South Sudan’s Delayed Justice: Enough is Enough
Nepalese peacekeepers arrive in Juba to reinforce the military component of the UN Mission in South Sudan in 2017. Source.
As part of the 45th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan released a report on the transitional justice process as it has unfolded in the fledgling nation. The verdict: South Sudanese officials have failed to establish necessary conditions and legislation to promote peace.
The state of South Sudan has been in near-constant turmoil since its independence from Sudan in 2011. Civil war erupted in 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former vice-president of plotting to overthrow him. The conflict was marked by human rights atrocities, ethnic conflict, and famine, leading to over one million refugees fleeing to neighboring Uganda. The conflict ended in 2018 with the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) in August 2018. R-ARCSS provided a power-sharing agreement in which a Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) should have been formed within eight months.
Disagreements between the parties to the R-ARCSS has resulted in delays to the transitional justice process outlined in the Agreement, perpetuating impunity for human rights violations committed during the conflict. The disagreements are quite bureaucratic; the parties failed to reach consensus on the boundaries and number of regional states. This led to a nine-month delay in the formation of RTGoNU.
The R-TGoNU Executive finally came together in February 2020, following an agreement creating internal boundaries within 10 states and three Administrative Areas. Under the revised Transitional Period, the R-TGoNU was expected to enact legislation to establish the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, and Compensation and Reparations Authority by May 2020. All three mechanisms were designed in the agreement to ensure victims’ rights to truth, justice, and remedies for violations of human rights and humanitarian law. The R-ARCSS stated these organizations aimed to “promote the common objective of facilitating truth, reconciliation and healing, [and] compensation and reparation for gross human rights violations in South Sudan.”
According to the UN report, there has been no movement on the creation of these mechanisms. The R-TGoNU has not provided public updates on the status of the agreed-upon legislation or outlined challenges preventing the set-up.
Further contestation between the parties to the R-ARCSS on sharing of responsibilities within the newly formed 10 states, three Administrative Areas, and local governments has resulted in a political stalemate. Reconstitution of the National Assembly (now named the Transitional National Legislative Assembly) - the body that is obliged to enact legislation to create the aforementioned justice mechanisms - has come to a halt.
Failure to address causes of the 2013 conflict, including ethnic-based divisions and disregard for rule of law has allowed new violence to spread throughout South Sudan. The Commission “has documented a spiralling pattern of systematic, ethnic-based communal violence perpetrated through armed cattle raiding, clashes, and revenge killings, particularly in conflict intensive areas.” While regional conflicts over tribal or ethnic dominance have led to violations of humanitarian law, the Commission has established that some attacks presented by the government as cattle raiding are in fact systematically orchestrated, involving organised armed groups working with main parties to R-ARCSS, including the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces. The violence “has been perpetrated through gruesome killings and physical assault and injuries aimed at terrorising targeted communities.”
Power-sharing agreements fail about 50% of the time according to a study from the journal of Conflict Management and Peace Science. So far, the R-ARCSS appears to be one of them. The Agreement was supposed to create mechanisms to prevent human rights abuses and bring past offenses to justice, but the stalling of South Sudanese authorities to establish these legal courts and commissions has instead perpetuated impunity for the most horrific of crimes.
Violations from all parties to the R-ARCSS make it clear that an international organization must step in and introduce mechanisms to establish harmony, promote justice, and provide humanitarian aid to areas of South Sudan decimated by conflict and natural disasters. As depersonalizing as treaties and abbreviations can be, we must center our takeaway on the very human reality that the entire international community has failed the people of South Sudan by not taking more action.
An open letter to the African Union Peace and Security Council from July 2020 - signed by 33 civil society organizations - ends with a powerful conclusion: “South Sudanese authorities should not be permitted to hold hostage the vital process to enable justice for victims of the conflict in South Sudan. The people of South Sudan deserve every step that can be taken to advance the chances for justice to be delivered.”