four focal areas:
healing, reconciliation, accountability and institutional reforms
after identifying perpetrators. The Commission approached its mandate
in a holistic manner, which was to emphasize the interrelatedness of
the mandate areas.

The commission recommendations were enshrined as tools to pave ways
for better forward to bring a lasting peace in the country. These
recommendations were incorporated in the peace deal signed by the
leaders, and this is the only way to bring a lasting peace in South
Sudan. With no peace and accountability, how do people reconcile?

The peace could also bring permanent harmony in the country had it
been executed as drafted and signed. However, there is no peace nor
ceasefire in the country now. There is already a steady process of
ethnic cleansing taking place in several areas of South Sudan that
causes the current famine.

Yet, Pres. Kiir still preaches for an exclusive national dialogue. How
could he conduct honest national dialogue when there is no ceasefire,
leave alone a peace in the country? Why not he bring peace first
before a dialogue as it was purposed in the August 2015 Peace
Agreement if he is serious?

For the lives to be saved in South Sudan, the world must earnestly
declare an end to this man-made crisis by tackling situation
differently this time than it has been. Pres. Kiir must be told to
either accept the previous peace deal, implementing it with his former
foe, Dr. Riek and not with friend, or else accept to step aside and
allow his party to choose a person deems suitable to represent IG
party in a meaningful, unified government.

Pres. Kiir has no choice nor a mandate in the peace deal to
hand-picked whomever he wants from other parties despite the objection
of parties’ members as it was the case for Gen. Taban Deng Gai, who
claims a fake representation of IO forces and sympathized members.

The international community, especially the United States of America,
which has spent more than 2 billion USD in humanitarian assistance
already in South Sudan, whereas the regime in Juba has spent twice as
much on purchasing modernized military hardware to murdering its own
people, as well as mortgaging the national resources to prolong the
war and save no lives, must redouble their efforts to pressure Pres.
Kiir to do what’s right for his people and country in order to spare
innocent lives in addition to bringing a lasting hope to South Sudan.

In conclusion

This is a call on people of goodwill to stand up and help save lives
of innocent South Sudanese civilians. I believe it will take all of us
to bring an end the suffering of South Sudanese private citizens from
their brutal leaders whose objectives are for erasing population from
their original land and confiscating their properties for personal
enrichment.

The world must prioritize peace by giving an ultimatum to the leaders,
especially Pres. Kiir, to either join hands with his opponents and
bring lasting peace or vacant the power for people of South Sudan to
choose a leader who will unify their diverse ethnic groups. The
agreement signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in August 2015, provided a
roadmap for a genuine peace to be realized, but it is a dead deal now
because Pres. Kiir did not want to implement it.

The world has also failed to lift up to its obligations, including
making Pres. Kiir accountable instead of opting to isolate another
signatory, Dr. Riek, who has so far committed everything he had,
including his life, to join Pres. Kiir in his unfriendly territory,
where Dr. Riek and his few bodyguards barely made it out after
assassination attempt on his good life on July 8, 2016, which resulted
in the collapse of the peace agreement.

However, I still believe that the peace deal could still be
resuscitated and saved by urging the two signatories (Pres. Kiir and
Dr. Riek Machar) plus others to sit back together on a table for the
full implementation, and as a result, some South Sudanese lives could
be saved!

Dr. Gatluak Thach lives and works in Nashville, TN. Author can be
reached at g...@gmail.com; He is on Facebook, blog and tweet @gatthach.