David Shearer HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. Does Saddam's lethal cocktail of failed

governance, ethnic division, hunger and disease threatens millions of

lives. -- South Sudan. It represents a tragic failure on the part of the

rulers of Africa's newest country, and on the part of the United

Nations Mission in South Sudan which has brought neither peace or

anything else. I ask David Shearer what hope there is for the people of

South Sudan. David Shearer, welcome to HARDtalk

Thank you. Do you think the world is paying heed to the agonies and

suffering of the people of South Sudan? I think increasingly so, but

there is a competition, of Italy, for airtime in terms of disasters

around the world. South Sudan sometimes, despite the enormous

amount of tragedy, sometimes falls off the stage. Right now, there are

more than half the population of South Sudan in need of food aid. One

third of the country is displaced, either in other countries or

internally displaced. And the conflict continues on. And this is

not a disaster that is borne out of drought. It is a disaster that is

borne out of conflict. It is man-made. It is a man-made

catastrophe. The UN agency responsible for food and agriculture

has talked about famine. A word which is always used with great

care. Is it justified in South Sudan today? They did Keppel analysis of

the situation in South Sudan and declared one particular area, a

number of counties, in a famine zone. -- careful analysis. They

believe 100,000 people in the area were likely to die unless there was

an enormous amount of food put into the area. That has happened to some

degree and the numbers have come down from 100,000 down to about

80,000. But around the rest of South Sudan, Dini has risen. Particular in

now, with the onset of the rainy season. -- that has risen. Between

now when they plant and when they harvest their food, there is a very,

very big and worrying gap. Let's get back to the point that it is a

man-made disaster. You sit there in the capital, responsible for the UN

mission. There are -- you are supposed to be there protecting the

people of South Sudan. And you cannot, because you are only able to

address the symptoms, not of South Sudan's problem. And the cause is

total political dysfunction. And that is beyond your ability to fix.

I had to say that what we do do in South Sudan, and it is more than

half of our mandate to protect civilians, and we have 230,000

people either inside our bases or right alongside them, who we... Who

we are protecting. Or not, as the case may be? Because we can go

through the different case studies, last year, the year before, where

people inside those camps, under your protection, have been attacked

and killed. Some, yes. And I am not trying to defend what happened. But

overwhelmingly, 230,000 people have chosen to come inside our bases, and

are alive today because we are there. So the UN, through its work,

has saved tens of thousands of people. There is absolutely no doubt

about that. Have we let on occasion, have there been instances where

people have been killed? Yes. But overwhelmingly, a lot of people

choose to be there. I don't think that is enough. 230,000 is the huge

number. But we have around 2 million people who are displaced across

South Sudan, and our real role, now, is to get beyond our bases and get

out into those areas and provide some degree of protection or comfort

for those people who are outside. It one of the biggest problem is you

face the fact that the president of the country, Salva Kiir Mayardit,

and we have had him on the country, before. We had him here during a

previous crisis a couple of years ago, but it is worse now. Salva Kiir

Mayardit does not really want you and your forces in his country. It

is a copycat edition. I think for the government of South Sudan, on

the one hand, they are proud, they got their independence after 40

years of fighting. -- it is a complicated situation. The thought

that the UN needs to be there is a bit of an anathema to them. On the

other hand, they realise that we are mandated to be here and need to be

there. It is a relationship we have two managed carefully. But they also

recognise that if the UN was not better, there would be tens of

thousands of people who would not get food aid, that would not be

protected, that would not be up to get water or medical supplies, et

cetera. So they need us and we need to work carefully with them at the

same time. Salva Kiir Mayardit is at war with his former Vice President,

the other man who has lived through the liberation struggle and

independence of South Sudan, Riek Machar, one representing one

particular tribal grouping, that is the Dinka, and Riek Machar

represents the other group. Everything you are talking to me

about is a plaster on a winter continues to fester. There is no

doubt that if we want to solve the German problem, the cholera problem,

of which are growing number of cases. -- South

-- South -- wound that. A year ago, Riek Machar and Salva Kiir Mayardit

were sitting down to discuss a peace deal. There was a lot of hope that

would bring about peace. And within days of the meeting, Salva Kiir

Mayardit's forces were bombing Riek Machar's people and they were on the

run on leaving the country. It blew up. Who was responsible for that

depends on who you speak to. In a sense is it not your duty, as the

UN's top representative, the special envoy of the UN to South Sudan, at

some point you will have to make some calls and you say to your boss

and to the world that this is the man who is responsible for the

methods are Sudan is in today. So why don't you tell me right now who

you believe carries the responsibility. -- for the situation

in South Sudan today. I think right now we need to be looking forward in

terms of how we get out of this, rather than looking backwards and

thinking about who did what to whom. And it depends on who you speak to.

Right now, it is after the conflict in July last year, when everything,

again, to do nothing. Salva Kiir Mayardit remained the President.

