The Peacekeeping Failure in South Sudan : The UN, Bias and the Peacekeeper's Mind

## List of abbreviations xi I would like to thank my partner Clo, without whose love and support this book would not have been possible. I would also like to thank the Norwegian Refugee Council, which generously allowed me time away from my work to finish the final drafts. While conducting research at the University of Kent, Ingvild Bode was my academic supervisor and provided excellent guidance and insight. If this book is coherent to its reader, she deserves much of the credit. I would also like to thank Nadine Ansorg, who also provided much needed and superb supervision as well as the wider team of the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Thanks to John Karlsrud and Harmonie Toros, who acted as examiners to my initial thesis and whose comments for improvements I have developed for the purposes of this book. I am exceptionally grateful for the many individuals who let me interview them. The candid insights that they allowed me into their work is the basis of this book. Thanks to Amelia Kyazze, who helped me collect my thoughts as I transitioned my research for publishing. I would also like to thank the many friends and family who patiently had to listen to me as I squeezed the random thoughts that litter this book out over several years. Finally, I would like to thank the people of South Sudan, who deserved better. 1 ## Surrounded To explain how I have come to understand the failures of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, it is necessary to describe a few of the years in which I worked in the country and later as part of the UN Headquarters in New York. In this chapter, I will provide a snapshot of the country at a pivotal moment in its civil war and offer a personal reflection on the values that I brought into that context and the unexpected ways that I reacted. At the same time, I will describe my experiences of working within a UN system that is shaped by specific organizational pressures. The chapter will help situate for the reader my place in the country and the UN and create some understanding of the experiences that I have drawn on to create an interpretation of how UN peacekeeping failed in South Sudan. The insight that underpins this book is that situation, personal values and psychology met in a cognition that, together with the organizational setting, shaped the way that I felt and acted that was part of an ordinary means to understand the world around me. My assumption is that others within South Sudan at that time and operating in a similar setting, including peacekeeping decision-makers, constructed the world through similar mechanisms that are unlikely to be the most optimal means to achieve stated objectives. ## A trip south In the first week of July 2016, I was part of a small UN humanitarian team of five people that travelled by road from Juba, the capital city of South Sudan, to Yei about 150 kilometres southwest in Central Equatoria state. I was a conflict analyst working for the UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM). I had chosen to make the trip based on recent security incidents in the area. At that moment, the civil war that had ravaged South Sudan for the previous two and a half years was in abeyance following the signing of a peace agreement "In 2011, South Sudan was welcomed into the United Nations as the world's newest nation. Celebrations on the ground reflected palpable relief after more than 20 years of violent struggle. With unprecedented goodwill and optimism, the UN deployed 7,000 soldiers and another 2,000 police and civilian peacekeepers to the country to support its transition to independence. However, the mission failed and within less than three years South Sudan was plunged into a catastrophic civil war. Using firsthand accounts from senior UN officials and referencing hitherto unseen UN documents, this book explores the role of the peacekeeping mission in that failure. It challenges the resignation with which many in academia and the media greeted the underperformance of the peacekeepers. It suggests that, even while under-resourced, they could have done much more to prevent bloodshed in the new country and protected civilians from the chaos of the first years of the conflict. The UN has thus far avoided a thorough and public examination of its actions in South Sudan. It has avoided accountability and instead rewarded failed decision-makers. This book is an attempt to re-assess the legacy of that mission and to detail how its many mistakes can and should be avoided in the future"-- Provided by publisher In 2011, South Sudan was welcomed into the United Nations as the world's newest nation. Celebrations on the ground reflected palpable relief after more than 20 years of violent struggle. With unprecedented goodwill and optimism, the UN deployed 7,000 soldiers and another 2,000 police and civilian peacekeepers to the country to support its transition to independence.0 However, the mission failed and within less than three years South Sudan was plunged into a catastrophic civil war. Using firsthand accounts from senior UN officials and referencing hitherto unseen UN documents, this book explores the role of the peacekeeping mission in that failure. It challenges the resignation with which many in academia and the media greeted the underperformance of the peacekeepers. It suggests that, even while under-resourced, they could have done much more to prevent bloodshed in the new country and protected civilians from the chaos of the first years of the conflict. The UN has thus far avoided a thorough and public examination of its actions in South Sudan. It has avoided accountability and instead rewarded failed decision-makers. This book is an attempt to re-assess the legacy of that mission and to detail how its many mistakes can and should be avoided in the future Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Chapter 1: Surrounded Chapter 2: Towards a peacekeeping mindset Chapter 3: Hope for a better future: South Sudan up to 2011 Chapter 4: The capital erupts: December 2013 Chapter 5: UNMISS under attack: April 2014 Chapter 6: The battle for Unity: April 2015 Chapter 7: UNMISS under attack . . . again: February 2016 Chapter 8: Peace fails: July 2016 Chapter 9: Change in tactics: April 2017 Chapter 10: Conclusion Notes References Index