Opinion | Why South Sudan needs more sanctions now than ever

By Simon Geah

OPINION – South Sudan’s deputy minister of foreign affairs and international corporation Deng Dau earlier this week said in an interview with the daily news outlet Sudans Post that the government had asked the European Unions, and other ‘friends of South Sudan’ to lobby for lifting of the United States arms embargo and sanctions imposed a few years ago. This is not the first time the government has called for sanctions relief, but the first in 2021.

While the government of South Sudan continue its efforts to get the sanctions including those imposed on its senior officials including the then first vice-president (now vice-president) Taban Deng Gai, it is now needed than ever that the people of South Sudan including the diaspora should lobby for more sanctions to counter the government and in fact, for a United Nations Trusteeship that should be in place for at least ten years.

Why South Sudan should be placed under UN administration?

South Sudan has comprehensively became a failed state. The government has completely lost its legitimacy and has blatantly failed in services delivery, such as infrastructure, economy, health, and governance. Political conflicts have become  communal conflicts due to tribalistic leadership in Juba. Corruption, fraught, and lack of political independence amongst technocrats is has led to serious collapse in the country’s economy.

The liberty that the people of South Sudan were fighting for collectively has now become the liberty of few individuals and their families. No freedom of speech, justice, and more severely, even the fundamental rights means for every citizen are lacking in South Sudan. No better health system, education, roads, or even the daily and basic human needs such as food and water.

Since 2013, 75% of South Sudan citizens lives and survives under UN aid, and since last year that number dramatically increased to 80% due to flood in most parts of Jonglei, Upper Nile, and Unity states. No government interventions in all those areas accept international organizations that are providing humanitarian assistance in those States. So, the question is what is the role of the government of the day in Juba? Claim legitimacy and then wait for the international community to carry out the mandate it is supposed to do? Is this still a legitimate government that despite those failures claims to be accountable to the people? The simple answer is ‘NO’ and the government is definitely a failed government.

Therefore, since this government could not, for reasons known to the government alone, live up to its obligations, South Sudan must be placed under international community’s administration such that the people of South Sudan benefits from what they deserve from their administrators. They had failed and they must accept their failure and go home. There they will have a chance to watch how a country should be administered and how a government could attract relationship with its citizens.

In conclusion, instead for the government of South Sudan to mobilize for supports from international community to reverse the sanctions imposed against it for its criminality,  it is important for the South Sudanese population to lobby for South Sudan to be placed under UN administration. This action will help the people of South Sudan to realize their freedom and enjoy what’s they were fighting for collectively for 21 years.

The government of South Sudan has terribly lost its legitimacy and the country needs to be put under an international administration that can prepare the country for ruling itself.

The author is a concerned citizen of South Sudan and an independent political analyst. He can be reached via:  simon.geah@yahoo.com.

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