Sudan and South Sudan

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, must congratulate the noble Earl on securing this short debate to question the Government on whether they are taking the lead in the response to the conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan.

It is hard to believe that more than three years have passed since I travelled with the noble Earl as part of a parliamentary delegation to Juba in Southern Sudan, as it then was, and then to Khartoum in the north. In the south there was great excitement over the referendum on the creation of a new and independent South Sudan and the prospect of self-determination. Meetings with President-elect Salva Kiir and his team of Ministers were full of promise and reasonableness, of welcoming the expertise of aid and development NGOs, and of deploying teams of volunteers to train teachers, nurses, technicians and administrators to help rebuild the economy shattered by decades of war.

Less than three years after gaining independence, South Sudan finally degenerated into civil war. Negotiations in Addis Ababa continue in their tortuous fashion, holding out the possibility of a peace agreement but, more likely, a power-sharing arrangement between the warring parties. The danger here is that many in South Sudan would see this as rewarding the aggressors without resolving the underlying issues. Of course, talks continue in Tanzania between the three factions of the governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement—the SPLM—attempting to overcome the tensions that led to the civil war.

Many commentators take the view that a genuine national reconciliation process will be needed to bring together the different communities set against each other by this conflict. Notwithstanding the tension and outsize egos at the top of the SPLM, there is an ethnic dimension, too. President Salva Kiir is a Dinka, the largest of some 60 ethnic groups in South Sudan, many of whom are his supporters. The rebel leader and previous deputy, Riek Machar is a Nuer, the second largest group, of which many support him. When fighting broke out in December in Juba, hundreds of Nuer were killed on suspicion of loyalty to Machar. This provoked Nuer military units to defect and Machar’s rebels responded with ethnic massacres in Bor, Bentiu, Malakal and elsewhere.

The ethnic power bases of each leader are a significant part of their strength, and many believe the hardest task will not be to stop the fighting but to restore trust between the different communities in South Sudan. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that the international community has grown impatient with the failure of South Sudan’s leadership to stop the fighting. Last Wednesday, the United States warned South Sudan’s Foreign Minister that UN sanctions could be the punishment for people who stand in the way of peace.

For the past three years, the Government of Sudan have denied international aid organisations and the media access to non-government controlled areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, made clear. According to the US NGO the Enough Project, which campaigns against crimes against humanity:

“Taken together, the desperate situation of the people in rebel controlled areas, the Sudanese Government’s aid blockade, the indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and statements attributed to senior commanders in the government forces, lay the foundation for a case of crimes against humanity”.

While Sudan expert Eric Reeves considers the Government of Sudan’s military campaign,

“unique, presently and historically. Never has a recognized government, and a member of the United Nations, over many years deliberately and extensively bombed, strafed, and rocketed its own citizens—with almost complete impunity”.

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir on the charge of genocide, yet he travels without hindrance throughout the region.

The United Kingdom is one of the troika of nations appointed to oversee the comprehensive peace agreement process, yet our observer status apparently carries no enforcement powers. What, therefore, as a permanent member of the Security Council, is the UK doing to deliver on its responsibilities in the humanitarian and diplomatic fields? What measures is it taking within the UN to strengthen sanctions and other measures to tackle impunity, as practised in Sudan? What actions is the UK taking within the UN to hold the UN mission in Darfur to account for the accusations, so graphically described by other Members, of mass rape criminality? What further measures is the UK taking within the FCO to strengthen the UK’s response to the tragedy that is South Sudan and Sudan?

This month, South Sudan marks one year since the return to brutal conflict. The humanitarian impact has been catastrophic, with at least 1.9 million being displaced. The UK Government have responded accordingly, spending more than £143 million on humanitarian relief. However, if short-term relief is to translate into long-term recovery, emergency humanitarian aid must be accompanied by a wider focus on the risks to the development of a fair and democratic state in the long term.