INTELLIGENCE FILES: SOUTH SUDAN’S NATIONAL SECURITY SERVICE

INTRODUCTION

NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT South Sudan Case Study

The Sentry

South Sudan gained its independence on July, 9th 2011 after more than two decades of conflict. The independence came as a result of a referendum conducted six months earlier that was made possible by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005. The CPA ended what was then the longest civil war on the African continent between successive regimes in Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement / Army (SPLM/A) – a Southern-led insurgency that mobilized and organized the people of Southern Sudan to challenge the hegemony of Arab and Islamic North that sought to impose its religion and culture on the rest of Sudan. The CPA created a six year-transition period in which Southerners were granted autonomy via the SPLM/A-led Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) and established a Government of National Unity (GoNU) composed of both Northerners and Southerners to make unity attractive to Southerners.

Needless to say, after six years of transition, the unity never became attractive to Southerners and they voted overwhelming to create their own state. The independence provided Southerners the opportunity to correct the defects they saw in the institutions of Sudan as they design the organizations of their new state. Throughout the transition period, SPLM/A leaders had complained about the broad unconstitutional powers of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) of Sudan, and fought unsuccessfully for reforms. But now as masters of their own state, it was assumed that the reforms they sought then would now form the bedrock of their approach to the design of security organs of independent South Sudan. This proved to be an illusion.

During the transition period, the Intelligence Service was unified in the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) headquartered in Khartoum. At the beginning of the transition period, SPLM/A seconded personnel from, General Intelligence Service, Military Intelligence and Signal Units of the SPLA to become part of NISS. But due to decades of mistrust between North and South, the SPLM/A felt it was necessary for some institutions to be established in parallel to protect GOSS presidency and minimize infiltration by Khartoum. Hence, Special Branch (SB) was established for this purpose in 2006. In addition, Public Security, which has provided security functions in “liberated areas” controlled by the SPLM/A during the civil war, continued to function during the interim period under the oversight of GOSS Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Following the overwhelming vote for secession in January 2009, the Southern leadership embarked on the drafting of what became the South Sudan Transitional Constitution of 2011 and broader preparations for the independence. But in the backdrop of these major tasks, political struggles were taking shape in the background that would later have enormous consequences on the new republic’s approach to the design of security organs. In May 2011, two months before the independence, the president dissolved the Special Branch and Public Security, and transferred senior Southern officials, who were part of the NISS and who were leading the efforts to create the Intelligence Service of the emerging independent South Sudan, back to the military.

In the same order, the Special Branch and the Public Security were to be reorganized along with the Southern portion of the NISS into the NSS. This cleared the way for junior officials to later rise to the top leadership of the NSS. While a draft version of the Transitional Constitution began circulating in May, a final text was adopted only a day before independence. Article 160 (2a) of the Transitional Constitution clearly states that while the two Directors General of the NSS – the Internal Security Bureau (ISB) and the General Intelligence Bureau (GIB) – shall be appointed by the President, they would first need to be endorsed by the Minister of National Security. Yet, the President appointed the two Directors General (DGs) on the Independence Day before appointing the Minister. The Minister was appointed nearly a month later after the two DGs have been operating and have established basic structures. Upon assuming office, the Minister decided to first review the structures the two DGs had established before his appointment and postulate a doctrine for the NSS that is markedly different from that of NISS. He appointed a committee composed of senior officials from the two Directorates and staff from his office. This effort led to the development of the White Paper on Intelligence and National Security, which provided both a new doctrine of the NSS and lean structures for effective management of the organization. When this work was presented to the overall NSS leadership, attended by the two DGs and chaired by the Minister, it was rejected mainly by the DG of ISB, Gen. Akol Koor Kuc, who was among the junior staff that found their way to prominence after the President had transferred more senior members back to the army. This was a clear sign of insubordination under Article 159 (b) of the Transitional Constitution, but the Minister could not prevail. The Minister tried to involve the President, but President seemed uninterested. The Minister also reached out to the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security, and although the Chairman of the Committee was sympathetic to his efforts, nothing of consequence materialized. These incidents unleashed a supremacy battle within the NSS between the Minister and the two DGs while a larger political brawl was already underway in the ruling party, the SPLM.

