United Nations peacekeepers have been deployed in South Sudan since 2005, initially to safeguard a peace deal with Sudan, later to support state-building processes. They have faced major new challenges since the eruption of civil conflict in December 2013.
The peacekeeping mission, UNMISS, was mandated by the UN Security Council to “deter violence including through proactive deployment and patrols,” as well as “to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.”
In a three-part analysis, author Daniel van Oudenaren argues that UNMISS adopted a cautious, defensive strategy, both militarily and politically, which hindered its pursuit of its mandated objectives.
The analysis relies on exclusive interviews with top UN officials, leaked and publically released UN documents, anonymous sources within the mission, and other independent reporting.
Part One, ‘The Gate’, describes the fall of the Akobo base in December 2013 and the effect this had in forcing the mission into a defensive siege posture.
Part Two, ‘The Wall,’ recounts a number of mass killings carried out in or near UNMISS bases, and some reasons why the peacekeepers have been unable to stop them.
The Wall
On the north side of Juba is a place called Mangaten, a neighborhood of cement houses and tukuls separated by reed fences and narrow dirt streets. Its homes have been looted, its roofs are leaking, fences decaying, and gates swinging eerily open.
Its people are gone.
Just a kilometer or so away is one of the most densely populated places on earth: a UN base, surrounded by flood lights, drainage ditches, a patrolled access road, and a razor-wire topped berm – a wall.
As of mid-May about 20,000 people were living in flood-prone parts of this base, called ‘Tongping PoC.’ It is so crowded that UNMISS chief Hilde Johnson warned in April it was “at imminent risk of turning into a death trap.”
The majority of people at the Tongping camp are ethnic Nuers who fled from Mangaten or nearby neighborhoods Mia Saba, New Site, Tongping or Munuki.
There is no mystery about what happened in these neighborhoods. According to independent reports as well as the UN human rights report dated 8 May, “Security forces killed unarmed civilians… destroyed homes, and stole valuables.”
Most of the perpetrators were in uniform. They entered neighborhoods on foot, in official vehicles, and in tanks. They asked victims about their ethnicity, gave language tests, and rounded up men with distinctive ethnic facial markings.
“Security forces targeted men of Nuer ethnicity,” reads the report, which describes numerous killings carried out on 16-18 December totaling to at least 523 civilian deaths, including a single massacre of 300-450 unarmed men at a government building (UNMISS HRD Report, 8 May 2014, Sections 63, 64, 66, 70).
“Dead bodies were seen across the city,” the UN report says. Trucks were used to carry away the bodies. The UN says it does not know where they were buried.
The survivors fled.
Five months later, they still have not come out from behind the wall.
Legitimate targets
Bor, a town 190 km north of Juba, saw similar violence in December (See Part 1: The Gate). After four months sheltering thousands of displaced Nuers, the UN base in the government-controlled town was attacked on 17 April.
The attackers, described as an ‘armed mob’ of Dinka Bor youth, by some accounts also included off-duty soldiers. Emboldened by earlier crimes, they charged the base perimeter, breached it, and rampaged through the camp killing 58 civilians.
Attackers crossed the perimeter berm at multiple points, suggesting possible planning on the part of the attackers. “They breached at a number of areas, climbing over various holes and gaps,” a UNMISS official in Bor said in an interview.
UN peacekeepers firing from fixed positions and also on foot managed eventually to drive off the attackers, killings several. But the attack continued for around half an hour before it was beaten back, according to a UNMISS spokesman.
Even children were deliberately targeted, according to an aid group whose personnel survived the attack. “Utterly defenseless children were attacked in a place where they should have felt safe,” said UNICEF Representative Jonathan Veitch.
Representatives of Dinka Bor youth as well as government officials later explained the motive for the attack: the youths were angry at Nuer civilians inside the base for supposedly celebrating news of a rebel victory.
The next day, South Sudan’s information minister and government spokesman called a press conference at which he referred to the victims as ‘rebels.’
“We cannot continue to accommodate rebels inside UNMISS compounds,” he said.
The designation of civilians as ‘rebels’ was made repeatedly, without retraction or correction, and without being objected or resisted by others present, including other ministers of the government.
It is a designation that has unmistakable implications: In a war situation, a ‘rebel’ is a legitimate target to be killed by forces of the government.
In other words, the Government of the Republic of South Sudan declared as of 18 April 2014 that unarmed Nuer civilians within UNMISS bases including men, women and children were legitimate targets deserving of death.
Propaganda role
As shocking as this statement was, it was in fact only a footnote to an earlier campaign of incitement against UNMISS itself, which legitimized direct physical attacks against the peacekeepers and those under their protection.
The campaign of incitement had a major impact on the security environment and was never meaningfully countered by UNMISS (See below: ‘Political and public outreach’). It involved key organs of the state, including the national television and radio, and constitutional post-holders and their offices.
On 8 March, the information minister brought an entire planeload of journalists with him to the town of Rumbek, where security forces had searched and seized truckloads of weaponry belonging to UNMISS peacekeepers.
