UN accuses South Sudan government of non-cooperation
June 18, 2015 (NEW YORK) – United Nations (UN) has accused president Salva Kiir’s government in South Sudan of refusing to cooperate with the world body and continuing to harass UN personnel in the young war-ravaged country.
This came in strong worded statements on report presented to the UN Security Council on Wednesday by Herve Ladsous, head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in South Sudan.
He explained the frustration to the world body, saying president Kiir’s government has been defying repeated requests to cooperate in the task of carrying out the UN mandate in the country where 12,000 peacekeeping troops, police and civilian personnel are involved.
The UN’s peacekeeping chief expressed his frustration with South Sudan’s leaders on Wednesday, explaining that president Kiir and his government have denied repeated requests for the UN mission there to use equipment needed to protect civilians.
“I see a country — and I can be very candid, that country is South Sudan — a country where we felt that we needed to do a better job to protect civilians,” he said.
“We needed attack helicopters — request denied. We needed UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones] — request denied by the president to me, personally, three times last year,” he told the Security Council.
He said Juba has continued to harass its personnel in the country in flagrant violation of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which the UN signed with the government.
“Juba did declare some of our senior personnel persona non grata,” he said.
“If you look at the fact that yesterday it was announced that from now on UN personnel who are taking pictures will be considered as spies, well, I think this raises a number of concerns.”
Juba recently dismissed from the country Toby Lanzer, the deputy head of mission and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, accusing him of being outspoken about the economic and humanitarian situation in the country, where 4.6 million people face severe food insecurity and more than 2 million have been displaced from their homes.
Since the eruption of the conflict in December 2013, the UN has been sheltering and protecting more than 100,000 civilians at hastily set up camps inside UN bases across the country.
Ladous said the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was therefore dealing with a government that did not want to talk things out nor cooperate with requests aimed to facilitate the mission.
For the first time, the UN has publicly revealed that president Kiir did not attend a high-level meeting held by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, in New York in September last year despite Kiir’s travel and presence in New York at the time when he left Juba for such meetings in the US.
UN passed a resolution last month calling for sanctions to be imposed on individuals that are seen to be perpetuating the war and suffering of the populations in South Sudan. It has sent a team to South Sudan to designate individuals that should face the expected measures.
(ST)