The NSS was established as an advisory and intelligence gathering agency. In the decade since its creation, the NSS has gone far beyond its remit to advise and gather intelligence, having grown into a highly militarized force that now has some 10,000 agents and its own tanks, weapons, and training facilities.

The NSS is an “autonomous fighting force capable of influencing South Sudan’s politics, society, and economy,” and it is “better equipped and trained than regular SSPDF [South Sudan People’s Defense Forces] forces,” according to the United Nations Panel of Experts in 2019.

The NSS has infiltrated almost every aspect of life. It can eavesdrop on phone conversations and monitor movements throughout Juba via its network of surveillance cameras and informants. It is present in civil society meetings, influencing agendas and installing agents. It shuts down news outlets that print unfavorable stories, and, through a series of front companies, it controls its own newspaper.

Operating under the direct supervision of the President Salva Kiir, and with Kiir loyalist Akol Koor Kuc serving as director general of the Internal Security Bureau (ISB), the NSS has been repurposed as the president’s own security force against internal threats to his rule.

South Sudan is destroying its free press, one journalist at a time

THE GUARDIAN

7 Jul 2016

I’ve experienced firsthand the way the new state of South Sudan treats its journalists. Since it became independent in 2011, the government has come to see us as a national security threat, doing everything in its power to stop us from investigating corruption and human rights violations.

I’ve been beaten up, threatened, detained and followed. I’ve returned from a day’s reporting with bruised ribs and split lips. But I’m lucky: many of my colleagues haven’t lived to tell their stories.

In the past five years, eight journalists have been killed for doing their jobs. South Sudan is now ranked 140th in the World Press Freedom Index, even though our information minister claims that “we are the only country where there is absolute freedom of the press and media”.

My first arrest came in 2010, the year before South Sudan broke away from the north. I was detained with my cousin and accused of murder. At first, we didn’t worry too much. We thought it was routine.

We were naive. A series of humiliations and torture followed. “We shall beat you enough so that you can return on radio and explain to your listeners that there are men out there who beat journalists,” an officer told us.

Three years later at the same police station, I was arrested again by police officers who had become emboldened by the harsh anti-journalist rhetoric espoused by the government. I was beaten, shaved and lashed “for being a criminal”. My crime was journalism.
These same police officers were given further encouragement to crack down on dissenting voices when, in 2014, president Salva Kiir passed a bill giving the national security forces (NSS) new powers.

Despite widespread local and international criticism, it was signed in to law, allowing the national security agency to arrest and detain them for the first time.
“The scope of the powers granted to the NSS in this bill flies in the face of international norms and South Sudan’s own constitution,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead the bill grants security officers wide powers without judicial oversight or clear limits on when they can use force.”

The climate of suspicion and violence has escalated since then. In January 2015, just a few months later, five journalists were killed by unidentified gunmen in what the Centre to Protect Journalists’ Tom Rhodes described as a “devastating attack on South Sudan’s already beleaguered press corps”.

The two-car convoy was travelling between the towns of Raja and Sepo in the north-west of the country when assailants opened fire from both sides of the road. The victims were allegedly shot and attacked with machetes before being set on fire.

 I decided to leave this toxic environment. It had become clear that the only way to avoid arrest was to stop writing. Colonel Phillip Aguer from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army claimed Ugandan rebels were responsible, while state governor Rizik Zacharia blamed the attack on an opposition group led by Riek Machar, Kiir’s former vice-president. No one has been charged for these crimes.

That same year, Peter Moi, a reporter for the New Nation and Corporate newspapers, was shot dead for his reports. Clement Lochio Lomornana was detained and is now missing and presumed dead. Pow James Raeth, a reporter for Radio Tamazuj, was shot by unknown gunmen. Chan Joseph Awer, a reporter for the Al Maugif newspaper, was kidnapped, tortured, dumped in a cemetery and warned to stop writing if “he valued his life”.

