South Sudan

File photo: A young displaced girl starts crying after the relative she was with disappears into a row of latrines, at a United Nations compound which has become home to thousands of people displaced by the fighting, in the capital Juba, South Sudan.

Matt Wells (CNN). The heart of most U.N. peacekeepers’ mission includes the protection of civilians — and it’s a mandate that, in light of recent events, the United Nations must do better at fulfilling.

This week, the Security Council received briefings on two investigations into violence that occurred in February in Malakal, South Sudan, at a U.N. base that housed 47,000 displaced people. What did they learn? That despite the heavy presence of U.N. peacekeepers, armed men, including soldiers in military uniforms, were able to enter the camp and attack civilians — killing at least 30 people and setting ablaze several thousand shelters.

How the United Nations responds, and in particular whether it follows through on promises to hold peacekeepers accountable for failing to protect, will reveal whether genuine progress is being made toward improving protection for civilians caught in some of the world’s worst conflicts.

The failures shown in Malakal by the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) — including a disjointed chain of command, a slow response as violence unfolded and a reluctance to use force to protect civilians — provide a ready demonstration of the need for all peacekeeping-contributing countries to endorse and implement the Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians.

February’s atrocities are only the latest example of civilians bearing the brunt of violence in South Sudan. After conflict erupted in December 2013, more than 2 million people were forced to flee their homes, including around 200,000 civilians who went to U.N. bases seeking refuge from horrific abuses committed by both government and opposition forces.

These six bases, referred to as Protection of Civilians (POC) sites, include Malakal POC — which was unique in that it included people from three ethnic groups and reflected the political and ethnic differences dividing those same government and opposition forces.

Tensions in Malakal, already high, escalated to a boiling point following President Salva Kiir’s decision in late 2015 to redraw the map of South Sudan and replace the country’s 10 states with 28. On the night of February 17, youths from different communities inside Malakal POC fought one another, using weapons that, as described to me by camp residents and U.N. officials, people in the camp had smuggled past security at official gates or through cuts in the fencing.

The violence exploded the following morning when attackers — many of whom arrived in pickup trucks, wearing uniforms of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the country’s military — entered the POC site through an enormous breach in the camp’s perimeter fence, only meters from a U.N. sentry post.

The attackers proceeded to shoot and kill civilians inside the camp and to systematically burn down areas sheltering people from typically pro-opposition ethnic groups. Witnesses described to me how attackers carried jerry cans of gasoline and fashioned Molotov cocktails to burn specific camp blocks.

Meanwhile, instead of stepping in to protect civilians under fire, U.N. forces on the ground dragged their heels. One troop contingent in Malakal even demanded authorization in writing before they would engage with force, despite UNMISS’s unambiguous mandate to protect civilians “under threat of physical violence.”

More egregiously, another troop contingent abandoned their posts along the eastern perimeter, precisely where SPLA fighters entered the hole in the camp’s fencing. An internal UNMISS timeline that an official shared with me shows that it took another four hours after the attackers entered before U.N. peacekeepers responded robustly. Once they did, the attackers left the camp within less than 30 minutes. By that point, however, the destruction was effectively complete.

In response to Malakal, the United Nations established a special investigation to examine the context of the violence and who was responsible, as well as a Board of Inquiry to look at UNMISS’s protection. By all accounts, UNMISS gave full access to both teams, which, according to U.N. officials in New York, put together strong reports.

Those reports were the basis of the briefings given this week to the Security Council, which must now ensure that the government of South Sudan and the U.N. Secretariat act transparently and address the reports’ findings and recommendations.

First, the Security Council should demand that the U.N. Secretariat make public both reports. The Board of Inquiry drafted a synopsis that was designed to be public, but the United Nations has so far released only a few paragraphs of watered-down findings.

The displaced population in Malakal — indeed, all 160,000 people still in POC sites in South Sudan — deserves to know what happened, who was responsible, and what actions are being taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

The United Nations has already seen the consequences of putting short-term face-saving over transparency about protection failures in South Sudan. In April 2014, the POC site in Bor came under attack, leading to the deaths of about 50 civilians. The Board of Inquiry report into that incident was buried; several people in UNMISS told me that the impetus for change was buried with it, helping pave the way for Malakal.