Riek Machar is currently in South Africa. There was, I believe, a

feeling around the region, and it was the region that brought these

two together, are they peace deal. To enable Salva Kiir Mayardit to be

president and to try and resolve the conflict as it went along. Right

now, certainly, the government as a sedan is very strong. And the

opposition is no longer just Riek Machar. It is also broken into other

groups. And so it has become more competent than it was before. So go

backwards is not an option. It is about going forwards. -- it has

become more competent. Are you talking to Riek Machar yourself? --

complicated. Not myself. But we have had somebody down to speak five or

six weeks ago. Let's think deeply about your mission. The mandate has

changed. In 2013, it was about ambitious plans to try and form a

new state, to help build a civil society of functioning democracy.

That is what the UN appeared to believe could be done in South

Sudan. In the last couple of years, much more focused on that, as you

call it, the core job of protecting civilians in a time of terrible

civil strife. The problem is your forces do not appear to be able to

do that job. Partly because, to quote one UN official in Sao Sudan,

admittedly anonymous, he said the truth is, nobody was to die for

South Sudan. In the UN force. And that is a brutal truth, isn't it?

Nobody was to die. And I do want anybody to die. Let's about

absolutely clear. You know what I mean, though. The point is that your

forces go when push comes to shove, whether it be the terrible incident

in Juba last year, when your forces stood by as killings occurred. And

there was another case in a different camp, and 2015, as

civilians were killed, more than 30, your forces to buy. They are not

prepared to put their own lives on the line to say civilians. -- South

Sudan. In July last year, there was a lot of criticism about the UN and

the way that it responded. -- stood by. I came in after that time. I

came in after those of us. We brought in a retired general, and he

led a team of people who looked very intensively at how the UN responded

to what happened. And we were found to be wanting. And we set in play a

whole series of measures to try and address that. When I came in, I

picked that up to take those measures forward, and then brought

the general back in again to say now look at us, as if we are better than

when you canter a few months ago. And check to see... And I think we

reported back to the Security Council on this, because the

Security Council was also anxious to hear how we had got on. I think we

have addressed many of the issues. But look, it is an ongoing thing. We

have two be more robust. And I think we are. And we need to be more

prepared. We need to have a great degree of looking forward and trying

to anticipate what is happening and be ready for that. And so I think

there is a, certainly within the mission, now, we are better placed

than we were last year. But with respect, if you look at the time

line, after the terrible events of last year, the UN decided it needed

to beef up its military and police Imprezas with at least 4000 extra

personnel. Salva Kiir Mayardit, and you refuse to take sides, earlier

on, when I invited you to ascribe responsibility to different players,

Salva Kiir Mayardit has over the months blocked and thwarted your

desire to expand your military presence. -- police forces with at

least. We have had difficulty getting people in. There is no doubt

about that. A lot of it has been bureaucratic. You wonder how much of

what is bureaucracy or something else. So why do you call them out?

Say to Salva Kiir Mayardit that this is unacceptable? And there will be

consequences. If you don't allow our extra military force in. We have.

We've reported the Security Council in public. I have given various

interviews where I have said we need to have his regional protection

force coming. At what has happened? It is still slow. But look, we are

doing what we can. -- but what has happened. We have the elements on

the ground. And we are finding, as of the last few weeks, it is

becoming easier and easier. I want to come back to something you said

before, because I think there is an important issue, here, and that is

about the robustness of the response. Of course nobody wants to

die in Sao Sudan. We don't expect that. But right now, if we are... If

I said a patrol down to a particular area, and at a checkpoint, and the

checkpoints as you cannot come through, the standing instruction is

do not turn around. -- South Sudan. You stay there. And we had patrol

steppers checkpoints overnight, one day, it two days, or longer, until

they are able to get through. -- we have had patrol 's stay at those. A

few weeks ago, the Mongolian group had a checkpoint, weapons were cops,

and they were told that they couldn't come through. -- patrols.

They radioed back to the base, and they were told that they would turn

around, but not in five minutes. They turned around in 30 minutes,

and the next day they went back and got through. This is the more robust

type of peacekeeping that we want to see. But I want to say... People are

still dying. Civilians are dying every day. Just a minute. That is

highly, highly dangerous brinkmanship. We are two sides with

their weapons cocked against each other. In order for us to perform

our mandate, I guess we could machine-gun our way through, but

what would happen the next day? The next day we would be at war with the

groups that are in front of us. And we would suffer casualties, and we

would not be able to do the job that we have been sent out to do. So this

is a very delicate situation in terms of peacekeeping. This is

peacekeeping. It is not warmaking. It is not invasion. It is

peacekeeping. Try to get to civilians are you try to protect and

it is when the possibly can. -- in the best way that you possibly can.

