Committee: United Nations Security Council

Agenda: Situation in South Sudan

I.               Introduction

The controversy over certain Member States taking a portion of another state’s sovereignty

has been one of the most crucial issues that the world has faced even before the foundation of the

United Nations. As wars (both civil and total) occurred, genocides, ethnic cleansings, human right

abuses from the absence of humanitarianism, and other numerous war crimes accompanied them as

inevitable outcomes. In order to prevent the eventualities of such, the United Nations Security Council

has promulgated the R2P, (a.k.a. Responsibility to Protect FYI) in the 2005 World Summit, which

affirms an international commitment. In many global exigencies, the Member States have deployed

interventions: in humanitarian, political, military, and economic aspects, which later became a

flashpoint of other conflicts, as the R2P failed to serve its duty due to extreme aggravation of the

original conflict or unrighteous exploitation. Situation in South Sudan is no exception. For South

Sudan, global interventions rather stimulated the preexisting conflict. Previously, the UN publicized

various documents in order to settle a legal red line to prevent mass atrocities in such circumstances.

In 1948, three years after the World War II, the UN General Assembly has hosted the “Convention on

the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” which develops a decisive definition of

“genocide” into five categories:

1) Killing members of the group;

2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical

destruction in whole or in part;

4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,

and strictly declared that there would be severe punishments on any individual or quota, who schemes

genocide (United Nations General Assembly). Although the ethnic conflict, supposedly, genocide, is

occurring in South Sudan, no effective intervention is settled, and mass atrocities and the lack of

humanitarianism currently remain firm in South Sudan.

     II.            Definitions of Key Terms:

|Genocide:

Genocide refers to a deliberate mass atrocity that is inflicted upon a group of people of certain ethnic

or cultural background, which is intended to eradicate the fundamental existence of that group. The

term itself was first coined after the Holocaust of the World War II, and was developed in two specific

periods: the period between 1944 and 1948, when the ban on genocide was internationally legislated

and the period between 1991 and 1998, when the previously legislated laws were realized and

enforced through opinio juris.

| R2P (Responsibility to Protect):

The Responsibility to Protect is an international coalition that was settled by the 2005 World Summit

to protect the civilians from in potential exigencies of war crimes, genocide, or ethnic cleansing, any

crimes that are aimed to impair the humanity. It states that the responsibility is the state sovereignty,

and every government is required and mandated to protect its people by maintaining an efficient and

secure state sovereignty. However, in cases where the state sovereignty is disabled or ill-maintained

by despotic government or external invasions, the Member States have the responsibility to restore the

nation’s sovereignty through temporary interventions.  

| Intervention:

Intervention can be partly interpreted as the loss of state sovereignty. It can be managed in many

different aspects: economic, humanitarian, and military. As the former two are considered to invade

too much of state sovereignty, and thereby not normally deployed easily, humanitarian interventions

are consistently employed despite the dilemma that they do not often engender positive outcomes, but

that they are necessary in order to save the civilians from the danger of potential collateral casualties.

As those interventions are frequently abused by certain countries in order to achieve certain influence

on that nation, the concept of intervention itself is internationally controversial.  

  III.            Background Information:

South Sudan is the last country in the world that has gained independence in July, 2011, and currently

one of the most destabilized countries in the world. The South Sudanese Civil War broke out on

December 15th, 2013, and still endures in the present days. One of the major rebel groups that have

resisted in the civil war was the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which led the South Sudan

Liberation Movement (SSLM), a revolt against the government and newly elected President Salvar

Kiir. Previously, the SPLA pioneered South Sudan Separatism, which resulted in the independence of

South Sudan. It was the election of President Salvar Kiir that transformed the SPLA into an anti-

government force. As time passed, conflicts between the rebels and the government seemed to be

settled with the armistice in Juba. However, as George Athor, the major commander in chief of the

SPLA, was found killed in his way back from the borderline after recruitment, a week after he met

President Salva Kiir, the Juba truce lost its meaning. Although there had been certain extent of

amnesty provided to the former SPLA soldiers by President Salvar Kiir, the majority of them were

assimilated into the rebel forces under the control of the former vice president, Riek Machar.

