Day: January 25, 2022

JUBA— The United Nations on Tuesday said 32 people, including women and children, had been killed during armed raids in a region of South Sudan plagued by inter-ethnic violence.

The deadly attacks on two villages in the troubled Jonglei State on Jan 23 sent civilians fleeing as armed youths from a rival ethnic group opened fire and torched property.

Among the dead were three children who drowned in a river while trying to escape, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said.

At least 26 people were wounded, including women and children, and others remain unaccounted for two days after the bloodshed in the Baidit locality.

“UNMISS strongly condemns any attack on civilians and urges groups and individuals to take immediate action to avoid further escalations that will endanger vulnerable people,” it said.

“The Mission further calls on authorities to carry out timely investigations and that the perpetrators be held accountable.”

The peacekeeping mission was deployed for a year in 2011 when South Sudan gained independence, but its mandate has been extended again and again as the young country suffered through civil war and high levels of ethnic violence.

More than 700 people were killed and others raped and kidnapped in Jonglei between January and August 2020 in armed raids by ethnic militias in the eastern state.

A UN investigation found political and military elites played a role in the violence in which militias razed villages in coordinated attacks on their rivals, using machetes, machine guns and sometimes rocket-propelled grenades.

The UN’s special envoy to South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, told the Security Council in December that the number of civilian casualties from local violence across the country had roughly halved in 2021 compared to the previous year.

But instability remains pervasive, and a post-war coalition government has failed to stop armed violence or punish those responsible nearly two years after taking power in Juba.

President Salva Kiir and his deputy and historic foe, Riek Machar, formed a power-sharing government in 2020 after years of bloodshed between their forces left nearly 400,000 people dead.

But the government is weak and trust in short supply, and the UN has warned that the peace agreement is at risk of collapse if key pillars of the accords remain unfulfilled.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

South Sudan has held a peace Olympics to help reconcile communities divided by conflict. The “Twic Olympics” this year marked its 20th anniversary in Twic County.

At this Olympics opening ceremony, a spiritual leader blesses athletes to protect them from injury while a goat represents the belief that power comes from nature.

This is not the winter Olympics in Beijing. It’s the Twic Olympics in northern South Sudan.

The annual two-weeks of games in January attracts athletes from six communities to compete in traditional Olympic and team sports. The aim: to reduce communal conflict.

Volleyball player Ring Aguek Ring knows violence firsthand.

“In May they came to raid our cattle and in the process of protecting them I was shot and at last I succeeded to get my cows back. As I am still in the games, I am an injured person but who still can play because I see it as a unifying factor,” Ring said.

More than 700 athletes participated in this year’s 20th anniversary games, which also promoted health issues such as preventing COVID, HIV, and waterborne diseases.

Twic Olympics founder Acuil Malith Banggol says the games have a mission.

“Peace does not come without agenda. You cannot tell people to remain peaceful without them being active on something that is keeping them away from bad activities. We are building an avenue for communicating and interacting with the youth,” Banggol said.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest country at 11 years of independence, but it has never been fully at peace.

Twic Olympics Association secretary Chol Ajing says involving youth in the games can help end conflicts.

“In South Sudan, the crises of 2013 and 2016 were fueled because young people responded,” Ajing said. “What about if young people didn’t engage in activities like this and do not think about joining the politicians and fuel the war?”

These South Sudanese athletes prefer ‘Tug of War,’ and are urging those still fighting real battles to drop their weapons and join them in the glory of sport.

Source: Voice of America

Most countries have made little to no progress in bringing down corruption levels over the past decade, and authorities’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in many places has weighed on accountability, a closely watched study by an anti-graft organization found Tuesday.

Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perception of public sector corruption according to experts and business people, found that “increasingly, rights and checks and balances are being undermined not only in countries with systemic corruption and weak institutions, but also among established democracies.”

Among other issues over the past year, it cited the use of Pegasus software, which has been linked to snooping on human rights activists, journalists and politicians across the globe.

The report said the pandemic has “been used in many countries as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and sidestep important checks and balances.”

In Western Europe, the best-scoring region overall, the pandemic has given countries “an excuse for complacency in anti-corruption efforts as accountability and transparency measures are neglected or even rolled back,” Transparency said. In some Asian countries, it said, COVID-19 “also has been used as an excuse to suppress criticism.” It pointed to increased digital surveillance in some nations and authoritarian approaches in others.

The report ranks countries on a scale from a “highly corrupt” 0 to a “very clean” 100. Denmark, New Zealand and Finland tied for first place with 88 points each; the first two were unchanged, while Finland gained three points. Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany completed the top 10. The U.K. was 11th with 78.

The United States, which slipped over recent years to hit 67 points in 2020, held that score this time but slipped a couple of places to 27th. Transparency said it dropped out of the top 25 for the first time “as it faces continuous attacks on free and fair elections and an opaque campaign finance system.”

Canada, which slid three points to 74 and two places to 13th, “is seeing increased risks of bribery and corruption in business,” the group said. It added that the publication of the Pandora Papers showed Canada as “a hub for illicit financial flows, fueling transnational corruption across the region and the world.”

The index rates 180 countries and territories. South Sudan was bottom with 11 points; Somalia, with which it shared last place in 2020, tied this time with Syria for second-to-last with 13. Venezuela followed with 14 — then Yemen, North Korea and Afghanistan tied with 16 apiece.

Transparency said the control of corruption has stagnated or worsened in 86% of the countries it surveyed in the last 10 years. In that time, 23 countries — including the U.S., Canada, Hungary and Poland — have declined significantly in its index, while 25 have improved significantly. They include Estonia, the Seychelles and Armenia.