Is it possible to talk about peacekeeping when they are players

who are guilty against war crimes and crimes against humanity? I think

you can but the point for us is to be able to get to the places that we

need to go and by being present, we stop a lot of the atrocities that

are going on, from being carried out. We are able to monitor and

record some of those atrocity perhaps for future times and some of

those people may be able to be held to account. We are able for

humanitarian supplies to be able to brought into an area that otherwise

they would not be able to get into. I think the peacekeeping role, it is

no doubt, it is a saving the lives of thousands of people dot back but

just to be clear about it, the UN said in December 2016, a process of

debt cleansing is under way in parts of south Sudan. Is that your beliefs

that ethnic cleansing is happening in a country which you, for the UN,

are responsible for, use it within force of 17 thousand personnel and

you are unable to stop ethnic cleansing continuing? With the

comings and that are going on and the multitude of them, every part of

south Sudan is a bit different. There is an ethnic dimension to

them. Around that time that report came out, there was talk about

genocide and that was the word that scared people and certainly got the

attention of the international... People have talked about Rwanda and

have said South Sudan has all the components that could push it over

the edge to be the world 's next Rwanda style genocidal catastrophe.

I worked in Rwanda just after the genocide and know what absolute

failure looks like. My feeling is, yes, there are atrocity that are

being carried out, that are racially inspired, but we're not seeing

something that is organised political campaign to eliminate one

group or another. None of this is easy but it seems to me you have a

pet ticket only difficult set of choices to be made, particularly in

regards to your approach to Salva Kiir. John Kerry when he was

addressing the south Sudan crisis, he made it crystal clear as the US

Secretary of State that US assistance in its total of more than

$1.6 billion over the last six years, he said it was not

unconditional. We are not going to continue to fill this void and

provide help incessantly if the parties involved are not willing to

accept responsibility and do things to deliver peace for their people.

Is it time to reassess aid and assistance to South Sudan? I hope

not, quite frankly, because if we cut at an 80 only people the list

are the people who have nothing to do with the conflict and a sickly

innocent bystanders, citizens who have gone through years and years of

war. Maybe the aid is simply allowing the players to perpetuate

the cycle of conflict and violence. From the work of NGOs on the ground,

some people are enriching themselves as millions of their fellow citizens

are going hungry and facing starvation. I think that if we cut

back on food aid, then there is going to be a direct correlation

with the number of people who died. It is very simple. If we do that,

that is a decision. Will it be about a political and Abbas no, I do not

think so. The people fighting to not depend on food aid. Overwhelmingly

Seagate... Some may be redirected to military... But overwhelmingly... In

every conflict I have worked in a round of the world, the military

always eat first. Let's face it, that is happening but the

overwhelming Seagate that goes into South Sudan goes to those people who

need it. If you turned the tap off, then it will change the behaviour of

the leaders of South Sudan? I do think so. I think we will be in

exactly the same situation only with a lot of people dead. No one

disputes the fact that today South Sudan is a failing state. It is the

world 's youngest station but it is failing badly. There is an idea

abroad that the early and best way of saving the people south Sudan is

to put the country into some form of UN trusteeship stock

at the UN died in South Sudan, you've seen the failing of the

government, is that the best solution may be to look what

happened in Kosovo and East Timor, and put these country in some form

of trusteeship. There is quite a bit of talk about an never seen somebody

go beyond the idea through the implications of what that would mean

on the ground. First of all, the UN is not talking about that and I

certainly am not. I was in Iraq were effectively, there was a trusteeship

when the US went in, it was hugely problematic. I was in Kosovo, a

small country and it was problematic that but it was more containable.

South Sudan is an immense country with a very proud people who believe

they thought a 40 year plus civil war in order to gain their

independence, only now to have it taken away and given to the UN. I

think that would... Millions are at risk... Absolutely but more millions

would be at risk by going down the road where we have not thought about

the repercussions of what that would mean. I think just the basics, the

salsa down people 's liberation Army is 2000 strong. He was going to be

on the ground to be able to protect people and enable that to come

together? There are lots of implications around these... It is

just doing the best you can in a terrible situation. Look, it is

about doing the best you possibly can. I also worked in Liberia and

Sierra Leone where they have turned a corner and moved into another

direction. I have optimism that an agreement will be found and we will

be able to move forward. Many countries, as they have started off

in conflict, admittedly this is one of the worst. It is the most

difficult and most challenging country I have worked in in my

career and I do not think people really understand where south Sudan

started from. Yes, they got their independence or a 200 kilometre of

tarmac road, 200 kilometres in a country the size of France. That is

what they inherited when they got the independence. The capital, Juba,

to a half weeks in a dry season to go through a journey to the next big

town. The logistics are overwhelming in south Sudan. I do not think

people quite grasp the enormity of the issues facing both us, the

government, the opposition, everybody. That is the challenge

that you continue to face and we thank you for being on HARDtalk.

Thank you.