Tag Archive for: South Sudan

RAAF flies Vietnamese peacekeepers to South Sudan

Forty-five years after the last Australian troops came home from Indochina, the Royal Australian Air Force is flying Vietnamese peacekeepers to war-torn South Sudan.

Early today one of RAAF’s giant C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft left Ho Chi Minh City carrying the first group of 32 members of the Vietnamese medical team to the African nation along with tonnes of equipment and medical supplies.

Such close cooperation on a complex mission is significant at time when an assertive China, threats from North Korea, foreign fighters returning to the region and insurgency in the southern Philippines have set Australia on course for much closer defence and security ties with Southeast Asian nations.

Before the massive jet’s departure, its passengers and Australian crew were farewelled by Vietnam’s Deputy Defence Minister, Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, who thanked Australia for its help.

During the mission, the heavily laden C-17 is to be refuelled far out over the Indian Ocean by a RAAF KC-30 tanker and it will make a stop in the Seychelles.

In a fortnight, a second aircraft from RAAF Base Amberley near Brisbane will carry the rest of the 70-strong Vietnamese team to South Sudan. The contingent includes doctors, nurses, support personnel and everything it takes to run a field hospital.

Keen to play a greater international role, Vietnam approached Australia more than two years ago saying it was looking for a non-combat UN mission to showcase its capabilities. It sought the ADF’s help in planning the mission.

With experience at launching expeditionary operations going back well over a century, Australia provided an ideal partner.

Over many years, the ADF has provided Vietnamese personnel with English-language training and that relationship has become steadily closer. The ADF gave the Vietnamese logistical advice and Vietnamese officers attended military training exercises and seminars in Australia.

Australian instructors were sent to help the Vietnamese prepare for the deployment. That included coaching the members of the field hospital to bring their English up to the standard required by the UN for such medical operations.

Australia also helped Vietnamese officials work their way through the UN’s complex bureaucratic processes and provided some of their equipment.

At a farewell concert, senior Vietnamese officers told the men and women in the contingent the Vietnamese people had paid a high price for their independence and security and they now had a responsibility to help bring peace to parts of Africa and other regions stricken by violence. As a general handed the contingent a painting of Vietnam’s revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh, some of its members responded that they were ‘Uncle Ho’s soldiers’.

Australia’s ambassador to Hanoi, Craig Chittick, said the deployment fitted neatly into Australia’s overall strategic partnership with Vietnam. He said Vietnam was a key regional nation and was forecast to be one of the world’s top 20 economies by 2050.

This mission would not be easy and to prepare for it Vietnam had to prove it could meet high standards in key areas. ‘And they did it with our help.’

The deputy chief of the ADF’s Joint Operations Command, Major General Greg Bilton, said the UN deployment was critical for Vietnam. ‘They’re now going to play a part on the world stage with the UN on a mission that’s quite dangerous. They’re contributing a very important capability to a very high standard.’

The cooperation had allowed Australia to build its relationship with Vietnam, Major General Bilton said.

‘From here I expect we’ll share other ideas and experiences on security matters, regionally and globally as well.’

Specialised equipment provided by Australia includes a large deployable shelter which will serve as accommodation, an ambulance and a power generator. The United States provided two buildings to house field hospitals, one in Vietnam, for training, and the other in South Sudan.

The Vietnamese are replacing a British medical contingent in South Sudan and hope to later send a 268-strong engineering team. As its military personnel gain international peacekeeping experience, Vietnam hopes to also dispatch police and civilian specialists on UN operations.

A new and uncertain regional security situation and the healing power of time have brought big changes.

The C-17’s 30-year-old pilot, Flight Lieutenant Ashley Kissock, was born 15 years after Australia’s part in the Vietnam War ended. He has flown in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Being part of this Vietnamese peacekeeping operation was, he said, ‘unique’—and his vast and powerful aircraft was ideal to facilitate it.

