Richard Sultan
The United States Department of State on Friday, August 30 announced that it is taking steps to impose visa restrictions on individuals responsible for, or complicit in, undermining and impeding a sustainable peace in South Sudan.
“These individuals, who include members of the South Sudanese government, participated in obstructing life-saving humanitarian aid through the taxation of aid shipments. These persons may be found ineligible for entry into the United States,” Mathew Miller, the U.S. State Department’s spokesperson said in a statement, without naming the officials involved.
The U.S. remains deeply concerned about the South Sudan transitional government’s failure to act with urgency to establish a clear and consistent system for full implementation of its obligations under the 2018 peace agreement, in particular, its obligation to create an enabling political, administrative, operational, and legal environment for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and protection.
Miller said that despite assurances, the government has yet to effectively reduce the unacceptably high costs, bureaucratic obstacles, and risks of providing humanitarian assistance to South Sudanese people in need.
“This raises questions about its willingness and capacity to abide by its 2018 peace agreement commitment to create an enabling environment for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and protection,” Miller said.
The Department of State’s steps to impose visa restrictions were taken pursuant to Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, under a policy announced in 2019.
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The Policy allows the Secretary of State to exclude, under certain circumstances, any applicant whose entry or proposed activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S.
In May, Amjambo Africa reported about the pause in humanitarian air drops in hardest to reach locations of South Sudan by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs following the imposition of the new fuel taxes and charges at border crossings and within the country.
https://www.amjamboafrica.com/un-pauses-humanitarian-airdrops-in-south-sudan-as-fuels-runs-low/
The U.S. to date is South Sudan’s biggest humanitarian donor, providing $7.3 billion since independence – 2011, of which $508 million has been donated in 2024 thus far.
In a statement on World Humanitarian Day 2024, the U.S. embassy in South Sudan called on the transitional government to reduce the costs and risks of delivering assistance in South Sudan and to ensure safe humanitarian access to the South Sudanese who are currently in need of humanitarian aid.
The statement echoed U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s remarks to the UN Security Council briefing on South Sudan where she sounded the alarm that over the past five months, the transitional government has imposed taxes and fees on UN, humanitarian, and diplomatic cargoes, significantly impacting humanitarian and peacekeeping operations because of the difficulties associated with importing fuel into South Sudan.
“According to the Secretary-General’s July 29 report, these imposed taxes and fees have forced the World Food Programme to reduce UN Humanitarian Air Service flights by half; have halted humanitarian air drops that reach 145,000 people; and have delayed the pre-positioning of humanitarian supplies ahead of the rainy season,” Thomas Greenfield said.
In April this year, in the immediate aftermath of the imposition of the taxes, the Embassies of Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States renewed their call on the transitional government to immediately halt recent actions that have imposed illicit and unacceptable costs on donor governments, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), United Nations’ agencies, and their implementing partners.
“Of particular concern is the transitional government’s continued imposition of the ePetroleum Accreditation Permit requirement on UN fuel trucks, which is preventing these trucks from bringing fuel into South Sudan to support UN operations, which are funded by our governments and those of other member states,” reads part of their joint statement, adding that, “… this illicit action is severely impacting the ability of UNMISS, UN humanitarian agencies, and humanitarian partners to conduct their mission in support of the South Sudanese people.”
The government is yet to respond to the State Department’s Visa restriction, but observers predict the government is likely to continue remaining quiet, as it has since the start of this saga; hoping other western donors don’t follow the State Department’s footsteps.
As of July 2024, South Sudan continued to face a severe humanitarian crisis driven by different shocks and triggers, such as severe food insecurity; a record level of flooding; unprecedented inflation; disease outbreaks; intercommunal violence; and spillover of the Sudan crisis, resulting in the movement of 769,264 people since April 2023. An estimated 7.1 million people were facing severe food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) as of July, reflecting a 21 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2023.
The assets of the individuals targeted by these sanctions are now frozen in the U.S. In addition, they are now banned from entry into the U.S.
