Something Dreadfully Wrong With "National Security" Which Instils Fear in Citizens! "With the exception of reasonable force to preserve life or in self defence, the army and the police should never, ever harm anyone. Full stop. Not even the worst of thieving, murdering, raping criminals." 17 February 2012 By Awak Bior
"Every single south Sudanese person I know, myself included..." This common phrase which I hear all the time often refers to the suffering of war common to all South Sudanese people. Be it as a refugee, internally displaced or on the battle fields, no South Sudanese person can say that their lives have been untouched by the country's painfully long and violent history. At a time of dire multiple threats to the nation’s very foundations, one reflects upon the changes which have taken place since the incomprehensibly difficult and unsteady days in 2005 when the Government of South Sudan was formed. The Government came into being with a bold and dazzling vision to lead a determined people to a stable and cooperative autonomy within the Republic of Sudan or into a secure, thriving and independent nation. This independence was not gained without enormous struggle and I still recall that at the same time last year in 2011, when the people’s will had been undeniably expressed through a peaceful and well managed vote, people still feared and doubted that their will would be honoured by detractors in Khartoum and elsewhere. My response to the constant pessimism was to always list the seemingly insurmountable obstacles already overcome by South Sudan’s leadership and her supporters. I repeatedly pointed out the many successes which had been labelled failures before pen could even be put to paper. I grew to abhor the meaningless buzz phrase “pre-failed state”. Looking back we know that the plan to establish and secure autonomous governance over South Sudan was no easy task – the pessimism, particularly from external parties, was suffocating – yet over the years we have seen the Government growing and the nation moving on a slow but upward march to realise the hopes of the South Sudanese people. Plans have been made to ensure service delivery and the implementation of such plans is taking the nation forward, albeit at a slower pace than optimistically wished for. Progress nonetheless. It has not been easy and we know fine well that it will not get any easier for some time to come. I do however remain encouraged because I have had the personal and enlightening privilege of working closely with South Sudan’s rule of law institutions to support their development together with their partners. On a day to day basis I see people working hard to effect change. Notably I have worked very closely and at all levels with the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary of South Sudan. I have also had the pleasure of working with and liaising with the National Assembly, the South Sudan Police Service, the Prison Service, the SPLA and various commissions. Almost without exception I have been inspired and humbled by the men and women I have met and worked with and it is their dedication and vision to develop their institutions that steers and guides me in my work. Knowing the people of these institutions, their hopes, their daily challenges and seeing positive change begin to manifest not only gives me the energy to push on but, as an individual, makes me believe in the Government of South Sudan. When I speak with these officials about my experiences of service delivery from their institutions (both the good and the bad) – from top to bottom and across – I know that each person is fighting a mighty battle for the nation through their respective areas of work. I am reassured that these men and women care and that they are doing their best to make this nation safe, just and secure for all who place their futures and those of their children in South Sudan. And yet amongst all this bounty of collaborative ideas and hard work there is an unsettling undercurrent that leaves me afraid. In recent weeks, since the horrific beating of a senior South Sudanese government official by uniformed individuals from the national army, this phrase “every single South Sudanese person I know, myself included” has increasingly come to refer to the countless South Sudanese people who have experienced some kind of assault or altercation with the nation's police or army. In every instance recounted in private circles victims have been helpless in their ability to understand why it happened to them, or indeed to anyone else. Few have made complaints or spoken publicly about their experience. Those who do are offered no redress; at best a quietly whispered apology, at worst the blame shifted to question what they did to deserve the slap, push or punch... Everyone is talking about their experiences with more frequency and urgency than ever before. Everyone is telling their story and wondering: what is going on? Something is terribly wrong when a heartbreaking phrase about profound collective human suffering can be applied to another form of human suffering, one for which there is never any justification or any noble cause, such as the liberation of a suffering people from state oppression. With the exception of reasonable force to preserve life or in self defence, the army and the police should never, ever harm anyone. Full stop. Not even the worst of thieving, murdering, raping criminals. A snippet from the vision from South Sudan’s Development Plan, as recently reiterated by the nation's President His Excellency Salva Kiir Mayardit at the conference on international engagement in Washington D.C is that South Sudan is a "compassionate and tolerant; free, just and peaceful; democratic and