This week, the United Nations Security Council will debate the renewal of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) as civilians throughout the country are at risk of atrocities and need greater protection. The mission, established under Security Council Resolution 1996 in July 2011, to support South Sudan’s transition to independence, evolved after civil war broke out in 2013. It is mandated to protect civilians, facilitate humanitarian access, support the peace process and monitor human rights violations.
The mandate renewal should be a done deal, but it is not.
The discussions will take place amid ongoing widespread conflict. Government forces have conducted bombardment campaigns in Upper Nile and Jonglei states, often in populated areas, killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee. The forces and their allies have reportedly also razed and burned villages and towns. Both government and opposition forces have committed rape, looted civilian property and forcibly recruited adults and children, often along ethnic lines.
Away from the main conflict areas, clashes between government and opposition groups and affiliates in Western, Unity and Central Equatoria states, for example, continue to kill, injure and displace civilians. On March 1, armed youth from Mayom, in Unity state, attacked the area of Abiemnhom in the northwest, reportedly killing at least 169 people and displacing 4,000.
The need for a robust protection force and a UN mission that is able, physically and politically, to protect civilians and to ensure the delivery of lifesaving aid has never been greater.
The United States holds the pen on the file, which means they are in the driver’s seat on drafting the renewal resolution. Last year, the US tried to undermine the mandate, by pressing to remove critical wording related to gender, gender equality, sexual and gender-based violence, women’s participation and climate change, among other substantive issues.
This year, the challenges could be even more fundamental as the South Sudanese government has continued to undermine the peacekeeping mission while the US considers whether the mandate should be narrowed, notably with regards to its support to elections.
Back in February, the US government clearly said that its decisions on the mission’s future were contingent on South Sudan’s cooperation.
The UN has already stripped down the mission by a third within a few months, due to immediate cash flow problems, largely caused by the US withholding most of its UN contributions to general and peacekeeping budgets. The liquidity crunch has been worsened by China’s tardy payments.
The mission has been reduced from a force of 13,000 to 9,000 and closed in about 10 locations. That most likely means handing over responsibilities to the same government forces implicated in ongoing abuses.
The mission has also reduced forces and staff even on bases that are still running. This move has left its peacekeepers to rely on longer term patrols, which hamper their ability to respond quickly and conduct robust early warning measures. Peacekeepers that I met in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, recently, warned that there are entire swaths of the country “where we are blind now,” as one of them said. In a country with multiple war fronts, such a vacuum will inevitably affect peacekeepers’ ability to protect civilians.
The mission is already having to make hard decisions because of cost-cutting measures. The UN’s peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, warned in February that protection patrols have been reduced by 40 percent and that at least 40 human rights monitoring missions have been canceled. When the government ordered civilians and the mission to evacuate Akobo town, in Jonglei state, a conflict hot spot and then a humanitarian hub, on March 6, before its forces attacked the town, the mission refused to leave. But the mission is now closing its base, leaving the 200,000 civilians who originally fled Akobo and its outskirts at risk if they return home.
Now, the mission, which is embattled in the field, is facing an existential threat at the UN Security Council too. The mission’s longtime boss, Nicholas Haysom, died on March 19, having been out of South Sudan for many months at a critical juncture; his successor has just been named: Anita Kiki Gbeho of Ghana, who had been wearing multiple hats in his absence.
Member states and the UN should urgently ensure that the mission can fulfill its responsibilities, including by providing critical funding. UN Security Council members should ensure that the mission maintains its mandate for the robust protection of civilian and human rights and the ability to facilitate the humanitarian response. Any narrowing of the mandate will inevitably affect all aspects of its work.
South Sudan’s regional and international partners should together push back on obstruction to the mission’s operations and attacks on personnel by parties to the conflict, especially the government’s concerted attempts to undermine UNMISS.
A further degrading of one of the world’s most robust UN missions would leave a devastating legacy on the UN system, as well as on civilians throughout South Sudan and beyond, who would bear a very heavy price if this happened.
