Blog 11: South Sudan

For this week’s article, South Sudan, which has obtained its independence, last year, expelled its U.N. human rights officer. This was caused by a report of misconduct among the South Sudanese Army. This is a significant change because human rights violations were a major problem with the struggle for South Sudan’s independence. The report that had been filed about the army’s violations was of unnecessary acts of violence while trying to disarm resisting civilians. The U.S. has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in bringing the civil war conflict to an end. It is in the interest of both South Sudan and the U.S. to make sure that human rights violations be monitored. So far however, there still seems to be many cases of assault, torture and rape.

This could be very controversial if we let this escalate into something uncontrollable. Many people are afraid that with the lack of a human rights officer to oversee violations, that the South Sudanese government and army could commit such atrocities without much consequence. This would be very bad for the country and could cause civil unrest. This should have been seen coming since last year, South Sudanese Policemen beat a human rights officer. According to Reuters, the same police force opened fire on a group of students. Could it be that the South Sudanese army has become more corrupt during its fight for independence? It would seem that’s the case since the corruption has spread to a local level. There are reports of abuse by not just soldiers, but intelligence officers and the police force. This situation should be monitored very closely before it takes a step back in this regions progress for protecting human rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/world/africa/south-sudan-expels-un-rights-officer.html?ref=freedomandhumanrights