The United Nations Security Council has authorized the deployment of a 4,000-strong protection force to the conflict-hit South Sudan despite Juba’s strong opposition to the move.
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“South Sudan’s regional partners and the African Union have called on the [UN] Security Council to authorize urgently a regional protection force”, Pressman stated. China, Russia, Egypt and Venezuela abstained from the vote, citing the failure to secure South Sudan’s consent for the new mission. Mr. Machar and the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir came to a tepid peace agreement following years of civil war.
The U.N. mission has been accused multiple times in South Sudan of failing to protect civilians, including in cases where government forces allegedly committed rapes outside U.N. camps.
According to the Catholic Radio Network, Bishop Lodu called on South Sudan’s transitional government August 7 to reach out to global bodies such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and the African Union to achieve peace.
Speaking at the United Nations in NY, humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien, who recently returned from a three day trip to South Sudan, said the country was facing a crisis that is “enormous and complex”.
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South Sudan, founded in 2011, has sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil reserves, yet is pumping as little as 120,000 barrels per day because of the conflict.
The US-drafted resolution says it will “use all necessary means, including undertaking robust action where necessary, and actively” patrol to enforce peace.
A spokesman for Machar welcomed the resolution and pointed out that Machar’s replacement Taban Deng had accepted the principle of a regional intervention force at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Addis Ababa on August 5.
The U.S. should support African solutions rather than pushing a force that would destroy the country, South Sudan presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said before the United Nations vote. It apparently could even confront the government troops if the need arises.
The South Sudanese government had warned that the deployment of more United Nations forces would “seriously undermines” its sovereignty. “We are disappointed that there is not an immediate arms embargo on South Sudan. We think that the time for introducing an arms embargo is now”, deputy British ambassador to the U.N. Peter Wilson said ahead of the vote. Machar has said he will only return to the capital if regional forces are deployed.
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South Sudan descended into civil war after Kiir first dismissed Machar as his deputy. They signed a peace deal in August 2015, but implementation was slow and hard.