accountable; safe, secure" country. For this to become true the terrible abuses being described would not be commonplace and people would feel confident that perpetrators would be dealt with according to the law. In his address His Excellency the President expressed confidence that this vision could be realised. Clearly for South Sudan to get to where she wants to be, where her leaders seek to take her and where her people so desperately need her to go, the emerging narrative of daily abuses is just not acceptable. Few would disagree. There are simply no exceptions to allow anyone to act as summary judge and executioner, often for incidents that do not even constitute a crime or security risk. So how is it that almost every South Sudanese person has a story to tell of a push, a slap, a punch or a bruise-making, blood-letting severe beating from security forces? Stories that date not more than a few years, since the signing of the Peace Agreement. Stories that have not diminished in horror and frequency since the Republic of South Sudan's independence from her oppressors in Khartoum. How is it possible? Impunity. A word I first came to know so intimately whilst practising as a lawyer representing clients fleeing from countries where uniformed government forces from the police to the army proactively oppressed and mentally and physically harmed citizens. Throughout my years of legal practice I heard hundreds of stories from men, women and even children whose horrific experiences and the torment they had endured were simply unfathomable. Stories which were barely believable to me until I had heard too many of them to deny their veracity. Not until I had delved into the histories of the people and their countries of origin and read too many accounts from various independent sources did I believe that such things existed in the world. The gravity and pain of suffering told by my former clients struck me hard and many years on, their stories have never left me. It is too much to believe that this ugly word – impunity – is increasingly being applied to South Sudan, a place where so many hopes and dreams have been lost yet so much resilience remains, hinged upon millions of new hopes and dreams yet to be realised. Like our collective silence, this word - impunity - is quietly working its way into South Sudan's narrative. This at a time of relative peace and long awaited freedom. The storyline is being written on the world stage as we remain silent. A quick look on the Internet or a few conversations with international friends of South Sudan - who for years have stood and continue to stand firm in support of the country - reveal that a perceived growing threat to the new country is the lack of accountability and increasing frequency of abuses by the security forces. Perceptions do not create themselves but rather they reflect the reality of a situation, even as it unfolds before our very eyes. This issue is not only destroying people's bodies, needlessly taking people's lives but it is also destroying people's souls and devastating the already fragile soul of a nation that has not even reached its first year anniversary of liberation. With our silence we diminish the memories of those who died as a direct result of the war as well as those who suffered and died before they could see peace and the dream of an independent nation of South Sudan. Furthermore, with our silence we are allowing the honour of the many good men and women who now dedicate their lives to the service and protection of South Sudan to decay. South Sudan's people don't just need and deserve basic services. More than anything they urgently need the simple freedom of personal security, to be free from fear and to feel safe going about their lawful business in their own country. They require personal dignity and pride in the nation they voted into being. This begins with having confidence in those tasked with serving and protecting people, namely the army and the police, including the secret police. It requires that instead of demanding fear, the uniform commands respect and admiration for men and women evidently doing very difficult work under very challenging professional and personal circumstances. Let us remember that every single South Sudanese person knows and loves someone who works for one of these public security institutions. Everyone also knows and loves someone who has been physically assaulted by a public security official. Directly or indirectly, this perverse reality is affecting us all, every single day. If pretty much every single south Sudanese person has suffered a variation of the unacceptable and distressing indignity of being abused by security forces then why the silence? Why do we whisper and discuss our experiences quietly amongst family and friends? Is it that we are afraid? Or are we passive participants, observing what many consider to be an accelerating decline and a bad omen for the new nation? In either case, whether fear or passivity, we need to ask ourselves; at what cost do we remain silent? "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing." I do not for a second believe that the army or the police forces are simply bad institutions full of bad people. Nor do I believe that there is a bunch of good people running the security forces and sitting around doing nothing. If this were the case then we may as well all give up on South Sudan because these institutions are the Government's biggest investment and greatest asset, particularly given the many challenges and dangers South Sudan faces today. The nation is on high alert and its security forces are fighting fires on multiple fronts. We are talking about the backbone of the nation upon whom every other need for development and progress relies. It