Compiled since 1995, the index is calculated using 13 different data sources that provide perceptions of public sector corruption from business people and country experts. Sources include the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and private risk and consulting companies.

Source: Voice of America

political turmoil

Ever since the ouster of former president Omer Hassan al-Bashir in 2019, Sudan has managed to emerge from the cold of sanctions and status as international pariah into the fold of international community.

This was evident in the U.S. decision in October 2020 to remove the East African nation from list of states that sponsor terrorism and having Sudan’s membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) reinstated after obtaining multilateral help to clear its arrears.

Moreover, major international corporations including technological giants such as Apple, Microsoft and Oracle amended their rules to lift decades long ban on providing its services to Sudanese users.

One notable name would not budge however: Twitter.

The social media company has so far refused to recognize Sudan as a geographical region thus denying its users from utilizing their local mobile numbers to set up their accounts.

No reason has been provided for this longstanding situation despite intense appeals and campaigns launched by Sudanese Twitter users over the last few years.

In response to one of these campaigns, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted in 2018 that they are working on setting up Sudan as a region but nothing has materialized.

In response to question from {Sudan Tribune} a Twitter spokesperson declined to explain why the San Francisco-based company would not recognize Sudan as a country

While some have speculated that sanctions may be the reason it is to be noted that US sanctioned countries such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela are recognized by Twitter as geographical locations.

One of Sudanese activists who goes under Twitter handle @coladabey2 who closely covered the December 2018 revolution as well as ongoing post-coup protests complained that he had to jump through hoops to set up his account and maintain it.

“I cannot create an account with my [local Sudanese] number and any time there is an [security] issue [with my Twitter account ] I must contact someone outside Sudan to clear it up for me [using their phone number]” explained the activist who asked not to be identified by name.

“This is just a total waste of time and effort and also puts my Twitter account at risk of being hacked and eventually losing it” he added.

“If my account gets suspended I am unable to cover events in Sudan and tweet about them”.

Ahmed al-Taher, another Twitter user told {Sudan Tribune} that having to use a non-Sudanese number means he is at the mercy of someone outside the country.

“If Twitter logs me out for any reason I have to wait for that person [outside Sudan] to send me the verification code sent to his mobile phone”.

Karrar Hamid who runs the largest Sudanese media and services platform on Twitter that goes as @hash_Sudan with more than 600K followers echoed the same sentiment.

“Many users in Sudan have simply given up on Twitter as result of the hassle involved in setting up a new account. It is very frustrating and unfair. We deserve an explanation ” said Hamid.

Another issue also faced by Sudanese users is unwillingness of Twitter to verify accounts owned by public figures and institutions including government officials, entertainers and media outlets.

Late last year Twitter denied verification request submitted by Sudanese Ambassador to the United States Nureldin Satti (@SudanAmbUSA) despite submitting all the required documentation.

Source: Sudan Tribune

South Sudan President Salva Kiir has rejected a recent call for him to step down from power, saying such demands could divide the East African nation with a history of civil wars.

On January 6, United States Senator Patrick Leahly called on the South Sudanese leader and First Vice President Riek Machar to step aside, while appealing to the US, Canada, Norway and the United Kingdom to stand with alternative political groups and church leaders to achieve a democratic and peaceful solution in South Sudan.

While meeting a group of Dinka elders on Sunday, Kiir said the people of South Sudan should be given an opportunity to elect their own leaders.

“We are working for peace and others are working against it. When we make progress, they start to talk about war. They don’t want stable South Sudan. If they want, they should support this process. We are now implementing the peace agreement, and this is the only way to end the current situation and to move the country forward,” said Kiir.

He added, “People will decide during elections. It will not be me or Riek or anybody else to tell them what to do”.

According to the South Sudanese leader, nations whose leaders were changed by external powers have never been peaceful and stable.

“People are calling for elections and we have all agreed to conduct them. And when people prepare for elections, they jump out and say this person and that person should step down. What is this? This is a demonstration that they are not looking for. They want this country to disintegrate, to be like other countries which have disintegrated because of their role”, said Kiir.

The South Sudanese leader said the country’s citizens were capable of addressing their issues without foreign intervention, citing the recent Khartoum peace agreement with the faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) under the leadership of General Simon Gatwech Dual and his deputy Johnson Olony.

On January16, South Sudan government and a splinter faction of the SPLM/A-IO signed a peace agreement to end the conflict in Upper Nile State.

Sudan is the guarantor of the September 2018 peace deal negotiated in Khartoum.

Source: Sudan Tribune

U.S. Assistant Secretary for Africa Molly Phee Monday said that the continued bloody violence against protesters and violation of human rights in Sudan would have consequences.

The security authorities killed three people on Monday in a bid to end the anti-coup protests that have started on October 25. The death toll has risen to 76.

In reaction to the bloody repression of protesters on Monday, Phee said the Sudanese military leaders pledged publicly to resolve the current crisis through dialogue after a meeting she and Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa David Satterfield had with them on January 20.

“Yet their actions –more violence against protestors, detention of civil society activists- tell a different story and will have consequences,” Phee stressed.

The head of the Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had already promised to the former Special Envoy for Africa Jeffrey Feltman, hours before to the coup of October 25, 2021 to reach a compromise with the former Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok.

Biden administration is under mounting pressure from the Congress to get results on the human rights violations and the restoration of a civilian-led transitional government.

In a statement on Sudan independence day, Antony Blinken U.S. Secretary of State warned that his administration would take measures against “those who block” the aspirations of the Sudanese people for a civilian-led, democratic government.

He requested to stop the use of deadly force and to make a rapid progress on forming a credible cabinet, establishing a legislative assembly, forming judicial and electoral bodies, and transferring leadership of the Sovereign Council.

Source: Sudan Tribune