Why we must keep faith with South Sudan

Opinion: Tragic nation has huge potential so let’s not dismiss it as just hopelessly violent

With a weary predictability, war started again in South Sudan in December, 2013. The latest round of peace talks recommence today. This is the world's newest country and while many here despair of the conflict, we need to recall two things.

First, all western countries went through the same paroxysms of violence in the earliest stages of their own development.

Second, as countries such as South Sudan find their feet, it is important that we don’t pull the ladder of development up behind us. For these reasons, non-governmental organisations and the donor governments must stay the course and keep faith with a country that carries huge potential.

Like many developing countries, South Sudan is despoiled by oil-generated greed. Having emerged from two decades of conflict with neighbouring Sudan (listing the number of deaths here in parenthesis over those years falls on desensitised ears at this stage), South Sudan has now turned in upon itself.

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For clarity, the touch paper for war on this occasion was a minor squabble that became the latest version of a centuries-old enmity between the two main tribes in South Sudan, the Dinka and the Nuer. The president, Salva Kiir, is a Dinka, and his former vice-president, Riek Machar – who is now in hiding – is a Nuer. It would be easy, and wrong, to characterise the clash as some binary ethnic conflict. Ethnicity fuels a political power struggle that one suspects would exist anyway even if all South Sudanese were of the same tribe.

Issues
So the problems go deeper than that. There are issues to do with their neighbours in Uganda and Sudan, and about other tribes that added to the gathering storm in recent months.

One has to be optimistic about the peace talks, but the view commonly held is that even if the participants fall out of the talks vowing undying love, the issues are out of their control. What is needed, therefore, is a national all-inclusive process of reconciliation that includes justice for innocent victims and accountability for the worst atrocities. It must be national in the sense that all involved share a common ideal of a peaceful South Sudan. It must be all-inclusive and draw in those voices that are not belligerents in the current violence.

The African Union has commenced an inquiry into human rights abuses since the conflict commenced and has the potential to be truly transformative. Evidence is being preserved with the assistance of the UN and it is hoped that a full and robust application of justice occurs.

This should sound familiar to Irish and British ears following decades of talks about talks, parity of esteem and endless measures of verification. These processes are time-consuming but essential if escape velocity is to be achieved.

Assistance
In terms of the humanitarian need, the UN called this week for $1.3 billion in assistance for 2014 to meet the needs of the 3.2 million people that require emergency aid. Prepositioning of stocks before the rains commence in April (making roads impassable) will go a long way to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

Aid agencies have remained in South Sudan, despite the security risks, to protect civilians and deliver aid. Humanitarians are assisting displaced people, host communities and people whose lives and livelihoods are at immediate risk.

NGOs such as Goal, MSF and Concern have been in South Sudan for many decades and in spite of having to evacuate staff three times over the past few years, Goal continues to work here operating 34 clinics for over 500,000 people. Its services are basic but life-saving and include carries out vaccinations, facilitating maternity care and treating malaria and diarrhoea.

But the situation continues to worsen. The January 23rd ceasefire is more honoured in the breach.

Rebel forces say that Riek Machar’s home town was levelled and women and children massacred in the aftermath. Worryingly, it is claimed that elements of the M23 DRC rebels had joined Ugandan forces in support of the government. MSF had to evacuate from Leer last week, taking patients with them into the bush for their safety.

As the peace talks resume, we must beware the political carve-up and ill-begotten amnesties in the next few days which do nothing for long-term reconciliation and everything for short-term political expedience.

The easy thing to do would be to dismiss this tragic country as being hopelessly violent – the harder thing to do is to recognise an earlier version of so many western countries on their journey to a peaceful and prosperous future.

Barry Andrews is chief executive of Goal