Evidently, George Athor wasn’t the only one. SPLA was led by Commander Peter Gadet as well, and

frequent rebellions were led to the conclusion that President Salvar Kiir end up centralizing his power,

and thereby reforming the military. Primarily, he conducted the infusion of military into the police

service system, which indicated his aspiration of controlling the police system under his military

surveillance and influence. Therefore, every inspector general was replaced by a lieutenant from the

army. He also purged the military of his rivals, by execution or forced retirement. That is, he basically

set up an entirely new organization of the military. In the name of failed performance, since the

SPLM, President Salva Kiir discarded the top organs of the government too. In fact, Vice President

Riek Machar was one of the wrongly dismissed officials in President Salva Kiir’s reformation

process. As a result of his despotic reforms, President Salva Kiir induced the most unfavorable

outcome: the creation of another rebellion by Riek Machar. Starting from the Initial Mutiny in 2013,

Riek Machar became the official rebel leader, and according to the ethno-tribal backgrounds of the

two parties: President Salva Kiir (Dinka) and Riek Machar (Nuer), South Sudan is resisting the ethno-

tribal conflict between the Nuer and the Dinka.     

Amidst the South Sudanese Civil War, humanitarianism and the inalienable rights have been

endangered. Economically, inflation has taken place for long, and the relative costs of goods and

services in South Sudan record the highest in the world. Moreover, famine has been officially

declared in 2017 (100,000 people are now about to be killed out of starvation). One third of the

population has been displaced, and as there is no substantial amount of arable lands available since the

civil war, the majority of the civilians, whose lifestyles base upon agriculture, cannot produce crops,

and therefore are under the threat of a severe food crisis. Although people are heavily dependent upon

nearby UN refugee camps, the lack of clean water and poor hygiene even generated the outbreak of

waterborne diseases. Children are often recruited as child soldiers. South Sudan is currently all about

the lacks: of humanitarianism, technology, and proper infrastructure.  

IV.            Past Actions of the United Nations and Non-Governmental Organizations:

| United Nations Country Team (UNCT)

As the situation in South Sudan is grave, the UN has launched an amalgamated head organ composed

of 20 representatives from crucial UN organs that would be operating within the country. Under the

ultimate control of the Resident Coordinator, the UNCT particularly supervises and advocates the

activities of individual branches with the fundamental guidelines set for the cooperation. It primarily

serves to secure humanitarian and development sectors, and also even collaborates with the

government. There are three major sectors that the UNCT is operated by: Programme Management

Team (PMT), United Nations Communications Group (UNCG), Operations Management Team

(OMT). The PMT coordinates the installation of the projects within the country, the UNCG fosters the

interactions between the UN headquarters and the regional sectors of the UNCT, while the OMT

endeavors to construct the network of entities involved in the UN operations, such as HR Network,

Finance Network, Procurement Network, ETC/ICT Network, HACT Committee, and UN Clinic

Committee.

| United Nations Mission in Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS)

The UN Mission in South Sudan has been launched by the United Nations Security Council, which

deploys the peacekeepers and pursues non-military intervention. Resolution 1996 that was publicized

in 2011 declared that the UNSC has viewed the situation in South Sudan as a consistent threat to the

maintenance of global peace and that there is the need of special provisions for the country.

Previously, determined to focus on the development factors in South Sudan, as the United Nations

countenanced the outbreak of the South Sudanese Civil War in December of 2013, the UNSC,

reformed the UNMISS in the direction of prioritizing the protection of the innocent civilians and

establishing internal peace by activating the Cessation of Hostilities agreement within South Sudan.

 

| United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Refugee Compound Camps in South Sudan

Like previously mentioned, the UNHCR refugee camps have been tolerating the homeless quotas in

South Sudan ever since December in 2013. Currently, by February, 2017, the estimated number of the

people who are now stationing in the UN compound refugee camps is considered to be over 1.5

million, and ergo, the refugee crisis within South Sudan overwhelms other refugee crises in entire

Africa. As the UNHCR William Spindler stresses, “more than 60 per cent of the refugees are children,

many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition,” and they are believed to have been injured from

kidnappings, rapes, and starvation. Although temporarily, the UNHCR refugee compound campsites

are providing the civilians a safe haven from ongoing mass atrocities of the South Sudanese Civil

War.

