---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "IRIN" <[email protected]> Date: 23 Aug 2016 09:03 Subject: Should the UN surrender over peacekeeping? ... To: "ElisabethJanaina" <[email protected]> Cc:
Today's humanitarian news and analysis *Online version <http://us12.campaign-archive1.com/?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=a5ec44cc0d&e=399c7ee738>* Should the UN surrender over peacekeeping? <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=14afc10fd7&e=399c7ee738> The bitter criticism heaped on UN peacekeepers in South Sudan this month over their failure to act to protect civilians and humanitarian workers is sadly nothing new. But it is now raising an urgent question: is the UN’s peacekeeping system fit for purpose? In early 2014, shortly after the outbreak of South Sudan’s brutal civil war, officials at the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations were feeling the pressure over their ability to protect more than 60,000 <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=ec010cf534&e=399c7ee738> South Sudanese displaced by the violence that were sheltering in UN camps. It was, then, an unprecedented number. “We cannot protect those people from being overrun while at the same time doing patrolling in an area the size of France,” Kieran Dwyer <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=021c096dc4&e=399c7ee738>, the spokesperson for DPKO said at the time. It wasn’t the job of peacekeepers, he continued, “to stand in the way of the anti-government forces fighting the pro-government forces.” Dwyer was speaking shortly after the Security Council had authorised <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=46d1fbe574&e=399c7ee738> the enlargement of the mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, from 7,000 to 12,500 troops. Even with 5,500 new blue helmets on the way, he was clear about how limited their role could be. Despite possessing a Chapter VII mandate, authorising the use of deadly force, DPKO said its soldiers were ill-equipped to save lives in the midst of a civil war. “The primary responsibility to protect civilians is with the government, and our job is to support the government,” said Dwyer. This month, following fighting in the capital Juba that left hundreds dead and countless victims of sexual violence, the UN Security Council voted once more to enlarge UNMISS. On 12 August, diplomats approved a 4,000-strong Regional Protection Force, mandated to facilitate movement in Juba, protect its airport, and engage with “any actor” believed to be preparing or undertaking attacks on the UN, international actors, and civilians. Its deployment – the terms of which, as well as the troops’ exact makeup, when they will arrive, or even where they will be housed, remains very much up in the air <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=abe53b3959&e=399c7ee738> – is meant to give the UN a force that can intervene in ways the 13,000 peacekeepers already on the ground have been unwilling or unable to. The Security Council’s decision to deploy the protection force comes largely in response to violence waged by the government that UNMISS was originally meant to cooperate with – underscoring just how delicate and potentially explosive its presence could be. It also speaks to the changing environment that UN peacekeepers find themselves in: from Mali, where peacekeepers battle Islamist insurgents; to the eastern Congo, where they track down rebels in collaboration with government forces that have a gruesome record of human rights abuse; to Darfur, where they’ve remained bogged down for years, and faced accusations of covering up crimes committed by the government, including some carried out against peacekeepers. Outdated model? What happens in South Sudan could offer a window into what role UN peacekeepers can play in the future: whether they can really protect civilians in the midst of war; or if the UN is too slow, too risk-averse, and whether it should instead outsource <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=1b8250724b&e=399c7ee738> peace enforcement to regional organisations working under UN authorisation. Eric Kanalstein/UNMISS Sheltering from the fighting in Juba The fighting that broke out on 8 July between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar left a peace agreement in tatters. It had briefly ended two years of conflict between the armies of both men that had left over 100,000 people dead, offering a new government of national unity in which Machar was sworn in as vice president. He is now in exile, and what happens next is far from clear. What the violence underscored was the limitations of the current UN peacekeeping model. As forces loyal to both Kiir and Machar battled it out in Juba, Human Rights Watch found that mortars and artillery had been fired “at or above” Protection of Civilian (PoC) sites, in clear disregard of the lives of the people sheltered there, and in a direct challenge to the UN. According to investigations published in the Associated Press, dozens of Nuer women – Machar’s ethnic group – were raped “just outside” a UN camp where they had fled to seek shelter amid the fighting. Several witnesses said Chinese and Nepalese peacekeepers watched as soldiers dragged a woman away. The July violence came just weeks after a UN Board of Inquiry completed its investigation into peacekeeper inaction during a government-orchestrated