Although it was clear that the weapons were meant for a contingent of deploying Ghanaian peacekeepers en route to Bentiu, the minister insinuated that UNMISS had intended to smuggle them into the hands of rebel forces.
“There is no doubt that all these trucks were loaded with illegal arms that were smuggled into South Sudan,” he said, referring to a “hidden agenda.”
He then announced that state security organs had been directed to ‘inspect’ UNMISS vehicles and personnel across the country, in breach of the Status of Forces agreement between the UN and the government.
State television made further slanderous insinuations against UNMISS, airing images that purported to be land mines, saying these had been hidden within the UNMISS cargo. In fact, they were gas mask covers, for use with tear gas.
Within two days of the Rumbek trip a mass government-organized rally against foreign interference was held in the national capital, attended by the vice president, cabinet minister, parliament speaker and other top officials.
Pro-government demonstrators carried signs with slogans like, ‘Is Hilda Johnson Commander of Rebels?’ while others showed a photo-shopped image of Hilde Johnson aiming a handgun saying, ‘Why Hilda support the Rebellion?’
Speaking at the rally, Vice President James Wani Igga declared, “They want us to become a UN colony…. If they want to force us to be colonized again, I swear to God even an old man like me will return to the bush as a rebel.”
Another official, a state governor, reportedly urged demonstrators to view the peacekeeping force as an “enemy of South Sudan.”
Intimidation
In the days and weeks that followed, South Sudanese security forces executed faithfully the directives of their leaders with respect to the UN.
On 11 March, one day after the rally, security forces across the country began stopping UN cars and trucks, ordering cargo offloaded, inspecting documents, demanding bribes, and detaining staff and drivers.
Soldiers halted a UN vehicle traveling between Rumbek and Yambio, beat the driver, made him offload the cargo, and forced him to pay bribes. In Bor, soldiers prevented peacekeepers from boarding a UN flight, and obstructed a patrol north of the city. In Juba, police officers stopped a UN vehicle and insulted and slapped the driver.
The next day, security officials detained UN trucks at Gumbo on the outskirts of Juba, while others at Yida camp surrounded a UN flight, searched passengers and cargo and questioned UN and humanitarian staff as to their ethnicity.
On 13 March, police abducted a displaced person who had ventured just outside the UN protection site at the Bor camp, and made him to disappear.
On 14 March, government forces were seen abducting a woman near the same base, and in Juba a soldier shot and wounded a displaced man who was standing just outside the UN Tongping base.
Also on that day, the county government in Yirol threatened to revoke the land rights given to the UN for its base in that town.
By mid-April the situation was so bad that the UN World Food Programme said their drivers were being stopped dozens of times on key supply routes and extorted thousands of pounds, preventing food from reaching hungry people.
Beyond the wall
Given this context, UN movements beyond the wall have been under tight restrictions throughout the first five months of 2014, and not only in areas of conflict.
All movements, whether for supply missions, peacekeeping patrols, human rights investigations, or other purposes necessarily have required more precautions and more authorizations both internally and externally, even – or perhaps especially – in areas that the government had secured and where there were no clashes.
This has reduced the UN’s ability to investigate and deter mass atrocities, a number of which were committed beyond the walls of UN bases between January and April, including in Leer, Malakal and twice in Bentiu.
A full account of all these incidents cannot be given here. Instead, two points are to be developed: (1) UNMISS was unable to prevent these crimes, a failure generally attributed to lack of resources; (2) In most cases, UNMISS was silent about such incidents when they occurred, either because the mission could not gain access for investigation, or for deliberate reasons of policy.
The best known of these atrocities were the massacres in Bentiu in mid-April 2014, when more than 200 people were killed. The UN quickly condemned these killings, which were reportedly carried out by rebel troops.
But killings carried out in the same city three months earlier went unremarked. Though lesser in scale than the April atrocities, numerous human rights violations were committed after the capture of Bentiu by government forces on 10 January.
UNMISS issued only a brief statement about looting, blaming rebels and making no mention of the government offensive. The mission expressed no concern about the offensive operation against the town, nor revealed information about killings in Bentiu of which it was aware.
A UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the UN hierarchy chose not to say anything about human rights violations committed in Bentiu after its capture by government forces.
“When the killings happened in Bentiu a month ago [i.e., in mid-April], the UN were very quick to put out a statement. But where were they when the same things happened in January?” he said.
The official, who was in Bentiu at the time of the SPLA attack, said, “They destroyed the city and killed innocent civilians. I reported everything to the leadership of UNMISS but nobody did anything.”
Photographs taken in the city at that time show bodies in civilian clothing along roadsides, including one disabled man with a false limb, as well as a police officer with his hands and feet tied behind his back. The images also show homes going up in flames as government troops advance into the city.
The UN official concluded that the mission had been afraid to speak out about these abuses. “They chose the side of the South Sudanese government,” he said.
Later – nearly four months after the killings took place – the mission did release some information about what had happened. “On 10 January, Human Rights Officers witnessed SPLA elements shooting at civilians,” UNMISS stated in a report.