Many hold Kiir responsible for creating this dangerous climate. Just two days before Moi was shot, the president told media: “If anybody among [journalists] does not know that this country has killed people, we will demonstrate it … Freedom of the press does not mean you can work against the country.”

I decided to leave this toxic environment. It had become clear that the only way to avoid arrest was to stop writing, and I wasn’t prepared to do that.

My decision to leave Juba was abrupt but decisive. I took my family and went to Uganda, but I was unable to find a job. International Media Support, an organisation based in Denmark, along with Freedom House in the US, came to my rescue and provided money for security, healthcare and housing in Kampala. But I don’t want to rely on handouts from international media organisations.

In my absence, the Juba Monitor, where I was once the managing editor, has reached a compromise with security services, promising they would prevent me from participating in any news reporting and writing, even from abroad.
I am now coming to the realisation that it may never be possible for me to return home. If the government does not change, the risks to me and my family are just too great.

A rare view from inside South Sudan’s most-feared prison

Associated Press

December 17, 2016

More than 30 political detainees in South Sudan’s most notorious prison face torture, starvation or death, according to a Danish man detained alongside them for over two months before being released in late November.

Henrik Tobiesen, a businessman and former United Nations de-mining worker who had lived in South Sudan for 11 years, told The Associated Press he was locked up for 67 days starting Sept. 16 in the National Security Service compound in the capital, Juba. He said he was arrested for losing his passport but was released after pressure from his government. He said NSS officials also accused him of being an American or U.N. spy, but he was never charged.

His account is one of the first to emerge from the compound, known locally as “Blue House” for its blue-tinted windows. Political detainees are held on the top floor, with suspected criminals below.

For the first time, Tobiesen confirmed that a South Sudanese rebel spokesman who vanished in early November after being deported from Kenya, despite having refugee status, is being held at the prison in solitary confinement. He saw James Gatdet walking with guards past his cell door.
The U.N. refugee agency and human rights groups protested Gatdet’s deportation amid fears he would be tortured by government forces.

Tobiesen could not confirm if Gatdet had been tortured, but for the first few nights after Gatdet’s arrival, guards would take him away and return him hours later.
“That’s bad news when people get picked in such a way,” Tobiesen said. “They will come in and just switch off all the lights, just in the middle of the night, and then people just kinda hope it ain’t gonna be you.”

National Security Service media official Ramadan Chadar denied that Gatdet was in their custody. “Someone is lying to you,” he said, and refused to answer further questions.
The detainees, who hail mainly from the southern Equatoria region, have been arrested during a worsening three-year civil war between the government of President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and rebels supporting former Vice President Riek Machar, a Nuer who has fled the country.
Tens of thousands have died in the fighting, and U.N. officials have warned of possible genocide.

Information on the prison is hard to come by. South Sudan’s government has blocked the U.N. from accessing it, said Shantal Persaud, spokeswoman for the U.N. mission there. “This has been a constant, ongoing issue,” she said.
The government also has refused access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Nyagoah Tut, a South Sudan researcher for Amnesty International. The London-based rights group corroborated much of Tobiesen’s account.

Amnesty International has named 35 political detainees in the prison who have not been charged, some of them jailed for over two years, based on accounts of those released.

Tobiesen confirmed that other high-profile prisoners are there, including U.N. radio journalist George Livio, arrested more than two years ago; Justin Wanis, a politician from the restive Western Equatoria state; and Timothy Nyewe, the former commissioner of Maban County in the northeast. All are accused of having links to Machar’s rebels.

Another prisoner, retired South African army colonel William Endley, who has claimed to be Machar’s security consultant, nearly starved to death before Tobiesen shared extra food brought to the prison by his church, Tobiesen said. Seeing Endley’s condition, he abandoned plans of a hunger strike, realizing guards would not help him if he fell ill.