 

     V.            Major Countries Involved:

 

| South Sudan

The South Sudanese government is led by President Salva Kiir ever since its independence in July,

2011 and even when the civil war broke out in December, 2013. Although there has been peace

agreement settled between President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, conflicts remain active, and since

2016, President Salva Kiir’s death has been speculated by the world, but the government has denied

this allegation. Some may say that the South Sudanese Civil War is simply the ethnic conflict between

President’s Dinka background and Machar’s Nuer identity, but this disparity has contributed to the

recruitment of the two counterparts considerably. Due to the continuous military altercations between

the government and the rebel group, former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has ordered the

implementation of embargoes on arms in South Sudan, but military conflicts have never been ceased.

 

| Egypt

Egypt is one of the most active African countries that intervene into the South Sudanese Civil War.

As the crisis in South Sudan aggravated gradually, Egypt has been focusing more attention to the

peace and security within South Sudan, and currently, Egypt firmly asserts its pro-government state in

the civil war. Egypt has recently deployed a special envoy that would facilitate the talks between the

two conflicting parties of South Sudan. However, Egypt has been showing more support for President

Salva Kiir and the government, and is now accused of the bombing on the positions of the Sudan

People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), the branched anti-government force that

has been segregated from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) led by Riek Machar,

with nine bombs in this year February. Nevertheless, the Egyptian government is sending food and

medical aids in order to protect the civilians from the seemingly endless humanitarian crisis resulting

from the civil war too.

 

| Uganda

Like Egypt, Uganda is also one of the East African countries that have agreed to intervene military-

wise if Riek Machar rejects to sign the ceasefire offer, concerning that the ethno-tribal conflict within

South Sudan would prevail more and even spread to other African countries. Currently, due to the

spread of rebel groups against South Sudanese government all over Africa, Uganda is also

considerably damaged from the elongated station of a rebel group, Lord’s Resistance Army. As

Uganda is geographically adjacent to South Sudan, it is also suffering from the influx of immense

displaced South Sudanese population, and as 3,000 South Sudaneses are estimated to enter Uganda

per day, in March, 2017, Uganda has declared that it cannot host any more of South Sudanese

population, and is at the breaking point. Uganda is indeed technically confronting the world’s largest

refugee crisis solely by itself, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.  

 

| United States

So far, since President Obama’s term, the U.S. government has been exhibiting deep disillusionment

and disappointment toward the leadership of President Salva Kiir within South Sudan. The U.S. has

contributed to the revival of humanitarianism in South Sudan, and even supported the righteous

independence of South Sudan previously. Thereby, the U.S. even has the history of granting military

support for the establishment of South Sudan as an independent state starting from early 1990s. As

South Sudan has been prohibiting the humanitarian aid workers from entering the country and as

famine has been officially declared in 2017, the U.S. has strongly expressed a sign of warning to the

South Sudanese government that the government is deteriorating the humanitarianism in its own

nation, driving innocent civilians into starvation in the caucus within UNSC this March.

| Russian Federation

Unlike other countries, Russia is one of the countries that are conservative in employing interventions

in the situation in South Sudan. Previously, Russia has condemned the former Secretary General Ban

Ki-moon’s decision to withdraw Kenyan peacekeeping forces in order to deploy them for settling

down crisis in South Sudan, anticipating the potential insecurity that Kenya would have to bear. Also,

Russia is one of the countries that contradict the United States’ decision on implementing sanctions

on South Sudan. While United States believe that a measure has to be taken immediately, Russia

believes that simply employing the sanctions is not an ultimate solution for terminating the

fundamental crisis.