just won't do for these institutions to be a liability to South Sudan and her people. In fact there are some stories where soldiers and police officers have stopped colleagues from violent outbursts against the public. I myself have been assaulted by security personnel and at other times have been protected by individual officers from the unreasonable excesses of their own colleagues. Good people are doing good things but somehow it’s not enough to counterbalance the stories of abuses by security forces. Quite likely it is a handful of uniformed men and women who so grossly neglect their national duty and obligation to the public. So again one asks, why then does it affect every single South Sudanese person? Not to mention the country's many needed and wanted guests from abroad, the majority of whom also have terrible stories to tell. The answer is twofold: firstly, a "handful" of soldiers and police officers in South Sudan is a very generous handful. The army alone is estimated to have 180,000 serving soldiers. It is near impossible to go a day anywhere in South Sudan without seeing or interacting with a soldier or police officer, as a family member or friend or as a professional on duty. The percentage of perpetrators may be small but from such large institutions perhaps a football pitch full might be more accurate. The impact of the minority is adversely affecting the majority. The second reason such abuses affect so many people is that those who commit abuses do it simply because they can. Again and again they do. And time after time there are no known consequences for their actions. There is a fine, barely visible line to distinguish between acquiescence and permission. If there are few or no consequences of note when a uniformed official does the unthinkable then it makes the unthinkable okay. Government needs to speak out publicly, repeatedly and loudly and tell the people that it does not condone any abuse of power committed by those in its service. The issue is not that nothing is being done but perhaps that what is being done is not having the much desired effect of putting an end to the abuses. As recently as December 2011 the Inspector General of Police General Tito Achuil Madut told Radio Miraya that he wanted the public to know the following: "[...] the actions of a few individuals should not tarnish the image of the entire police force. The police will work to protect the people and we need their cooperation to weed out the anti-social elements from the community. We will work together and the bad name of the police will change. We are saying that the police are being trained to be accountable to the law and to the people." Similar statements of sincere good intent have been made by prominent senior officers in South Sudan's national army and elsewhere throughout Government. It is clear that the South Sudan leadership is aware of such abuses and roundly condemns them. But there is a missing link between the words and aspirations of the leaders and the experiences of the people. That link is the apparent failure of justice. For words to matter there must be action. Following the common law adage that not only must justice be done it must also be seen to be done, the action taken against perpetrators must be known to the public. To date the severe beating of a senior official from the Government appears to have had no obvious or known consequence for the perpetrators so how can the rest of us expect or hope to seek redress should we fall victim to rogue officials? In the United Kingdom one of the ways the police has built public confidence over the years is to record and publicly report crime rates and to work with the Crown Prosecution Service and the media to show the public what action is taken against criminals. This approach extends to the reporting of wrong doing by police officers, soldiers and other public officials from whom a higher standard of propriety is expected. The approach serves to encourage people to seek protection and redress from the government as well as acting as a deterrent to those who would flout the law. Victims must feel free to complain to the Government of South Sudan and to speak publicly without fear or criticism. Investigations and prosecutions must take place. Witnesses must feel confident and safe enough to come forward. Courts - both military and civilian - must be enabled to deal with such cases as a priority and to sentence perpetrators accordingly. Journalists must be free – in accordance with internationally recognised standards on press freedoms and responsibilities - to report incidents and the outcome of investigations and prosecutions to the public. Only then can justice be seen to be done. The good men and women responsible for our security forces need to again (and again) tell the people that all abuses of power and authority are unacceptable, that they are ready and willing to hear, take seriously and deal with any reports of abuses made by individuals. Lastly, although a public apology to those who have suffered at the hands of uniformed officials would not go amiss, what is really needed is public recognition that this problem exists and that it affects everyone, that it is unacceptable and that it must stop. Every single South Sudanese person I know has suffered enough in myriad ways. Exhaustion prevails yet there remains a tangible energy, a determination and an optimism to bravely face the future and to stand together and to support the country's leaders and security forces to tackle the undoubtedly difficult years ahead. Nationalism remains strong but it is a two way thing, threatened only by our collective silence on the critical issues that affect us all. 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