“They don’t really care,” he said, saying another prisoner died of an untreated illness. Endley’s family corroborated parts of Tobiesen’s account and shared a message from South Sudan’s foreign ministry saying Endley was in NSS custody.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek told the AP that reports of political prisoners or illegal detention are “only stories” circulated on social media.
“There’s nobody who is being tortured in South Sudan,” he said.
Tobiesen says prisoners live in constant fear of torture.

Guards regularly pulled prisoners on the first floor out of their cells, lined them up face down and whipped them with a stick wrapped in hard rubber within earshot of the others.
“One guy got 30 lashes for talking to one of those so-called political prisoners, and you start screaming after five, so you can imagine,” said Tobiesen, who was never lashed. He said the longtime political prisoners coached new arrivals on how to avoid such punishment.

Prisoners also have very little food, clean water, space or even sunlight. The 43-year-old Tobiesen said it was enough to “break” any new prisoner within weeks.

The cells become baking hot, up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), with only a slit near the ceiling for ventilation, Tobiesen said. Prisoners are allowed out once a week for an hour.

“You reach out from your bed one way, you touch one guy, you reach out the other direction and touch the other guy, and we were in the so-called ‘VIP’ one,” Tobiesen said. The solitary cells of prisoners like Gatdet are less than an arms’ length wide.
Guards provide no mattresses, sheets or mosquito nets, and prisoners sleep on the bare floor or on cardboard boxes if they can’t smuggle in bedding by paying off guards. Tobiesen said he had malaria twice while inside.

Prisoners access clean drinking water just one hour a week, when they are allowed out to fill up plastic bottles that are smuggled in or bought from guards, he said. Those without bottles drink from showers and toilets sourced from a well contaminated with salt. For one 10-day period, the prisoners received no water, forcing everyone to drink the salty water.

Prisoners are fed once a day with a scoop of boiled beans and some maize meal, which Tobiesen said sometimes contains insects and is so foul it is inedible to many prisoners. Under such conditions, some prisoners vomited and urinated blood, and their feet swelled so much they could not walk, he said.
“These conditions amount to torture and other forms of ill treatment,” said Tut, the Amnesty International researcher.

Tut called on South Sudan to release the prisoners or ensure that due process is observed, with prisoners charged, presented to court and given access to lawyers. “What the NSS is doing is a blatant disregard for national law and also human rights law.”

Tobiesen, who has left South Sudan, said he felt an obligation to speak out to help those left behind.
“I feel super bad because I don’t see them getting out any time soon,” he said, “and I don’t believe all of them are going to survive unless something is done.”

South Sudan launches surveillance drones to fight crime

Xinhua

December 5, 2017

South Sudan on Monday evening launched air surveillance drones operated by an Israel company that will help improve security around Juba in line with the vision of smart city, according to President Salva Kiir.

Kiir said he had achieved his promise in February 2016 of implementing the smart city in the war-torn country.

“This is what has happened that everybody can be screened wherever he or she is going, those who snatch things from the hands of women on the streets can now be traced. They can’t get away with the crime,” Kiir said on the hi-tech gadgets to be operated by security agencies, during the launch in Juba.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between Kiir and his former deputy turned rebel chief Riek Machar led to split within the SPLA, leaving soldiers to fight alongside ethnic lines.

The 2015 peace agreement to end the conflict was weakened after the outbreak of renewed fighting in July 2016 caused the SPLA-in opposition rebel leader Machar to flee the capital.

Prisoners seize control of part of South Sudan detention center

SUN OCT 7, 2018

REUTERS

 JUBA (Reuters) – Prisoners disarmed guards and seized control of part of a detention center in South Sudan’s capital Juba early on Sunday, the state security service said, and a detainee said the inmates taking the action were political prisoners seeking freedom.

A National Security Service (NSS) statement said the stand-off started when one prisoner, Captain Keribino Wol, overpowered a guard at the prison’s entrance and seized his weapon at about 1:00 a.m. on Sunday (2200 GMT on Saturday).

“We’re fed up and we’re protesting systematic injustice and oppression. All political prisoners and detainees need to be released or given fair trial. The lack of trials is illegal,” Wol told Reuters via phone from inside the prison.

