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ABSTRACT
Protecting civilians has been the primary raison d’être of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) since civil war erupted in late 2013. Since then, UN efforts to protect vulnerable civilians have focused on a handful of so-called protection of civilians (PoC) sites. While they have unquestionably saved lives, the PoC sites have also absorbed the lion’s share of mission resources, severely limiting UNMISS’ ability to protect civilians elsewhere. The signing of the still-fragile Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) has enabled a reconsideration of the UNMISS protection mandate in light of what remains an uncertain transition. Given the systemic constraints on the UN’s ability to project force in the name of PoC, we argue that UNMISS’ most constructive and lasting contribution to both protection and peace in South Sudan will be through sustained investments in inclusive local-level peacebuilding. Re-orienting the PoC mandate along these lines offers an opportunity to at least partially counteract the decidedly exclusive nature of the country’s current peace process, and to support bottom-up conflict resolution processes that could eventually interact in constructive ways with top-down dynamics.
Notes
1 UNMISS, ‘Special Representative Briefing’.
2 Carver, ‘A ‘call to peacebuilding’’, 8.
3 Briggs, ‘Protection of Civilians (POC) sites’, 17.
4 Holt and Berkman, The Impossible Mandate?
5 Department of Peace Operations (DPO), Policy: The Protection of Civilians, 6.
6 Security Council Report (SCR), Is Christmas Really Over?, 2.
7 Cited in United Nations (UN), United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.
8 On accountability for PoC on the context of peace operations generally, see Donais and Tanguay, ‘Protection of Civilians’.
9 Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), Evaluation of the Implementation, 20.
10 Practical considerations, such as the available of medevac for wounded peacekeepers, also factor into use of force decisions.
11 Spink, ‘Community Engagement by MONUSCO’, 4.
12 von Einsiedel, ‘Non-Military Protection;’ Spink, ‘Community Engagement by MONUSCO’, 5.
13 United Nations (UN), The Challenge of Sustaining Peace, 8.
14 United Nations (UN), United Our Strengths for Peace, xii, 23.
15 Human Rights Council (HRC), Report of the Commission, para 52.
16 International Crisis Group (ICG), Toward a Viable Future, 10.
17 Jok, ‘South Sudan’s elusive peace’, 74.
18 de Waal, ‘When kleptocracy becomes insolvent’, 347.
19 Kleinfeld, A Savage Order, 40.
20 Jok, ‘South Sudan’s elusive peace’, 74.
21 Human Rights Council (HRC), Report of the Commission, para 16.
22 Kindersley and Rolandsen, ‘Who are the civilians’, 386.
23 This is not to suggest, of course, that the uniformed component of UNMISS cannot play a protective role. In late April 2021, for example, UNMISS reported that Mongolian peacekeepers intervened to protect humanitarian workers attacked by a group of angry youths during a demonstration in Unity state; see https://unmiss.unmissions.org/unmiss-troops-protect-humanitarians-attacked-angry-youths-jam-jang-south-sudan
24 Liaga, ‘Situating ‘The Local’ in Peacebuilding;’ Krause, ‘Stabilization and Local Conflicts’, 481.
25 Wild et al, ‘’Lost Generation’ in South Sudan’, 668–9.
26 Wild et al, ‘’Lost Generation’ in South Sudan’, 664; Mayai, ‘The South Sudan National Dialogue’, 3.
27 de Vries and Schomerus, ‘South Sudan’s Civil War.’
28 Krause, ‘Stabilization and Local Conflicts’, 478.
29 Wild et al, ‘’Lost Generation’ in South Sudan’, 666, 669.
30 Day et at, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness’, 39.
31 Stringham and Forney, ‘It takes a village’, 181.
32 Stringham and Forney, ‘It takes a village’, 184.
33 Krause, ‘Stabilization and Local Conflicts’, 489–90.
34 United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Resolution 2567, 6.
35 Hunt, ‘Waiting for Peace’, 82–83.
36 Spink ‘Let Us be a Part of It’, 1.
37 See Donais, Protection through Peace Building.
38 Author interviews, Bentiu, South Sudan, July 2019.
39 Author interviews, Yambio, South Sudan, July 2019.
40 Mahmoud, ‘People-Centred Approaches to Peace’, 96.
41 Henigson, Community Engagement in UN Peacekeeping, 12.
42 Day et al, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness’, 39.
43 de Coning, ‘Adaptive Peacebuilding’, 304.
44 Spink, ‘Let Us be a Part of It’, 35.
45 Paddon Rhoads and Sutton, ‘The ‘Self’ Protection of Civilians.’
46 Boutellis, ‘From Crisis to Reform’, 6.
47 Henigson, Community Engagement in UN Peacekeeping.
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Notes on contributors
Timothy Donais
Timothy Donais is an associate professor in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. He also serves as the director of the Master of International Public Policy program, and co-director of the PhD Program in Global Governance, both at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Ayiko Solomon
Ayiko Solomon is Executive Director of Peace for All Canada, a non-governmental organisation committed to supporting women, youth and children to access quality education and socio-economic justice. He has also worked with over 20 international organisations on issues of civilian protection and humanitarian service delivery.