Sorry UN, US, and EU Countries: The Expulsion of Toby Lanzer is Irreversible
By Simon Yel Yel, Juba, South Sudan
June 14, 2015 (SSB) — A number of reasonable arguments have been expounded by the government of South Sudan regarding the rationale for the expulsion of Toby Lanzer, the UN relief coordinator for humanitarian affairs in South Sudan. “The mandate of the United Nations in South Sudan,” argues Ateny Wek Ateny, the presidential spokesman, “is to supplement, is to support the government of South Sudan, it is not to cause a havoc. Toby had crossed the line” and had to go. According to Martin Elia Lomuro, South Sudan Minister for Cabinet affairs, Toby Lanzer had “entered an area which is more political than humanitarian.” Hon. Lomuro added that, “personally I used to engage him and to bring to his attention that what he is doing is not his mandate but it is political and it can cost differences and even escalation of the conflict more than he thinks.”
Yet, in spite of these crystal clear redlines that Toby Lanzer had unashamedly crossed without remorse, the international community, particularly the UN, US and the EU, are still calling upon Juba to reverse her decision on Toby Lanzer. Reverse, reverse, reverse, reverse and more reverse! I Am sickened and disturbed by our Western partners especially the US, UK and German in the way they intimidate South Sudan government. The reaction of the US to whatever South Sudan government does, as a sovereign country, is always negative and unbecoming. Since the genesis of the ongoing war in South Sudan, the US has never shown any respect to the sovereignty of the Republic of South Sudan in all the decisions that South Sudan takes.
The reaction of the US is always above negative given the words it uses to brand the decisions taken by South Sudan government. For example, John Kerry used the word “Lack of leadership” on the 5th of March 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya, when the government mediation team rejected the rebels’ proposal of awarding Riek Machar a position of executive prime minister or first vice president. On the 2nd of June 2015, the US issued a press statement on the expulsion of Toby Lanzer and branded the decision by the government of South Sudan as an “affront” to the international community. The way the US always stigmatizes decision taken by the government of South Sudan is imperialistic, disrespectful and al libitum.
Worrisomely, the sovereign state of South Sudan is fast becoming a subordinate of the US and EU, who never fail to giving their discourtesy reactions to every single decision taken by South Sudan government on the interest of South Sudanese people. One therefore wonders if this is how powerful gangs should be treating a young nation like South Sudan. What is the US jurisprudence of sovereignty over South Sudan? I don’t understand how our friends (US and the EU countries) understand the sovereignty of South Sudan.
South Sudan government became impatient on the 29th May this year to wait for Lanzer term to end given the brazen way he has been utterly talking against South Sudan government. Since the beginning of this ongoing war, Lanzer has totally forgotten that he is a humanitarian worker, but instead started behaving like the UK ambassador or diplomat and start giving his analysis on the war, economics and how he politically sees the government. In early May this year, he made the demeaning and baseless statement that “South Sudan is collapsing and it is now resorting to printing its money.” This is irresponsible statement that an aid worker shouldn’t say but because he perceives himself as a white man and a typical Briton, he fancy himself that he somehow has political or racial license to spew anything on the government that comes to his mind and nothing can be done to him.
Mr. Lanzer has been tweeting very negatively fuelling humanitarian crisis in South Sudan by fallaciously estimating the displaced people and number of the people that will be in need of food. On the 28th May this year, he tweeted: “4.6 millions in # South Sudan will be severely, yes severely, food insure by July. That is 800,000 thousands more than in July last year.” In the night of the same day of May 28th, he again tweeted, “As of today in #South Sudan, 2.1 million people have been forced to flee their homes. This up from 1.3 million in May last year.” For sure, it is extremely hard for anyone to verify the figures from these tweets. These are prejudice estimations that are totally far from the truth because one can’t convince people that the number of displaced people in 2015 is bigger than in 2014. One wonders what the criterion and the number of the instrument used by Lanzer to obtain those numbers? Simply put, Toby Lanzer wanted people to believe in his philosophy that South Sudan has no government; that South Sudan is in the category of the failing states like Somalia and Palestine or a country in serious conflict similar to that of Syria or Iraq.
In late May this year, the harum-scarum Toby made another statement again in an interview with CNN in Geneva, Switzerland. In his interview, Toby again said, “South Sudan leadership is a failure and it is unable to control or find solution for the current crisis which it created, South Sudan is collapsing.” This statement piqued the Council of Ministers and loses its patience to wait for Toby mission to end. The Council of Ministers unanimously agreed to expel him from South Sudan and consequently informed the head of UNIMISS the reason why Toby Lanzer is no longer wanted in South Sudan.
However, The US perceived the expulsion of Toby as blasphemy and branded it as “an affront” to the international community because it felt ashamed of saying “it is a blasphemy to the UK and US.” If the expulsion of Toby Lanzer is “an affront” to the international community, then which word suits well the statement of Lanzer that ”South Sudan is collapsing and it is now resorting to printing its money?” Is it “honor” or “pleasantry” to South Sudan? The Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Sheba Crocker, will choose one word for us to describe Toby statement with.
On the 2nd of June, The UN Secretary General’s spokesman released a press statement: “The Secretary-General calls on the Government of South Sudan to reverse its decision immediately”. This call is also being repeated by The European Union Delegation, the Heads of Missions of Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, The United Kingdom and the Heads of Mission of Canada and of Switzerland made their joint press release and call for South Sudan government to reverse the decision and reinstate Toby to finish his term. Sadly, our Western partners have totally forgotten that Toby was a humanitarian coordinator not an ambassador so that the government can follow the Vienna convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mrs. Samantha Power tweeted that “South Sudan UN humanitarian coordinator, just the latest in a series of outrages by Kiir gov’t, I join the UN Sec-Gen’s call for reversal.” Samantha called all “decisions” taken by South Sudan government as “outrages” in her own jurisprudence literacy. Ms. Samantha, for your information, your tweet is outrageous for defending the irresponsible aid-worker-turned-politician who specialized in talking trash on our government if you don’t know what the outrage means. Did you call on Obama on the 22nd of March this year when Obama declared 50 Russian diplomats persona non grata?
In conclusion, I want to make it very crystal clear to our Western partners that the decision taken by the government of South Sudan is right, final and irreversible, shut up and leave the government alone, don’t disturb us! If you want to stop sending aids to South Sudan because of Toby, then don’t send it. Toby Lanzer deserved to be taken to jail and then taken to court to produce material evidences of all that he has been saying on social media and in press statements or interviews against the republic of South Sudan. He is not supposed to be expelled only without being taken to court. He is lucky to been expelled without being taken to the court of law to account for his political war on our country.
Simon Yel Yel can be reached at simonyel55@yahoo.com or 0955246235.
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