attack on a PoC camp in Malakal in February that left 30 displaced people dead. Malakal and the failings in Juba represent something of a pattern by UNMISS. The peacekeepers can “only protect a small proportion of Sudanese civilians at the best of times – those in or near the PoC sites – and at worst, it cannot protect civilians in the PoC sites,” said Paul Williams, professor at George Washington University and expert in international peace operations. “This is a very hard ask of troop or police contributing countries, many of whom will not want to die for the UN in South Sudan.” The July violence in Juba was testament to that. AP reported that foreign aid workers were raped and assaulted less than a mile from where peacekeepers were stationed, when as many as 100 government soldiers, some reportedly drunk, descended on the Terrain hotel compound on 11 July. Despite repeated and frantic calls to the UN, hours passed and no peacekeepers were ever sent. Aid workers watched as a Nuer journalist was summarily executed; one humanitarian worker said she was raped by 15 soldiers. The terror only came to an end when the US embassy contacted the government, which dispatched a rapid-reaction force. Ignoring the facts on the ground “The problem from the outset is that the international community had a hard time divesting itself from the fairytale story that it wanted South Sudan to be,” said Charles Petrie, former UN assistant secretary general and recently a member of the Group of Experts designated by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to review UN peace-building efforts. “As a result, the multiple signals that contradicted that narrative were completely ignored.” The US, which pushed this month’s resolution through the Council in less than a week, ultimately elected to hold off, yet again, on the inclusion of an arms embargo <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=3c797ade6f&e=399c7ee738> in the text – an element that Ban, peacekeeping officials, and several key allies have called for. That hesitancy is reportedly <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=11f8783444&e=399c7ee738> a product of senior holdouts in the Obama administration, namely current National Security Advisor Susan Rice. Rice was UN ambassador when South Sudan became independent in 2011, and is close to many in the country’s elite. A principal concern of the Americans is that an arms embargo would prevent the government from defending itself against the rebels, who could continue to receive arms from abroad, including Sudan. After the violence perpetrated in Juba, even Washington’s closest allies were having nothing of that argument. “Today, we also had a chance to stop the violence, by implementing an immediate arms embargo on South Sudan,” said British deputy ambassador, Peter Wilson. “On that, we failed.” The resolution, said France’s representative, “should have gone all the way by imposing immediately an arms embargo.” One peacekeeping official was even more explicit. "The firepower in the hands of the SPLA thanks to the absence of an arms embargo is overwhelming in terms of its superiority to what the mission has,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to recent analysis <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=6272af35aa&e=399c7ee738> carried out by the Small Arms Survey, an embargo would in particular impact the fearsome Mi-24 attack helicopters the government has in its inventory, as the foreign contractors that keep them flying would be outlawed. But it wouldn’t be a silver bullet. UNMISS claim they are routinely prevented from patrolling by government roadblocks, or by Juba merely declaring an area unsafe. In the Malakal attack, peacekeepers inexplicably sought “written authorisation” to engage with forces attacking a camp there that housed some 40,000 displaced people. [image: South Sudan's leaders] Samir Bol/IRIN The protagonists: President Salva Kiir (in hat) with First Vice President Riek Machar (left) as violence erupted “An arms embargo is a missing piece of the bigger puzzle, but it’s not going to fix peacekeeper underperformance,” said Akshaya Kumar, deputy UN director at Human Rights Watch. The need for alternatives For Petrie, there’s a larger question at stake in South Sudan: whether peacekeeping, and more of it, is the solution to an intractable and bloody conflict – one that is a low priority for world powers. “The overarching concern is that UN peacekeeping would increasingly seem to have become the default response for conflicts of secondary concern to the permanent members of the Security Council,” said Petrie. “In a way, it’s a reflection of the rapid decline of multilateralism, which since 9/11 has been replaced by coalitions ‘of the willing’.” Indeed, while four of the council’s five permanent members – save China – are bombing Islamists in Syria or Iraq, in South Sudan, they instead authorise forces made up of troops primarily from poorer countries. South Sudan’s government initially rejected the regional intervention force. If it maintains that position, it’s unlikely the deployment will take place. Few can imagine the UN fighting its way into Juba. The closest relative to the proposed regional protection force is the force intervention brigade (FIB) which the UN deployed in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to track down rebel groups. But in the DRC, the UN enjoyed the official support