2017: a crucial year for the world’s youngest state

Image courtesy of Flickr user United Nations Photo.

With the world’s attention understandably focused on the horrors unfolding in Syria, it’s easy for other crises to slip under the international radar. But when the chair of a UN Commission on Human Rights speaks of ‘the stage being set for a repeat of what happened in Rwanda, and the international community is under an obligation to prevent it,’ it’s time to take notice, and to act.

The crisis in question continues to unfold in South Sudan. The world’s youngest country, South Sudan came in to being as an independent nation on a sweltering day in July 2011, when the airport of the new nation’s capital, Juba, was log-jammed with the planes of neighbouring presidents, there to wish the new country well. Sadly, the day’s optimism soon dissipated, as the unity of purpose which marked South Sudan’s move to independence (98.83% of the electorate voted in favour in a referendum earlier that year) was replaced by tensions and conflicts between the country’s ethnic groups, which had been, at best, suspended as independence approached. Within weeks clashes occurred, and by 2013 a full-on civil war had started between supporters of President Salva Kir and his (by then former) Vice President Riek Machar. Although peace deals have been brokered since, the conflict continues.

This civil war has had a devastating effect on a region with already stretched resources. Over a million refugees have left South Sudan since 2013, and with nearly two million internally displaced, the total number of people who have fled their homes now tops three million—over a quarter of the country’s population. Just last month, the UN’s Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Stephen O’Brien, told the UN Security Council that ‘South Sudan is on the brink’, and Adama Dieng, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, said in November that ‘there is a strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines, with the potential for genocide.’

How can such an outcome be prevented? The prerequisite is, of course, a political settlement in the country. The peace agreement signed by the South Sudanese leaders in 2015 provided a route map for that to be achieved. Now, it urgently needs to be implemented. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which culminated in South Sudan’s independence saw the creation of a new nation, but lacked the nation-building necessary to bring peace and sustainable development to the country. With the Intergovernmental Authority on Development—the regional organisation of which South Sudan is a member—focusing on the country, there’s some international pressure for such a settlement, but progress is painfully slow.

The international community continues to do its bit by funding humanitarian efforts and sending the UN Peacekeeping Mission UNMISS under a mandate to protect civilians, monitor and investigate human rights abuses, support the delivery of humanitarian assistance and to prevent gender-based violence and monitor hate speech. (For its part, the Australian government has contributed $50 million to the humanitarian fund, and 25 ADF personnel are working at UNMISS headquarters.) The UNSC also authorised (grudgingly accepted by the South Sudanese government) a 4,000-strong Regional Protection Force to secure Juba—a welcome development, if 4,000 soldiers can be found. But the Council remains divided over the question of implementing an arms embargo on South Sudan. It’s unclear whether such an embargo would have any practical effect on a country already swimming in weaponry, but approving it would at least be symbolically significant.

Will that be enough to stave off the worst possible outcome, and allow the people of South Sudan to look with optimism towards the better, more peaceful future? One thing that’s clear is that the country has human capital which can help it to develop. Tomorrow, the 2017 Australian of the Year will be announced. Deng Adut is the New South Wales nominee. Born in Jonglei State—one of the centres of the current conflict—he was recruited as a child soldier at age 6, before escaping via Ethiopia to Australia, where he’s now a lawyer defending the rights of people in his community. There are more like him in his original homeland. But will they be in a position to prosper in their own country? That may seem unlikely, and South Sudan is now the source of Africa’s largest displacement crisis. (The UNHCR recently launched an appeal to raise US$701 million to support displaced people in South Sudan and six neighbouring countries).

However, there are some green shoots of optimism, notably the recently announced ‘National Dialogue,’ which will soon start its work of re-establishing a South Sudanese sense of national unity. So 2017 is set to be an important year for South Sudan. It’ll either be one during which the country will inch closer to the ‘failed state’ basket, or one in which it will set out on the long road to national recovery and reconciliation.