The revolt occurred at the detention center at Blue House, the headquarters of the National Security Service.
Wol, the NSS statement said, “mobilized criminals who were in the detention and established a force of 15 and took over one part of the prison cell where he forced the prisoners into a human shield to protect him from our protection forces.”

The detainees subsequently disarmed five more guards and took away their weapons. A total of 32 guns and some knives were seized by the detainees, the NSS said.
Authorities had opted “to engage Captain Keribino to disarm him peacefully for the safety of the other prisoners.”

South Sudan has been gripped by conflict since late 2013 when rivalry between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar deteriorated into clashes between their supporters, then civil war.
Last month Kiir’s government signed a peace agreement with his opponents to try and end the war which has uprooted a quarter of the country’s 12 million strong population and devastated the economy.

On Oct. 1 the president’s spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, told local broadcaster Radio Tamazuj that all political detainees had been released, under the terms of a separate agreement.

Wol told Reuters they had reached an agreement with the authorities.
“We reached an agreement with the government to lay down our weapons…we are asking for access to lawyers and to fair trials. We are afraid now we will be tortured,” he said.
He said he was detained in April and had been held without charge ever since.

A government spokesperson could not be reached immediately to confirm whether an agreement had yet been reached with the detainees to disarm peacefully.

High-level detainee accuses Kenya, South Sudan of kidnapping

AP NEWS

February 6, 2019

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — “I was terrified … I knew that I was heading for a terrible situation.” For the first time, the spokesman for South Sudan’s armed opposition leader has spoken out about his alleged kidnapping in neighboring Kenya, deportation to his home country and death sentence.

James Gatdet Dak, one of the highest-profile detainees during South Sudan’s five-year civil war, spoke to The Associated Press shortly after his pardon and release under a fragile peace deal signed in September. Now in neighboring Sudan while seeking asylum in Sweden, he says he is ready to have his story told.

His account, which has been shared with a United Nations commission of inquiry, asserts that high-level Kenyan authorities collaborated with South Sudan’s government to seize him from his Nairobi home in November 2016 and force him onto a plane for deportation to a country where he feared for his life.

At a detention facility near the Nairobi airport, a high-ranking Kenyan police officer told him there had been a deal between the presidents of Kenya and South Sudan. “There’s no way they’re going to help you,” Dak said, recalling the officer’s words.

Soft-spoken and one of the most trusted colleagues of opposition leader Riek Machar, Dak had fled to Kenya shortly after the civil war began in late 2013.
When Dak was seized, he said, Kenyan authorities told him he was being deported because of his statement supporting the dismissal of the Kenyan force commander for South Sudan’s U.N. peacekeeping mission. The U.N. had been sharply criticized for not acting quickly to protect the Terrain hotel complex from a deadly rampage by South Sudanese soldiers in July 2016.

Dak said he resisted boarding the plane to South Sudan, pleading for help from a flight attendant at the Nairobi airport.
″(I told her) I’m press secretary for a rebel leader who’s fighting that government and these people are kidnapping me,” he said. She prevented him from leaving, but Dak said Kenyan national security officers forced him onto an afternoon flight, warning that if he struggled he’d be handcuffed and carried onboard.

He didn’t fight back, Dak said. “I thought it was meaningless to resist.”
Machar’s frantic calls for assistance to Kenya’s deputy president and attorney general were futile, Dak said. An opposition member who saw Dak detained at the airport confirmed that Machar, then based in South Africa, made the calls but to no avail. The opposition member spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Kenya’s government spokesman, Eric Kiraithe, would not comment on Dak’s case but said Kenya is committed to making sure “peace was accelerated” in its neighbor.
South Sudan’s government denied any collaboration with Kenya in the case. Dak was detained on arrival for fueling the conflict with a Facebook post he made when fresh fighting broke out in the capital, Juba, in July 2016, government spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said.

