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STORY: UN / SOUTH SUDAN SRSG HAYSOM INTERVIEW
TRT: 03:48
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 08 NOVEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations Headquarters
08 NOVEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, the Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Nicholas Haysom and interviewer
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS):
“The postponement was inevitable; the country was not ready for elections. And quite frankly, we were aware that all of our most overriding concerns is that we should avoid a relapse into violence. And the academic literature is clear: ill-prepared elections in a country which is emerging from conflict, is an extremely dangerous situation to enter because you divide people precisely along the same lines that they have been engaged in physical violence. So, it was clear to us that it would have been very ill-advised to proceed with the elections. Does that mean we were happy with the announcement? No, it wasn't. Because what had necessitated the delay was the failure to adequately prepare for the elections in the first place.”
4. Wide shot, the Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Nicholas Haysom and interviewer
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS):
“We wanted to make it clear to the government that we didn't want to be in the same spot in two more years’ time with the government still pleading that it needed more time or more resources to conduct the elections. It would be yet a further delay in the democratic transition, that South Sudanese also desperately hoping for and quite frankly deserve.”
6. Wide shot, Haysom and interviewer
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS):
“we're not there to run elections. We're there to build a democratic, stable society. Elections is one of the ways in which we do that. And the elections gives us an opportunity to engage in capacity-building, that allows South Sudanese to develop platforms for building their own democracy. Remember, this is not a UN project. This is a South Sudanese project. It's building on a peace agreement between South Sudanese and on the issues that they themselves agreed to in their peace negotiations.”
8. Wide shot, Haysom and interviewer
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS):
“We are engaged, supplying anti-cholera kits around the country to deal with the cholera outbreak, most of it coming from the north, from the conflict in Sudan. We have quite successfully quite frankly, managed to contain the potential disastrous consequences of the floods, which is not to say we're out of the woods, but to say the that the initial estimates of 3.3 million people being affected has now been downgraded to 1.5. And that's partly because of really effective relationship with host governments at local level and at national level, in warning communities to seek higher ground in time.”
10. Wide shot, Haysom and interviewer
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS):
“We also have probably by the end of the year, upwards of one million refugees from Sudan coming through, spilling over from that conflict, and when you take all that together, and of course, the collapse in the pipeline that's supplied over 70 percent of the fuel, you've got all the elements necessary for a perfect storm.”
12. Wide shot, Haysom and interviewer
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS):
“The major cause for concern for us would be a reversion into civil war or a relapse into violence. The country's two civil wars in the past 10 years have left a devastating mark. Another civil war would be a catastrophe.”
14. Wide shot, Haysom and interviewer
The Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Nicholas Haysom said the postponement of South Sudan’s elections was inevitable, as “ill-prepared elections in a country which is emerging from conflict, is an extremely dangerous situation.”
In an interview with UN NEWS, Haysom said, “the postponement was inevitable” as the country “was not ready for elections.”
He said, “does that mean we were happy with the announcement? No, it wasn't. Because what had necessitated the delay was the failure to adequately prepare for the elections in the first place.”
Haysom, who is the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan, said, “we wanted to make it clear to the government that we didn't want to be in the same spot in two more years’ time with the government still pleading that it needed more time or more resources to conduct the elections. It would be yet a further delay in the democratic transition, that South Sudanese also desperately hoping for and quite frankly deserve.”
He stressed that the United Nations is “not there to run elections” but “to build a democratic, stable society,” and recalled that “this is not a UN project. This is a South Sudanese project. It's building on a peace agreement between South Sudanese and on the issues that they themselves agreed to in their peace negotiations.”
On the set of crises affecting the country, the Special Representative said, “we are engaged, supplying anti-cholera kits around the country to deal with the cholera outbreak, most of it coming from the north, from the conflict in Sudan. We have quite successfully quite frankly, managed to contain the potential disastrous consequences of the floods, which is not to say we're out of the woods, but to say the that the initial estimates of 3.3 million people being affected has now been downgraded to 1.5. And that's partly because of really effective relationship with host governments at local level and at national level, in warning communities to seek higher ground in time.”
By the end of the year, he continued, South Sudan is expected to have “upwards of one million refugees from Sudan coming through, spilling over from that conflict, and when you take all that together, and of course, the collapse in the pipeline that's supplied over 70 percent of the fuel, you've got all the elements necessary for a perfect storm.”
“The major cause for concern for us” Haysom said, “would be a reversion into civil war or a relapse into violence. The country's two civil wars in the past 10 years have left a devastating mark. Another civil war would be a catastrophe.”
On 13 September, the signatories to the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) announced that South Sudan’s transitional period was extended until February 2027, pushing back the timetable for elections to December 2026.
