UN Report: South Sudan Has Healed Little Since Civil War

FILE - In this Sunday, Jan 12, 2014 file photo, a South Sudanese government soldier chants in celebration after government forces on Friday retook from rebel forces the provincial capital of Bentiu, in Unity State, South Sudan. AP
FILE - In this Sunday, Jan 12, 2014 file photo, a South Sudanese government soldier chants in celebration after government forces on Friday retook from rebel forces the provincial capital of Bentiu, in Unity State, South Sudan. AP
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UN Report: South Sudan Has Healed Little Since Civil War

FILE - In this Sunday, Jan 12, 2014 file photo, a South Sudanese government soldier chants in celebration after government forces on Friday retook from rebel forces the provincial capital of Bentiu, in Unity State, South Sudan. AP
FILE - In this Sunday, Jan 12, 2014 file photo, a South Sudanese government soldier chants in celebration after government forces on Friday retook from rebel forces the provincial capital of Bentiu, in Unity State, South Sudan. AP

South Sudan has made no concrete steps toward national healing more than two years after the end of a civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people and sent more than 2 million people fleeing, a new United Nations report said.

Now some government forces are fueling new fighting by arming community militias with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns to attack neighboring communities, according to the report by the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, presented this week to the UN Human Rights Council.

It's a bleak look at what the authors call “the government’s manifest lack of political will to end impunity for serious crimes.”

The “staggering scale” of sexual violence, as well as corruption and the use of starvation as a weapon of conflict, remain dangers in a country ranked as one of the worst in the world to live. More than half the population is hungry, and COVID-19 is spreading through a nation whose health system was largely shattered, it said, The Associated Press reported.

Instead of peacebuilding and accountability, “political violence is spiraling out of control at the inter-communal level but driven by national actors who arm ethnic militias and paramilitary groups with military-grade weapons using the ostensible cover of cattle-raiding, which in turn leads to reprisals and revenge killings – all under the cover and control of parties to the conflict in South Sudan,” the report noted.

For his part, government spokesman Michael Makuei rejected the report, asking, “Why should we mobilize militia against certain mentalities at the time when we have already signed a peace deal and we are all working for it?”

He asserted of the authors: “All these are reports written by people who are seated comfortably in Juba hotels. They write such reports to guarantee their continuity" in their posts.

In February, the country's rival leaders formed a coalition government that many observers prayed would last this time around. But further steps toward peace have fallen behind, and the country remains awash in weapons despite a UN arms embargo that was extended in May for another year.

The new report calls for the government to allocate at least 1% of the country’s oil revenues to reparations to citizens harmed during the five-year civil war. It also urges the government to establish a Commission on Truth, Reconciliation and Healing as well as a long-delayed hybrid court to address crimes including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to AP, South Sudan has seen very little peace. It won its independence from Sudan in 2011 after years of fighting and erupted in conflict two years later as supporters of President Salva Kiir and deputy Riek Machar began fighting.

Machar is again Kiir's vice president under the new government.

Despite the formal end of the war, vicious fighting continues in parts of the country including Jonglei state, where hundreds of people have been killed this year. The survivors now face flooding that has displaced more than a half-million people, further imperiling food security as prices rise amid the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on travel.

In September, the UN secretary-general warned that South Sudan is one of four countries that face the risk of famine.



UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
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UN-backed Team Focusing on Human Rights in Palestinian Areas Announce Resignations

Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay delivers her statement of the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)

A team of three independent experts working for the UN's top human rights body with a focus on Israel and Palestinian areas say they are resigning, citing personal reasons and a need for change, in the panel's first such group resignation.

The resignations, announced Monday by the UN-backed Human Rights Council that set up the team, come as violence continues in Palestinian areas with few signs of letup in the Israeli military campaign against Hamas and other militants behind the Oct. 7 attacks.

The Israeli government has repeatedly criticized the panel of experts, known as the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, and denied their repeated requests to travel to the region or otherwise cooperate with the team, The AP news reported.

Council spokesman Pascal Sim said the move marked the first joint resignations of Commission of Inquiry members since the council was founded in 2006. The team said in a statement that the resignations had “absolutely nothing to do with any external event or pressure," while also saying they provided a good opportunity to reconstitute the panel.

Navi Pillay, 83, a former UN human rights chief who has led the commission for the last four years, said in a letter to the council president that she was resigning effective Nov. 3 because of “age, medical issues and the weight of several other commitments.”

In an interview, Pillay rejected accusations from critics who accused her of antisemitism or turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks. She recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the UN rights chief from 2008 to 2014.

"Name-calling is not affecting me in any way,” she said by phone. “We have striven to remain independent. That’s what we are. We’re an independent panel. We don’t take sides ... We look at the evidence and see the direction it’s taking us.”

“People who accuse us of being anti-Semitic ... they twist the facts, they invent facts, falsify facts. I would like to see them challenge the report: Which of the facts that we have set out are incorrect?” she said.

Her commission condemned the Oct. 7 attacks three days afterward in a news release that said at the time that reports "that armed groups from Gaza have gunned down hundreds of unarmed civilians are abhorrent and cannot be tolerated. Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes.”

She expressed regret that Israel didn't allow the commission access to Israel or Palestinian areas, saying "I feel that’s an injustice to Israeli Jews because we’re not taking on board their opinion or what they’re saying.”

Pillay said she had been recently diagnosed with low platelet count and her condition has restricted her ability to travel.

Her team said it wanted to give the rights council's president — currently Ambassador Jürg Lauber of Switzerland — the ability to pick new members.

Team member Chris Sidoti said Pillay's retirement marked “an appropriate time to re-constitute the commission.” The third member, Miloon Kothari, did not provide his reasons in a letter announcing his resignation effective 0ct. 31.

Neither the independent experts nor the council have any power over countries, but aim to spotlight rights abuses and collect information about suspected perpetrators that could be used by the International Criminal Court or other courts focusing on international justice.

The letters were sent to the council president last week but only became public Monday.

Last week, the US government announced sanctions against another independent expert mandated by the council, Francesca Albanese, who has also focused on Israel and the Palestinians. Albanese has accused Israel of genocide against the Palestinians, a claim Israel has denied.

Albanese said in an interview last week with The Associated Press that she was shocked by the US decision. She has not resigned.