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8192nd Security Council Meeting: Situation in Sudan and South Sudan
Briefing the Security Council today on the outcome of a recently completed review of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), officials voiced concern over such challenges as the politicization of the peacekeeping operation’s protection of civilian sites, urging the 15-member organ to consider those elements in the upcoming renewal of — and possible adjustments to — its mandate on the ground.
Bintou Keita, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, presented a special report of the Secretary-General on the renewal of the mandate of UNMISS, noting that it contained the findings of the independent review conducted between November 2017 and January 2018. While the Mission had been created as a capacity-building tool to assist a Government that lacked critical capacities, she said that, since the outbreak of violence in December 2013, UNMISS had evolved to focus largely on the protection of civilians. Since then, tens of thousands had been killed, more than 4 million displaced, and some 200,000 continued to be protected on UNMISS bases.
Underlining the need to hold the warring parties to the terms of the 2015 peace agreement they had signed, she also voiced concern that some protection of civilian sites had become highly politicized. Describing those sites as a point of friction with South Sudan’s Transitional Government of National Unity, she said the latter claimed they provided refuge to the armed opposition, and refused to investigate and prosecute crimes perpetrated on their premises.
Ismail Wais, Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) Special Envoy for South Sudan, briefed the Council on the ongoing Authority-led high-level Revitalization Forum of the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan. The Forum’s goals were to restore both the permanent ceasefire and the full implementation of the 2015 peace agreement while developing revised, realistic timelines towards a democratic election at the end of the transitional period. Among other things, he asked the Council to consider how to make non-compliance with the ceasefire and the peace agreement costlier to spoilers and violators, and how to guarantee the security of the opposition members upon their return to Juba.
As Council members took the floor, many expressed concern about South Sudan’s precarious security and humanitarian situation. The representative of Equatorial Guinea, raising alarm that South Sudan remained “balanced on a knife’s edge”, said the international community should ramp up its support for a genuine political process. Urging the parties to refrain from further action that could worsen the situation, and to honour the agreements they had signed, he said Member States must not let up in their support for the IGAD-led dialogue process. While harsh measures should be applied where necessary, other parallel tracks of action should also be considered, and the civilian population must remain “front and centre” in all the Council’s efforts.
Bolivia’s representative, echoing concerns over the complex situation in South Sudan, the slow pace of the country’s political progress and its deteriorating humanitarian situation, urged the international community should “row in the same direction” with the same goals. The only way forward was an inclusive and frank political process, leading to the implementation of the 2015 peace agreement. The parties to the conflict must come together on such critical matters as the protection of civilians and the delivery of humanitarian assistance, he said, noting that an estimated 60 per cent of South Sudan’s population would require humanitarian aid in 2018.
South Sudan’s representative, also addressing the Council, said that while his country’s Transitional Government of National Unity acknowledged its primary responsibility to protect civilians, it could not perform that function while it remained constrained by sanctions. Warning Council members to stay mindful of those that sought shelter at protection sites not due to insecurity but instead for their own political and economic agendas, he nevertheless voiced support for the reinstatement of capacity-building into the UNMISS mandate and reiterated his Government’s support to the peace process.
Also speaking were representatives of Kazakhstan, Peru and Côte d’Ivoire.
The meeting began at 3:13 p.m. and ended at 4:20 p.m.