 VI.            Future Outlook / Solutions:

As military interventions implemented, prioritizing the R2P, have been considered failures in many

cases, the United Nations is reluctant to settle any military intervention, as it is shown in their non-

militarization of the UNMISS. Even in the UNSC’s 7906th meeting in this year’s March, clearly

declared that there would be no military intervention within South Sudan, but the UNSC presidential

statement highly acknowledged the need of guaranteeing the safety of the aid workers, as South

Sudan is currently inflicting violences and barricading the humanitarian aid groups from entering the

country borders even, which automatically delayed and has been delaying the revival of

humanitarianism within the conflicted regions. Moreover, as the Member States in that UNSC

meeting strongly expressed concern about the famine in South Sudan and urged the importance of an

immediate action to be taken over that issue. So far, considering the significance of mitigating pains

of the civilians in humanitarian, ethnic, and military aspects, the possible solutions for current South

Sudan include:

l   a small arms treaty between South Sudan and the neighboring nations and the inspection

organization that effectively and efficiently pursue enforcement of the treaty

l   an implementation of specific education curriculum that would remind the nation of the united

national identity, despite the disparities in the ethno-tribal identities

l   a guaranteed route or passageway for the humanitarian aid workers for accessing the displaced

civilians on the verge of starvation

l   increasing the availability of the refugee compound camps that are comprised of shelters, food,

medical aids, and other basic human necessities.

Although the exigency of South Sudan requires reformations in a variety of aspects in order to

terminate the hostilities, the conflict is so severe that there are not many tactics that can be even

implemented in the country. In order to fundamentally reduce the use of military weapons in the

scene, the supply of the arms must be reduced. Therefore, the legislation of a small arms treaty that

bans the trade of arms in the black markets between the neighboring nations of South Sudan is

essential as the weapons are transported to South Sudan from the rebel groups that are stationing in

other African nations. As the East African countries have even agreed to attempt a military

intervention in South Sudan for the sake of peace and security within South Sudan, the inspection

organization that would enforce the treaties between their borderlines seem to hold a promise.

As South Sudan is basically a nation that is comprised of many tribes of different ethnic backgrounds

and as the ongoing civil war partially is an ethno-tribal conflict between the Nuers and the Dinkas, the

importance of education system that would grant an image of united national identity needs to be

stressed fundamentally. This can be possibly established by paving a safe route for securing the

entrance of the humanitarian aid workers simultaneously. Like the UNCT that is carrying out different

programs, such as educating the youth about journalism in Juba and the South Sudan Development

2015 Report, regional local  humanitarian aid workers can possibly provide better education system

transcending ethnicity, as they have a better understanding of the distinctions in-between tribes, if

their safety is promised.

Lastly, an alternative of increased availability of the refugee compound camps is desperately needed,

as the refugee compound campsites are the only places that the South Sudanese people can seek a

refuge, and as they are even crossing the borderlines to Uganda, which resulted in overpopulation of

campsites in Uganda even. The alternatives may include appropriate technologies (such as multi

filtration stages, including Slow Sand Filtration (SSF) and Oxfam Field Up-flow Clarifier, for

drinkable water supply), settlement of intertribal treaties for securing more demilitarized zones for

settling more refugee campsites, reinforcing the record system of locating the refugees, and elevating

the connectivity among refugees and their relatives. In fact, considering the fact that the majority of

the refugee camps’ population is children, expanding the network of refugee camps would possibly

decrease the recruitment of the military forces of both the two counterparts, as the access to children

who can be exploited as child soldiers is weakened concurrently. Furthermore, as the displaced South

Sudanese people even endure other health problems, such as waterborne diseases from poor hygiene

even in the campsites, reinforcing the implementation of technology and medical aids is crucial.    

VII.            Conclusion

Genocide has been officially categorized as the biggest bane of the humanity since the Holocaust in

the World War II in both external legal and customary legal terms internationally. However, in South

Sudan, the world’s newest independent state, genocide is once again prevailing, and more

significantly, there are no effective measures that can be taken to alleviate the collateral damages and

casualties amidst the power game between two ethnicities. Although humanitarian intervention is

considered to be tied to a serious dilemma, the decline of humanitarianism in South Sudan must be

addressed with intervention to a certain extent. Delegates are expected to devise the blueprint for

South Sudan as a truly independent nation with health state sovereignty with peace and security with

less displaced population, less casualties from malnutrition, and less ethnic incompatibility in this

conference.

 

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