Second, the Security Council should demand that perpetrators and peacekeepers alike be held accountable. South Sudan’s transitional government needs to ensure that those who incited or carried out the violence are identified and prosecuted. Given the government’s flawed investigation into the Malakal events and its more general hostility to justice for the conflict’s atrocities, such action is highly unlikely without considerable pressure from the Security Council.

After the Security Council briefing Wednesday, Hervé Ladsous, the U.N. under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, promised that peacekeeping units that failed to respond effectively to the Malakal violence would be repatriated. The Security Council should ensure that the U.N. Secretariat follows through, as accountability will help restore civilians’ trust in UNMISS.

The United Nations should also speak openly about how specific peacekeeping units fell short.

On the heels of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) report and the U.S.-led Peacekeeping Summit in 2015, high-level U.N. officials have repeatedly emphasized that peacekeeping performance matters and that the failure to protect civilians will not be tolerated.

Malakal represents a key test case for the United Nations’ willingness to back those statements with action. Indeed, if the United Nations upholds its commitment here to transparency and accountability, Malakal should become the standard for when peacekeepers fail to perform.

In recent weeks, tensions have risen again around Malakal. Civilians within the POC site are understandably worried about whether UNMISS will provide protection if armed actors once again target them. It’s time for the Security Council to deliver a clear message: Anyone who attacks a POC site will face consequences, as will any peacekeeper who fails to respond appropriately in protecting civilians.

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Matt Wells is the senior adviser on peacekeeping at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) and author of the report, A Refuge in Flames: The February 17-18 Violence in Malakal POC.

South Sudan's new Vice President Riek Machar, center-left, walked with President Salva Kiir, center-right, after being sworn in at the presidential palace in Juba. — South Sudan’s new Vice President Riek Machar, center-left, walked with President Salva Kiir, center-right, after being sworn in at the presidential palace in Juba.

Juba, South Sudan — Peace doves that had remained in their cages for more than a week were released Tuesday, as South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar set foot in Juba for the first time in more than two years. Mr. Machar was then whisked to meet President Salva Kiir – until recently his opponent in the country’s bitter civil war – and was inaugurated as first vice president.

Machar’s return is crucial for ending the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 2.3 million since it began in 2013, just two and a half years after South Sudan gained independence in 2011. He had been expected in Juba last Monday, but disputes over the number of troops he was traveling with and the types of weapons they were allowed to carry delayed his arrival.

The eight-day wait tested the patience of many, and is a fraught beginning to this new chapter in South Sudan’s history.

For South Sudanese, the daily delays were a stressful teaser. Some doubted Machar would return at all. For the international community, they represented the intransigence of both sides, calling into question the millions of dollars and years of diplomacy spent trying to achieve peace.

“What is surprising for me is not that the implementation of the peace process has stalled, but that anyone is surprised that it has stalled. There is very little good faith on the two sides and certainly very little trust in each other” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, in an interview on the organization’s website.

Five years ago, the international community was eager to assist the newly independent South Sudan. But today, diplomats have become fed up with both sides.

South Sudan is experiencing a crippling economic crisis, and one of the first tasks of the unity government will be negotiating a financial rescue package from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Diplomats talk of a “new normal” in relationships to the government, where donors scale back financial assistance and offer aid only with conditions, such as increasing funding to health and education services.

Some say that the current peace deal doesn’t address the drivers of the conflict.

“Forming a government with the same actors responsible for the collapse of the economy and atrocities holds open the possibility that grand corruption will return to its pre-war patterns,” says John Prendergast, founding director of the Enough Project.

Indeed, the task for Kiir and Machar will be to manage not only their fraught relationship, but the extremists in each of their camps who have an interest in stopping the deal. Yet on Tuesday, those partisans did not make an appearance.

Instead, President Kiir apologized to the people of South Sudan and the international community.

“We acknowledge there are unresolved indues related to the [peace] agreement, but I promise we will resolve those issues amicably,” Kiir said, looking out from under his signature cowboy hat.

The cowboy hat has become a staple of Kiir’s wardrobe, after he first received it as a gift from President George W. Bush. In 2005, Mr. Bush was instrumental in securing the independence of South Sudan.

Perhaps a signal that the support of the international community is more important than individual grudges, Machar made a notable fashion choice as he arrived in Juba.

Like Kiir, he sported what appeared to be an American cowboy hat — perhaps an ode to the international support that South Sudan needs now more than ever.

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