Rapings, beheadings in South Sudan Show UN must do more than respond to defend peace

Armed youth gangs in South Sudan’s Leer County have committed atrocities against people. The youth organizations come from the neighboring counties of Koch and Mayendit.

Human rights were violated, and the Leer people were raped, beheaded, and burnt alive. According to UNMISS, 72 people were murdered and 64 incidents of sexual assault happened between February 17th and April 7th.

40,000 additional individuals have been uprooted as a result of the atrocities perpetrated on their villages.

While the acts of the youth gangs are heinous, the residents of Leer County are also confronting starvation and flooding.

Those calamities themselves demanded a lot of attention. Without fear of repercussions, the youth organizations have terrified Leer. This is due to the fact that both the government and the international community are concerned with limiting the consequences of natural catastrophes in South Sudan.

In severe circumstances, such as the one in Leer, the UN condemns violence and sends extra troops to safeguard communities.

The capacity of peacekeepers to preserve human rights nonviolently is not a weakness, but rather a strength in this circumstance, since they are not participating in violence.

The deployment of nonviolent peacekeepers will demonstrate that young groups are opposed to the human rights system that the world has chosen to safeguard.

These organizations are likely to reduce their operations if they know they risk serious repercussions if international pressure, as well as pressure from their own governments, is applied.

Peacekeepers have the necessary training and resources to protect civilians and aid these helpless persons.

Aside from the physical assistance they may give, the presence of peacekeepers acts as a good signal for civilians, demonstrating that a strong, established authority is paying attention to and defending human rights.

They should be able to calm Leer down just by standing close together.

It would be the height of folly for the UN to deploy a few thousand soldiers into South Sudan, believing that their sheer presence would halt the carnage.

Responding to such events as they emerge would not deter human rights violators from committing similar crimes in the future.

South Sudan must have a type of government that restores residents’ trust in the law’s ability to protect them from violence and cruelty.

The United Nations should consider bringing in political consultants to assist South Sudan in developing this kind of legal framework. A more powerful government would not only make the country safer for its citizens, but it will also benefit the international community.

Although putting a squad of nonviolent troops in the area is a justifiable reaction to the atrocities being done in South Sudan, the United Nations has moved beyond being a peacekeeping organization.

The bloc now assumes the mantle of state-building, aiming to establish a global world devoid of conflict, bloodshed, and cruelty.

To attain this purpose and actually safeguard society, the United Nations must go beyond its position as a response-oriented entity and instead focus on prevention, teaching nations how to construct legal and governance institutions that people can respect and citizens can trust would protect them.

South Sudanese citizens, like any other human being, have the right to live without continual dread of being raped or decapitated the following morning.

If the United Nations’ purpose of safeguarding South Sudanese civilians involves protecting them in the future as well as the present, it should use this chance to advise the government on conflict prevention.

Working with South Sudanese authorities, the UN should assist develop a system of rules that all residents would follow, protecting the population from this kind of widespread danger.