The post alleged that President Salva Kiir had attempted to arrest Machar, his deputy at the time, at the presidential palace.
Dak said he spent two years behind bars, including almost 10 months in solitary confinement in a national security prison. Locked in a tiny, dark cell 24 hours a day, he said he lost more than 20 kilograms (44 pounds) on a daily meal of beans and porridge.
He said he maintained his sanity by reading the Bible and trying not to dwell on whether he would be killed.

He said he went months before gaining access to a lawyer, who quit during his trial while calling the process unfair. Fifteen months into his prison term, Dak was charged with treason and sentenced to death.

The peace deal saved him. Two years to the day after he said he was kidnapped in Nairobi, he was released with another opposition member, William Endley, a South African former defense colonel. Machar had demanded that all political detainees be released, per the terms of the peace deal, before he would return to South Sudan.

And yet many political prisoners remain behind bars without charge. Two other opposition figures who disappeared from Kenya, lawyer Dong Samuel Luak and government critic Aggrey Ezbon Idri, went missing from Nairobi two years ago. Both were last seen in a South Sudan national security prison, Human Rights Watch said last month.

The U.N. commission on human rights in South Sudan said it remains deeply concerned by the “complicity of the governments of Kenya and South Sudan” in the unlawful removal and transfer of Dak, chairwoman Yasmin Sooka told the AP last month. Dak has given the commission a detailed report of his ordeal but said that for now he is not taking legal action.
Currently in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, the 45-year-old father of five is waiting to be reunited in Sweden with the family he hasn’t seen in years.

While Dak said he is grateful for his freedom, he doesn’t feel safe after receiving threats from South Sudan government loyalists that if he criticizes the government it could all happen again. He is taking a break from politics while deciding what to do next.

Despite the harrowing experience, he said he has no regrets.
“It was worth it,” Dak said. “What I was doing I believed was good for the country, it was good for the people of South Sudan, because we need change.”

The South Sudan ‘executioner’ who would kill revitalised peace deal

NATION MEDIA GROUP

May 05, 2019

Last week, a leaked deal indicated President Salva Kiir was hiring a firm headed by former US ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger to influence US views against the court. Kiir instead wants to form a transitional government and focus on reconciliation.

“If the regime fails to implement the security arrangements and forms the government, the revolutionary leadership of the people’s war shall not be responsible for our people’s reaction,” Mabior Garang de Mabior, chairman of the SPLM-IO Committee for Information and Publicity, said.

STRUGGLE

“The People’s Movement shall wage the struggle to dismantle the status quo; whether it is through negotiated settlement or armed struggle.”

At the centre of the row is the increasing role of the Internal Security Bureau, deemed as Juba’s most feared agency for torturing Kiir’s opponents. The report says powers given to the bureau is indication of lack of political will to hold perpetrators to account.

“Their deaths offer a sobering reflection of the challenges posed to the implementation of the peace agreement by the violent legacy of South Sudan’s conflicts, while highlighting the increasingly unchecked discretionary power of the NSS,” the report says.

“The NSS…is emerging as one of the most major obstacles to the implementation of the agreement.”

Some diplomatic sources in Nairobi say the bureau’s powers rose around 2014, just as the war began and a feeling to protect Kiir’s presidency became apparent. With loyalty to Kiir and not the government or law, the Akol Koor Kuc-led bureau was able to recruit militia, supply arms to them and disobey the 2015 peace deal.

MONEY FLOWS

Kuc is a lieutenant-general in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. His hands press buttons in places money flows. His compatriots say he was low-ranking soldier in 2008. Kiir promoted him in a series of elevations from colonel to Lt-General in 2011.

One cleric who served with him in the SPLN, but later fled the country, says he controls the most elite forces and influences militias that buttress security for Kiir.

He is essentially the man responsible for security arrangements in Juba, including those of senior government officials.

Kuc’s powers were first felt in 2017 when then Chief of General Staff Paul Malong demanded that he be dismissed, blaming him for his arrest. Malong has since formed his rebel outfit; the South Sudan United Front which refused to sign the latest agreement.

In 2017, a Global Witness report said Kuc uses the state-owned oil company Nilepet to finance operations against rebels.

