Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{The civilian head of Congo’s vanquished M23 rebel movement says hundreds of rebels are stuck in Uganda as they await confirmation of amnesty from Congo’s government.}}

Rene Abandi said on Thursday that he expects Congo to “widen” the list of those under consideration for amnesty, one of the sticking points between both sides before they signed a peace deal late last year.

More than 600 M23 rebels – including their UN-sanctioned commander, Sultani Makenga — fled to Uganda last year after facing military pressure from Congolese and UN forces.

Congo’s president earlier this year declared amnesty for about 50 former rebels and insurgents, including at least 15 former M23 rebels.

Congo’s government insists rebel leaders like Makenga can’t get amnesty for alleged crimes committed during fighting in eastern Congo.

– AP

{{ U.N. Security Council members are considering sanctions on South Sudan’s warring parties, envoys said on Wednesday, after U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous demanded “serious consequences” be imposed to force an end to the violence.}}

Ladsous and U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for human rights Ivan Simonovic briefed the 15-member council on a recent escalation in attacks on civilians, including an ethnic massacre in the oil town of Bentiu and the killing of dozens of people who had sought refuge inside a U.N. peacekeeping base in Bor.

“Unless there are serious consequences for the parties to cease the violence and engage in meaningful talks … the toll on innocent civilians will continue to rise,” Ladsous told reporters after the closed-door council meeting.

“The United Nations is doing everything it can to protect the civilians that are fleeing the violence, the war, but let us never forget that the primary responsibility for protection of civilians is with the government,” he said.

Nigerian U.N. Ambassador Joy Ogwu, president of the council for April, said there was a lot of support among council members for pursuing sanctions on South Sudan.

“I think we are ready to go down the road of sanctions,” French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, posted on Twitter after the briefing: “For the sake of the people of South Sudan, international community must sanction political spoilers and those who target civilians.”

The United States and the European Union have already threatened South Sudan with sanctions.

President Barack Obama earlier this month authorized possible targeted sanctions against those committing human rights abuses in South Sudan or undermining democracy and obstructing the peace process.

reuters

{{The African Union (AU) has condemned the latest round of violence in South Sudan’s Unity and Jonglei states in which hundreds of civilians were killed in apparent ethnically motivated attacks.}}

More than 200 civilians were reportedly killed and more than 400 wounded while sheltering in a Mosque on 15 April after rebels retook Unity state capital Bentiu from government forces, in what the chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, described as a “dastardly act”.

This was followed by an attack two days later on civilians sheltering inside a UN base camp in Jonglei state capital Bor, which left more than 40 dead and scores wounded.

The attacks have shattered a January ceasefire deal signed between the South Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition, brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which is mediating peace talks.

Dlamini-Zuma has called on both sides to investigate the attacks and bring those responsible for the killings to justice.

“The chairperson of the commission strongly urges both parties to the conflict in South Sudan to take seriously the upcoming political negotiations to resolve their dispute,” the AU said in a statement issued on Tuesday, with Dlamini-Zuma also calling for a deployment of an IGAD-led monitoring team to implement the terms of the ceasefire agreement and “avoid such similar tragedies in the future”.

{sudantribune}

{{The White House expressed horror at what it called the “abomination” of spiralling violence in South Sudan’s civil war, where rebels have been accused of massacring hundreds of civilians.}}

The rebels seized the town and oil-hub of Bentiu last week, unleashing two days of ethnic slaughter as they hunted down civilians sheltering in mosques, churches and a hospital, butchering dozens on the roadside, according to the United Nations.

“We are horrified by reports out of South Sudan that fighters aligned with rebel leader Dr Riek Machar massacred hundreds of innocent civilians last week in Bentiu,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

“These acts of violence are an abomination. They are a betrayal of the trust the South Sudanese people have put in their leaders,” he said.

“Images and accounts of the attacks shock the conscience: stacks of bodies found dead inside a mosque, patients murdered at a hospital, and dozens more shot and killed in the streets and at a church — apparently due to their ethnicity and nationality — while hate speech was broadcast on local radio,” Mr Carney added, noting the dead have been buried in mass graves and populations of camps for displaced persons have surged.

The UN said the killings continued for almost two days after the rebels issued a statement boasting of victory in Bentiu, a time when rebel spokesman Lul Ruai Koang previously said gunmen were “mopping and cleaning up” in the town.

South Sudan’s army has been fighting rebels loyal to sacked vice president Riek Machar since the unrest broke out more than four months ago.

The conflict has taken on an ethnic dimension, pitting President Salva Kiir’s Dinka tribe against militia forces from Machar’s Nuer people.

The White House called on Mr Kiir and Dr Machar to “make clear that attacks on civilians are unacceptable, perpetrators of violence on both sides must be brought to justice, and the cycle of violence that has plagued South Sudan for too long must come to an end”.

However, Mr Koang praised the “gallant forces” of the insurgents, who the UN said were driven by calls over local radio to rape women from the opposition ethnic group and drive out rivals from the town.

NMG

{{The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said on Monday that more than 200 people died in Bentiu after the strategic Unity state town fell to opposition forces last week.}}

UNMISS, in a statement, said it “strongly condemns the targeted killings of civilians based on their ethnic origins and nationality in Bentiu.”

“More than 200 civilians were reportedly killed and over 400 wounded at the Mosque,” the world body said in a statement extended to reporters on Monday.

UNMISS also strongly condemns the use of Radio Bentiu FM by some individuals associated with the opposition to broadcast hate speech,” it added.

Fighting erupted in mid-December between soldiers aligned with former vice president Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir with the president accusing his ex-deputy of staging a coup, which Machar denied but now leads a rebel movement.

The fighting is often seen as pinning President Kiir’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer, although both politicians have supporters across irrespective of tribal affiliation.

Most army defectors accused government of President Kiir of allegedly using his Dinka armed men to kill Nuer civilians at the onset of conflict in the capital, Juba.

Both sides have been accused by Human Rights Watch of committing atrocities.

Bentiu has changed hands several times between rebel and pro-government forces.

But the UN, in it statement, accused the SPLA in Opposition of allegedly sorting civilians along tribal lines after capturing Bentiu.

{sudantribune}