At least 31 civilians were killed by government and allied forces, according to the report, often “after failing a language test to reveal their ethnicity.”
‘We are only able to protect those who are inside the base’
In interviews, top UN officials acknowledged that their forces have been too overstretched to defend at-risk populations beyond the walls of their bases at all times. But they said the peacekeepers patrol regularly and keep contacts with the warring parties.
Deborah Schein, UNMISS Upper Nile State Coordinator, recalled that during the period of fighting for control of Malakal, peacekeepers patrolled ‘once or twice a day’ to hospitals, churches and other sanctuaries where civilians had gathered.
The peacekeepers offered to evacuate civilians and shelter them at UN premises. But initially not all of the people wanted to go to the UN base, according to Schein.
She said the peacekeepers also kept contact with the warring groups. “Our military observers would go to them consistently and say that these people [the civilians] are under our watch,” she added. “They were promised they would be protected.”
In spite of these pledges, gunmen in mid-February committed numerous killings, rapes and abductions in Malakal, including shooting dead 14 people at the hospital.
The UNMISS base itself came under threat on 18 February. At least ten people were killed when gunfights erupted near the base at the same time as inter-communal hand-to-hand fighting within the UN-protected camp of 21,000.
“The fighting outside the compound compelled UNMISS troops to concentrate on protecting the perimeter of the camp from this external threat,” the mission explained in a press release the same day.
Three months later, Malakal remains mostly deserted except for the camp within the UN base. Schein says some camp residents have begun making exploratory visits into town, which has since been retaken by the government army.
“We are only able to protect those who are inside the base,” she said. “When they go out they go out at their own risk.”
Another UN official, Deputy Special Representative Toby Lanzer, stressed that the lack of troops is a major constraint. Speaking in mid-May, he said only 8,000 of the mandated 12,500 troops were deployed, and of those only 5,500 were active duty.
“When we say we need more resources, or we don’t have the resources to protect the warehouse 30 meters down the road, the fact is we don’t,” he emphasized.
Political and public outreach
UNMISS’ vulnerabilities have attracted the attention of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the UN Security Council, which have begun taking measures to reinforce the mission with more troops and resources.
But this will not address another key weakness. Throughout the crisis UNMISS has demonstrated an inability not just to project force beyond the walls of the mission, but an inability to project influence, in terms of political and public outreach.
The failure to counter the March campaign of incitement against UNMISS itself is the clearest example of this. More significant has been the near-total absence of communication on the events of the war itself, in the face of active campaigns of propaganda and incitement by both warring parties.
Bentiu again provides a helpful example. When the city was attacked in January it had little strategic value because the oil fields around it had already been shut down. Its primary significance lay in its propaganda value in the political arena – which at that point meant not just talks in Addis Ababa but also competition for the loyalty of uncommitted military officers and men.
Capturing the city was meant to fuel a propaganda narrative of triumph and power, instilling fear in the enemy and providing momentum for further aggression.
Had the peacekeeping mission wished to counter that narrative, one way of doing it would have been to condemn the offensive on Bentiu as an act of unwarranted aggression. Yet the peacekeepers did not condemn the offensive. Nor did they when attacks were undertaken against Leer, Nasser and most recently Akobo.
Another way would have been to present the facts about the human rights abuses committed during the offensive. Instead the mission withheld those facts.
Of course, the mission is not the political body mandated to make statements about ceasefire violations. That is IGAD, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which heads the mediation of the peace talks. But neither is the UN prevented from doing so for any compelling legal or institutional reasons.
The mission has its own military observers and it is mandated to cooperate with IGAD. It has established relationships with SPLA and rebel commanders, aircraft for military reconnaissance, and critical communications assets in remote areas.
Moreover, the mission has means of public outreach that are not being used. Hilde Johnson, the head of the mission, speaks rarely to the local press, and her political deputy Raisedon Zenenga has made almost no public remarks at all. UNMISS’ information office declined a request for him to be interviewed for this article.
UNMISS’ Department of Public Information has limited itself to reporting almost exclusively on the mission’s own activities. And the mission’s radio network, with FM towers throughout the country, took most regular programs off-air rather than address controversial issues related to peace and conflict.
Toby Lanzer, Johnson’s other deputy, is an exception. He has been outspoken about developing events and policy issues, often speaking articulately and forcefully. Still, he has been confined largely to a humanitarian portfolio.
All of this points to the mission’s weakness in the political field. This is actually more debilitating to its purposes than its military weaknesses. The mission’s walls were breached because its physical defenses were inadequate; but it was attacked in the first place because it failed to check propaganda and warmongering.
If violent speech – incitement and propaganda – is not going to be resisted even in conference halls or press events, then there is no reason to expect that violent acts are going to be resisted in the field either.
Writing by Daniel van Oudenaren; reporting by Jason Patinkin, Klaas van Dijken and Daniel van Oudenaren.
Photo: UNMISS peacekeepers at the Bentiu base in January 2014 (Courtesy photo/Radio Tamazuj)