The world’s most awkward peacekeeping job

NAIROBI, Kenya — For years, South Sudan has posed one of the world's most confounding diplomatic problems. The newly independent nation is at war with itself, and has been largely unresponsive to foreign efforts to broker a lasting peace deal.

Add one more international imbroglio to the mix.

After fighting broke out in South Sudan's capital in July, about 600 South Sudanese opposition fighters fled the country, eventually landing in the arms of the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping mission. The United Nations has been giving food and shelter to the men — many of them high-level combatants — at special camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC.

Initially, the United Nations' mission in the DRC decided the fighters would either starve or be killed if they weren't helped. Some had arrived in the country wounded or seriously malnourished. Officials expected that they wouldn't stay for long after recovering, perhaps returning to their country after a peace deal was salvaged.

Now, the United Nations faces a dilemma: what to do with the hundreds of fighters still in their care, who have refused to renounce war?

For now, the men are playing card games and volleyball in the U.N. camps and sleeping in U.N. tents. But residents of nearby villages have complained about the hundreds of foreign fighters suddenly living near them. The residents have held protests pleading for their removal. The DRC government has also demanded their repatriation.

Since late 2013, with little interruption, South Sudan has been riven by fighting between two main groups, one led by former vice president Riek Machar and the other by President Salva Kiir. The fighting — which has taken on tribal overtones — has left more than 2.8 million South Sudanese people displaced and tens of thousands dead. Both sides have been accused of heinous war crimes.

Not long after the opposition fighters crossed into the DRC in August, hundreds of South Sudanese government troops poured over the border and briefly clashed with them before withdrawing, according to a recent report from the U.N. Panel of Experts on South Sudan. On another occasion, two MI-24 helicopters from the South Sudanese military flew over the border and attacked some of the opposition fighters. Kiir has accused the United Nations of taking sides in the conflict by housing opposition combatants.

Helping the fighters was a humanitarian responsibility, U.N. officials said at the time, but it came with a major question: What were the physical and reputational risks for the United Nations of housing a notorious fighting force?

For years, the DRC has been haunted by foreign fighting groups, like the Democratic Forces of the Liberation of Rwanda, which the United Nations has accused of "serious violations of international law." They are among a complex array of Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundian rebel groups who still operate in the country, which is home to nearly 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers sent to quell the violence among various factions.

One of the biggest problems posed by the South Sudanese rebels is that they plan on eventually returning to battle. They gave up their weapons to the United Nations., but they have refused to "demobilize" — the process by which they would declare themselves noncombatants.

"They appear determined to return to South Sudan to resume fighting, if the opportunity arises," said Charles A. Bambara, a spokesperson for the U.N. mission in the DRC.

The United Nations is awaiting solutions from the countries involved.

Bambara said that the government of the DRC must ensure that the opposition fighters in its territory "do not return to South Sudan to participate in the armed conflict in that country."

But Congolese officials have so far appeared eager to evict the South Sudanese fighters. According to Radio France International, the country's defence minister, Crispin Atama Tabe, wrote a letter to the United Nations in September saying that the country "cannot accept" armed groups with the "intention of undertaking armed actions."

If the United Nations simply sent the fighters back to South Sudan, they could easily be imprisoned or tortured. Several weeks ago, Kenya deported James Gatdet Dak, an opposition spokesperson, back to South Sudan. The United Nations subsequently released a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" about his well being. Dak has not been heard from since he was taken into government custody in Juba, the capital.

Bambara said the opposition fighters, if they were expelled from the DRC to South Sudan, "would be exposed to a real risk of summary execution, disappearance, torture or other serious violations of their human rights." At this point in the conflict, South Sudanese government forces appear to be considerably stronger than the opposition.

Adama Dieng, the U.N. special envoy for the prevention of genocide, said while visiting South Sudan on Nov. 11 that there was a "strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines, with the potential for genocide."

Machar was among the opposition fighters who travelled to the DRC, but he has since left to receive medical treatment in South Africa.

The United Nations has been working with the African Union "to identify a third country that could temporarily accommodate these elements," according to a letter from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the U.N. Security Council in October. But so far, no option has emerged.

That letter ended with a particularly dire analysis.

The U.N. mission in the DRC, Ban wrote, "is faced with a situation in which it is no longer in a position to accommodate or care for the [South Sudanese opposition] personnel, though no clear arrangements have yet been put in place, or are under consideration, which would ensure that they are handled in a manner that is consistent with international law."