“NilePet, is almost entirely unregulated and has fallen under the direct control of Kiir and his inner circle,” the report said.

SECURITY SERVICES

“This combination of capture and secrecy has allowed NSS to funnel millions in oil revenues to the brutal security services and militias with limited oversight and accountability.”

On Friday, Kiir accused the rebels of plotting to withdraw from the deal and denied a role in any kidnappings. He said security has been adequate and that Machar’s family ramains untouched in Juba.

“The so-called experts have rushed with conclusions without investigations being done,” James Morgan, Kiir’s envoy to AU, said.

The UN the Panel says the NSS has hired at least 3,000 personell in Tonj and Gogrial, the respective homes of Director-General of the Internal Security Bureau Akol Koor Kuc and Kiir, “with ethnic affiliation becoming an increasingly greater focus of the most senior government officials”.

UN: South Sudan recruits new force, contrary to peace deal

AP NEWS

November 27, 2019

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A new report says South Sudan’s National Security Service has recruited a force of 10,000 fighters in President Salva Kiir’s ethnic stronghold, in apparent breach of the terms of the country’s peace deal.
The report by United Nations experts monitoring sanctions on South Sudan expresses concern over the slow implementation of the fragile deal signed in September 2018 to end five years of civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people.

The report says South Sudan’s government has shown little interest in abiding by the spirit of the agreement on security and other arrangements, putting the deal in peril and posing an “immediate threat” to the country’s fragile peace.

A crucial deadline to form a coalition government was missed this month after opposition leader Riek Machar criticized slow progress in security arrangements. Machar and Kiir agreed to postpone that key step for 100 days until mid-February so security and governance issues can be resolved.

Frustrated by the delay, the United States this week announced it was recalling its ambassador to South Sudan back to Washington for consultations as the U.S. reevaluates its relationship with the country. That could mean further sanctions.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “obviously concerned about any actions that would move us away from a much‑needed peace and reconciliation in South Sudan.”

The new U.N. report says the signatories of the peace deal have made “no significant decisions” on implementing it in recent months, while the key step of creating a unified security force is “far behind schedule.” Only 7,400 government troops have been registered, compared with some 32,000 opposition fighters, far from the overall goal of 83,000.

Meanwhile, children and others have been recruited, sometimes forcefully, to create a 10,000-strong force in recent months in Kiir’s ethnic stronghold, the report says. The force is under the direct command of the National Security Service and was created after Kiir and one NSS official reportedly “convinced local Dinka elders in former Warrap state of the need to strengthen the capacity of forces loyal to them.”

The new force is “contrary to the provisions of the peace agreement,” the report says. It also says one country that has tried to broker peace, neighboring Uganda, has violated the U.N. arms embargo on South Sudan by deploying troops last month to parts of Yei River state. It does not say how many.

The report also says both government and opposition forces “have continued to generate revenues through the illegal harvest, sale and taxation of teak and mahogany.”
South Sudan’s civil war began in late 2013, just two years after the country’s independence from Sudan, when supporters of Kiir and Machar, then his deputy, clashed. A previous peace deal fell apart amid fresh fighting in 2016 and Machar fled the country on foot.
Under the current agreement Machar would once again become Kiir’s deputy.

The Vatican earlier this month said Pope Francis and Anglican leader Justin Welby intend to visit South Sudan together if a coalition government can be formed in the next three months.

South Sudan Creates Tribunal to Try Security Operatives

VOA

December 05, 2019

South Sudan’s government has opened a special tribunal to try National Security Service (NSS) operatives accused of committing crimes.

The head of the NSS legal directorate said Thursday the tribunal is an attempt to end impunity and restore the image of the service, damaged by numerous reports of human rights abuses.

Five years ago President Salva Kiir signed into law the controversial National Security Service Act, which gave security agents the right to arbitrarily arrest, detain and investigate citizens or confiscate the property of any suspect deemed to be a threat to national security.
However, a section of the act provides for the creation of special court to try NSS officers suspected of committing crimes.