of the government. Williams, who has for years analysed the UN’s varied peacekeeping responses, says the regional force falls into a growing trend of deployments, including in Darfur and Burundi, where the host government refuses to cooperate. In Burundi, the government eventually only accepted a small police force, and the UN’s mission in Darfur has been one of its most scandal-plagued <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=073c6f1c7d&e=399c7ee738> . “The protection force is not a real solution to the core problem,” said Williams. “Military force that is not part of a viable strategy to resolve the conflict and move towards stable peace can only mitigate the worst symptoms of South Sudan’s toxic elite politics.” Five years after South Sudan became independent, there is little to show for all that initial hope. Development indicators are in reverse, the humanitarian crisis is growing exponentially, and a corrupt political class has shown little enthusiasm to bridge the divides that took the country back into war. so/oa/ag UNMISS peacekeepers and UNPOL.jpg <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=ecdb7bad63&e=399c7ee738> Analysis <http:///analysis> Aid and Policy <http:///aid-and-policy> Conflict <http:///conflict> Politics and Economics <http:///politics-and-economics> Should the UN surrender over peacekeeping? Sam Oakford <http:///authors/sam-oakford> The failure of UNMISS in South Sudan is a blow for international peace IRIN <http:///byline/irin> Africa <http:///africa> East Africa <http:///africa/east-africa> Ethiopia <http:///afrique/afrique-de-lest/ethiopia> Kenya <http:///afrique/afrique-de-lest/kenya> South Sudan <http:///africa/east-africa/south-sudan> Sudan <http:///afrique/afrique-de-lest/sudan> Uganda <http:///afrique/afrique-de-lest/uganda> *Read on <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=6d28acd917&e=399c7ee738>* ------------------------------ They’re defeating Boko Haram but are they Nigeria’s next security threat? <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=43811236f3&e=399c7ee738> Boko Haram is on the run, and much of the credit must go to vigilantes in northeastern Nigeria who have risen up to protect their local communities from the jihadists. But there is a growing concern that they represent a whole new security threat. Abba Aji Khalli is an auditor employed by the Borno State government in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram. In June 2013 he was one of the first to join the “Civilian JTF <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=1d9fdc8ce8&e=399c7ee738>”, a vigilante group that armed itself with machetes and ancient single-shot hunting rifles to protect the city when the military appeared overwhelmed by the challenge. A year later, when the militia helped finally drive Boko Haram out of Maiduguri, Khalli was at its core, leading what he claimed was an 8,000-man unit. “They are children of necessity because they were formed to fight insurgents,” the 52-year-old said of his troops. Key to the vigilantes’ success is that they know who is and isn’t Boko Haram in their individual neighbourhoods. There was a degree of support for the insurgents in the early days; a sense that they were “our boys”, especially when the floundering military’s strategy was no more sophisticated than indiscriminate arrests and collective punishment. But Boko Haram was even more severe. Anyone not with them was regarded as a potential target, even the most pious Muslims. They killed with impunity, and their vindictiveness finally succeeded in turning the community against them, led by Maiduguri’s middle classes. All in the name The name, the Civilian JTF, was an implicit recognition of their allegiance to the security forces, then known as the Joint Task Force, or JTF for short. The self-defence units acted as the eyes and ears of the military, but also took direct action, ruthlessly dealing with alleged Boko Haram cells in the community. "So, I ask, ‘what about the youths who have sacrificed their lives to protect Nigeria’s integrity?’” Human rights groups have documented <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=4d0cb41b6e&e=399c7ee738> serious violations by the militia, including the summary execution of people identified as Boko Haram, as well as their participation in extra-judicial killings by the military. The battle for local control was so vicious that Boko Haram made it a point to set an example in towns where the Civilian JTF was active. Bama <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=a49a5061af&e=399c7ee738>, for example, was destroyed when the army and militia defenders were finally overcome. The state government was quick to embrace the militia, officially known as the Borno Youth Association for Peace and Justice. It provided training to a small cadre of volunteers, some vehicles, and occasionally a small stipend, but no weapons in any systematic way, apparently concerned it would not be able to keep track of them. What next? As the war comes to a close, the authorities are aware that it’s the vigilantes who’ve been at the forefront of defending their communities now present a new challenge. The state government has officially registered some 3,000 young men, but the real size of the militia is estimated at around 30,000 – and not all of them are local heroes. Apart from the killings, Civilian JTF is accused <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=59d048bfe1&e=399c7ee738> of sexual abuse and exploitation, especially in camps set up for people displaced by the fighting. Because of their links to the security forces, they have tended to act as if they are “above the law <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=ccf7d233d8&e=399c7ee738> ”. Khalli has returned to the security of his job as a government auditor. But a large percentage of his men were, at the time they joined the Civilian JTF, either unemployed or small-time street traders and hustlers – the same ranks Boko Haram drew from. Where is my reward? They will be looking for some reward for their service, and in a country in which disgruntled and unemployed youths routinely offer themselves to politicians – and anyone else willing to pay – as thugs for hire, they pose a real threat to stability. [image: Civilian Joint Task Force road block in Maiduguri] Obi Anyadike/IRIN Civilian JTF roadblock in Maiduguri Last December, Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima made this frank assessment: “Unless deliberate efforts are made towards addressing issues of unemployment, illiteracy, hunger and extreme poverty, the CJTF will be the Frankenstein monster that might end up consuming us.” Some moves have been taken to try to nip the problem in the bud. Last year, Borno state legislators passed into law a Youth Vigilante Empowerment Scheme. Currently, 1,850 Civilian JTF members are signed up as beneficiaries of the free medical aid and $75 monthly stipend. The army has recently inducted in 250 ex-militia members and the Department of State Security has absorbed about 30 others, but these are tiny numbers. There have long been calls for a state police service to absorb the rest of the men, but it is a contentious issue across Nigeria. The undermanned federal police force has failed woefully to provide law and order but there are fears that local politicians and businessmen could seek to more easily manipulate state police to their advantage. But as the army continues to recapture territory from Boko Haram, calls for a state police force to help fill the security vacuum and protect the displaced returning home have only grown louder. Double standards In the interim, Fati Abubakar, a Maiduguri-based journalist, believes the Civilian JTF should act as the main community defenders. “There are possibilities for them to become protectors of the community after the military leaves,” he told IRIN. “It’s imperative that the government engage the youth in productive activities. Idleness is dangerous.” Khalli, the vigilante leader, agreed but said the federal government must help also, and should be sued if it doesn’t. “The state government has a lot of responsibilities and can’t do it alone…. Engagement should begin from now, because knowing Nigeria once the war ends we will all be forgotten.” Christiana Wakawa, who works at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Development at the University of Maiduguri, has another concern. “The government needs to get them [the vigilantes] into therapy first,” she told IRIN. “They have seen so many things in war so they need to learn new skills or else they’ll keep using their wartime skills.” People in the northeast see a double standard over how earlier unrest in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta was managed <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=4e4f6e0798&e=399c7ee738>, and are calling for similarly generous terms. In 2009, the government granted an amnesty to some 10,000 young men who had taken up arms to demand a fairer share of oil revenues for the region. It included demobilisation and training programmes, and a shower of money. Khalli questions why the delta militants – who killed Nigerian soldiers and whose sabotage of oil facilities damaged the economy – were placated, while his men risk being abandoned. “I ask the federal government: ‘between Niger Delta militants and my boys, who are more responsible? Who ought to be taken care of?’” he told IRIN. “Government has given them scholarships, jobs, and billions of dollars. So, I ask, ‘what about the youths who have sacrificed their lives to protect Nigeria’s integrity?’” ee/oa/ag cjtf.jpg <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=27199b310a&e=399c7ee738> Feature <http:///feature> Conflict <http:///conflict> Human Rights <http:///human-rights> Politics and Economics <http:///politics-and-economics> They’re defeating Boko Haram but are they Nigeria’s next security threat? Eromo Egbejule <http:///authors/eromo-egbejule> IRIN <http:///byline/irin> Why care is needed over the demobilisation of vigilante groups MAIDUGURI <http:///publication-location/maiduguri> Africa <http:///africa> West Africa <http:///afrique/west-africa> Nigeria <http:///afrique/afrique-de-louest/nigeria> *Read on <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=b0be8dddc9&e=399c7ee738>* ------------------------------ More news and analysis <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=f567f61003&e=399c7ee738> <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=0d2e760602&e=399c7ee738> <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=191f30e780&e=399c7ee738> <http://irinnews.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=31c0c755a8105c17c23d89842&id=f6330ad61d&e=399c7ee738> ... -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. 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