What’s the task of the UN-peacekeepers in South Sudan? According to the UNMISS (the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan) it’s their mandate
- to support peace consolidation and thereby fostering longer-term statebuilding and economic development;
- to support the Government of the Republic of South Sudan in exercising its responsibilities for conflict prevention, mitigation, and resolution and protect civilians; and to support the Government of the Republic of South Sudan in developing its capacity to provide security, to establish rule of law; and
- to strengthen the security and justice sectors.
Benjamin Kahn of the New York Times points out to the snares which hinders the peacekeepers to fullfill their mandate. According to him “the key weakness” of “peacekeeping operations” is given “by inadequate resources and diffuse lines of command and control” as well as by depending “on the steadfastness of individual countries in supporting them” when it comes to “to deploy troops and secure equipment.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon speaks about a much more constricted situation if it comes to utilize some scope of the UNMISS‘-mandate:
“The reason was painfully simple: we were denied the use of necessary resources – in particular helicopters that would have given us mobility and reach in a vast region without roads. At the critical moment, I was reduced to begging for replacements from neighbouring countries and missions. – How do we deliver on Security Council mandates, when the very members of the Council do not give us the support we need?”
Is it only about the lack and the failure of politics, administration or financial ressources? Jeffrey Gettleman (NYT) showed us what it is really about:
Due to the above mentioned incoordinations the UNMISS forces found themselves to be in the same situation as the UNPROFOR in Bosnia (remember Srebrenica 1995!) or one year earlier the mass destruction in Rwanda under the “surveillance” of UN peacekeeping troops:
“The trail of corpses begins about 300 yards from the corrugated metal gate of the United Nations compound and stretches for miles into the bush.”
Read more:
Don’t Paralyze the Peacekeepers by Benjamin Kahn (New York Times)
Born in Unity, South Sudan Is Torn Again by Jeffrey Gettleman (New York Times)
You may help the UN Refugee Agency with your donation to aid refugees fleeing Sudan:
click here!
by atsil
