PERPETUATORS OF WAR IN SOUTH SUDAN MUST BE REPRIMANDED

In recent times, some parts of Africa have witnessed violence on a scale that has shocked its people, drawn international condemnation and, in some cases, resulted in a call for intervention by the international community.

 Recent atrocities in the Central African Republic and South Sudan have made news, but there have been other violent eruptions in Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya and Mali. The African Union (AU) has been criticised for not doing enough to address impunity on the continent and for failing to expressly condemn and reject impunity.

In 2013, the African Union Peace and Security Council took an unprecedented step. For the first time in the history of the regional organisation or its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, the Peace and Security Council established a Commission of Inquiry.

 It is investigating human rights violations and other abuses committed during the armed conflict in South Sudan, the African Union’s newest member and the world’s newest nation.

Against a backdrop of criticism by some African leaders of the International Criminal Court’s focus on African cases and repeat calls for the African Union to take the lead in prosecutions, this is a ground-breaking development and a policy watershed.

The Commission has a challenging mandate, including investigating human rights violations and abuses by all parties to the conflict and the identification of those most responsible, who will be held to account. The commission will also make recommendations on ways to foster reconciliation and healing among all South Sudanese communities.

South Sudan’s conflict, which started as a power struggle within the ruling party, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM), now has ethnic undertones, pitting the two main ethnic groups against each other, President Salva Kiir’s Dinka and his former deputy, Riek Machar’s Nuer.

Both factions are alleged to have committed atrocities, including acts of ethnic cleansing and targeted killings.  Many South Sudanese, who endured decades of a brutal civil war between the south and the north, now find themselves back in the same situation. Thousands have fled to neighbouring countries or are displaced internally. The humanitarian situation is dire.

The Commission of Inquiry will be carrying out its work in the context of a grim, ongoing human rights crisis. Establishing the truth about what has happened and bringing those who have committed atrocities to justice will be a critical step towards bringing this fractured young nation together. The rejection of impunity cannot be simply a catch phrase; justice must be seen to be done.

The establishment of this commission rides on the back of major developments in the fight for accountability in Africa.  In 2013, exiled former Chadian President Hissène Habré was arraigned before the Extraordinary African Chambers, a hybrid court established within the Senegalese legal system, for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during his presidency. Multiple actors, among them the African Union, first recommended his trial by Senegal in 2006, demonstrating that the African Union can be innovative and effective in pursuing criminal accountability.

Efforts like these are not on the global radar screen but they are critical to the equally important objectives of seeking justice and accountability on the one hand, and peace and stability on the other; they are mutually reinforcing. There is no regional court with a mandate to try criminal cases – the African Court for Human and Peoples Rights is not mandated to do so. Few national courts currently have the jurisdiction or capacity to try such cases, including South Sudan’s courts.

 To overcome the challenges that may arise from the recommendations of the Commission, the South Sudanese, the African Union and their partners must be creative and be committed to achieving justice for the victims. A peaceful and unified South Sudan must have the confidence to confront this dark moment of its history and ensure justice for the victims.

This commission must do the best to book those who have been behind escalation of violence. Sadly, there will never be a day when those perpetuating ethnic violence shall be murdered, sleep hungry or even sleep in shanty camps.

It will always be innocent South Sudanese to suffer as war take strange steps forward. Last week, Machar and Kiir went to Addis Ababa and signed a peace agreement which lasted for hours. Though both later claimed to have been forced to sign it, my opinion is; none of them is patriotic or pathetic for fellow citizens.

South Sudan is not a personal property of Kiir or Machar, neither does it belong to Dinkar nor Nuer, it belong to south Sudanese as both of them endured struggle for independence.

South Sudanese deserve to live peacefully hence any one perturbing their peace must be brought to books of law. Alas, they must be punished.