Political solution, not just military help, needed
Amid reports of violence, bloodshed, extra-judicial killings and the discovery mass graves, the news coming out of South Sudan is deeply disturbing. The young African nation, just about two years old, is seemingly in the throes of a civil war that could swallow it whole, and it is hoped that the international community will take all the necessary steps to prevent such a calamity. As an immediate response, the United Nations Security Council's decision to send in thousands more troops is welcome. The existing peacekeeping force in the country, called the UN Mission in South Sudan, has already done a commendable job in holding down the fort to some extent — and Indian soldiers have also contributed bravely to this effort, with two of our men even laying down their lives for the cause. But the fact remains that even if the UN almost doubles the size of its peacekeeping force in that country as planned, reportedly allowing for up to 12,500 soldiers and 1,323 policemen, there will still not be enough security personnel to protect every civilian. Ultimately, a political solution has to be crafted for long term peace and stability if this oil-rich but impoverished nation has to be saved from what is commonly called ‘the resource curse’.
Though conceived amidst much international fanfare, the new nation of South Sudan was essentially a product of a long-standing ethno-political conflict, the underlying causes for which (tribal rivalry and control over the country's vast oil reserves) were never clearly resolved. For instance, it was pressure from the US Government (and the prospect of ruling an oil-rich country) that had brought together the many warring factions within the rebel forces fighting the Sudanese regime in Khartoum. While this allowed for the implementation of a peace deal back in 2005, and the eventual creation of South Sudan, these political arrangements and alliances were obviously fragile and expectedly, are now falling apart. The current crisis was sparked in July this year when the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir accused his deputy Riek Machar of staging a military coup and promptly fired him. The two men were never the best of friends and Mr Machar's well-known presidential ambitions made his relationship with Mr Kiir untenable. When the two split, their loyalists were immediately pitted against each other. Still, the country remained largely peaceful until the two sides began to exchange gun-fire in December. From then on, the situation quickly snowballed into a larger ethnic conflict between the President's Dinka tribe and the former Vice President's Nuer tribe. UN officials now fear that another genocide along the lines of Rwanda where 8,00,000 people were massacred in 1994 may even be in the offing. The intensity of the conflict and the fact that it spread so widely and so quickly has taken many by surprise but others argue that it was only a matter of time before it all unravelled, laying bare old wounds that never quite healed.