More than 100 dead as a result of conflict between ethnic groups - GfbV warns of collapse of peace process in South Sudan

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) is warning of a collapse of the peace process in South Sudan following the death there of more than 100 people in a conflict between ethnic groups on Sunday. "Since January 2009 the violence in South Sudan has increased so much that the civilian population is losing its faith in protection by the authorities and the security forces”, reported the GfbV Africa consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Tuesday in Göttingen. More than 2,100 people have died in the conflicts since the beginning of the year. If the peace process is to be saved the international community must make quite sure that the people are given better protection. The bishops in South Sudan also, who have for years been working for a lasting peace, have addressed appeals of increasing urgency to foreign countries to do more for safety and the implementation of the peace agreement.

"The building-up of the local police must be pushed on more quickly and the UN peace-keeping force UNMIS must be strengthened”, said Delius. The autonomous government in South Sudan has neither enough police nor enough soldiers trained for protecting the civilian population. They have concentrated far too long spending all their energy preparing for a war with North Sudan, with the result that the work of reconstruction has been neglected. The impoverishment of the farmers and herdsmen and the difficulty of integrating the former fighters have increased the violence.

The government in Khartoum is constantly being suspected by the South Sudanese of deliberately arming the militia of small ethnic groups in the south of the country to stir up violence there and to hinder the peace process. "The events of last weekend must be investigated by an independent body”, demanded Delius. By contrast with many other conflicts in South Sudan eye-witnesses state that the attackers wanted to kill as many civilians as possible. In other cases it is often a matter of land rights, access to water deposits or the theft of cattle.

A peace agreement signed in January 2005 between the Sudanese government and the South Sudanese liberation movement, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), stipulated that the people of South Sudan should decide in a plebiscite whether their part of the country should become an independent state. Khartoum fears that the majority of the South Sudanese would vote for independence.

Ulrich Delius can also be reached at u.delius@gfbv.de