Originally published on the CGS blog on May 1, 2014.
Violence has re-escalated in South Sudan as a new wave of attacks this month have included a UN base, places of worship, and other sites typically treated as neutral ground in conflicts. With the conflict taking on an increasingly ethnic and retaliatory tinge, we now must worry about how we might prevent these setbacks from spiraling into something far worse.
The last few months of conflict in South Sudan originate from a political falling out between President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar, when Kiir dismissed Machar and the entire cabinet in July 2013. After months of recriminations, a rebel movement began attacks in December 2013. Machar took responsibility for this movement and its continued operations just two weeks after a public ceasefire agreement between Kiir’s government and rebel groups in January.
That ceasefire has been broken repeatedly in the months since, and is all but dead in the wake of this recent wave of attacks.
The April attack on the UN base at Bor is noteworthy not only because it’s an attack on one of the most reliable remaining institutions in South Sudan. Rather, it’s most troubling because these UN bases have been a key refugee sanctuary, so the forces attacking the base were clearly seeking to murder civilians. Couple these concerns with attacks on mosques and churches in Bentiu and the deaths of hundreds of civilians, where it seems as if killing is beginning to equate to tribal warfare, and where local radio stations encourage men to rape women of certain ethnicities. Attacks are becoming more about revenge than about fighting for territory or ideals: we’re approaching a dangerous tipping point.
The good news is the international community is taking this escalation of violence seriously.
The UN Security Council threatened additional sanctions while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has also signaled an interest in further sanctions; UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is leading a mission to South Sudan investigating rights abuses and appealing for the safety of the displaced; the African Union is also investigating human rights abuses in South Sudan, a key first for that institution.
Most importantly, the government and rebel groups have come together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss peace once again.
The bad news is that it may be too late.
These talks have been delayed because of violence before and it’s not clear that all the fighting is centrally organized, leaving open the possibility for further recriminations. The worst humanitarian disasters are likely to come from the fact that refugees are being forced into tight quarters with little food and shelter during the rainy season; famine and disease are sure to follow and it will be difficult to serve the needs of the nearly 1 million displaced in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda.
But perhaps the worst news of all is that a region that had been healing from decades of strife is finding itself back in conflict because politicians couldn’t find a way to compromise. Leaders decided to fight their way out of problems rather than negotiate and brought the well-beings of millions of people into the balance along with them.
With luck, the African Union or other organizations can lend a hand in the process of finding peace in South Sudan, or at least can help mitigate the likely humanitarian disasters already here and that are yet to come. But in the case of young states like South Sudan, the international community has to do a better job developing institutions and leaders that don’t turn to violence at the first sign of disagreement.