Jalpal Ubwech, NSS director of legal affairs, said the tribunal will prosecute hundreds of its officers accused of criminal offenses.
“It’s mandated to hold the members of the National Security Service accountable for all criminal acts and breaches of the National Security Act and any other laws and regulations. The tribunal also shall have the power to try and punish officers of the National Security NCO [noncommissioned officers] as an individual or as a member of the National Security [Service] if they are charged with offenses which include human rights abuses,” Ubwech told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

Human rights advocate Issa Muzamil said the National Security Service must end impunity by its officers and stop the practice of arbitrary arrests of civilians if it wants to regain the trust of citizens.

“Let us avoid arbitrary detention of people, since we have a court in the army… and a court in the National Security. If the person commits a crime and the law says he must be produced in court within 24 or 48 hours, due process of law must be well observed, even if [a suspect has killed 1,000 people,” Muzamil told South Sudan in Focus.

Muzamil said the tribunal must be accessible to all citizens.
Legal advocate Philiph Nyang said the tribunal is long overdue. Nyang said all national security suspects under detention should be brought to trial.
“They must be produced before this court. This goes to the institution that if you are holding someone now within your facility, we believe that, for the next few days from Monday, they should be produced before this court,” Nyang told South Sudan in Focus.

Eujin Endoara, director of the human rights division at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, says he hopes the court will be a turning point for the National Security Service.
“It is also very important for the NSS to know that they have to be accountable if there is any abuse of power, because NSS is sometimes taking some action where people will be detained and they will stay in detention for months,” Endoara told South Sudan in Focus.

The National Security Service tribunal is composed of five members, including a high court judge.

‘NO JUSTICE, NO MERCY: A SOUTH SUDAN STORY’

DAILY MAVERICK

06 Oct 2020

Former SA National Defence Force colonel William Endley was sentenced to death and spent more than two years in a South Sudanese prison between 2016 and 2018. He believes that the ‘personal interests’ of ANC leaders and their bias towards President Salva Kiir sabotaged South Africa’s mediation attempts in Africa’s youngest country. These claims, and others, are revealed in a newly released book.

In a new book just published about his ordeal in Juba in South Sudan, Former SA National Defence Force colonel William Endley settles many scores, and is particularly critical of an oil deal which then Energy Minister Jeff Radebe signed with the South Sudanese government just before he left office in 2019.

Endley, who was eventually pardoned and released by South Sudan President Salva Kiir on November 2, 2018, raises his suspicions in No Justice, No Mercy; A South Sudan Story.

The book reveals much about the horrors of Kiir’s government, including its alleged abduction of two political opponents, Aggrey Idri and Samuel Dong Luak, from Kenya and their brutal murder in 2017. The book includes photographs of the two men apparently being beheaded with knives in the style of the Islamic State.

Endley is scathing about the ANC’s relationship with Kiir’s ruling party, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) – aka the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) – and about South Africa’s (particularly President Cyril Ramaphosa’s) attempt to broker peace in the conflict in South Sudan.  

Ramaphosa, then the deputy president of South Africa and the ANC, was appointed by President Jacob Zuma as his special envoy to try to end the civil war which had erupted in December 2013 after a personal bust-up between Kiir and Machar (then deputy president of the SPLM and the country), when Kiir accused him of plotting a coup against him. 

South Sudan was then just 30 months old, having seceded from Sudan in July 2011. Endley, who had begun working as a security adviser to Machar in 2015, claims Ramaphosa’s initial approach to his mediation was to try to patch up the quarrel inside the SPLM. This was the wrong approach and he believes it was designed to favour Kiir’s SPLM. By that time Machar had left the SPLM to form the SPLM-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) and was not interested in rejoining Kiir’s party. What he wanted was guarantees of peace and safety. 

Clear bias
Endley claims Ramaphosa showed his bias towards Kiir and against Machar by ignoring the fact it was Kiir’s determination to eliminate Machar as a political rival that was the ultimate cause of the civil war. Instead, Ramaphosa held Machar responsible for the conflict. The bias, he says, became obvious in June 2015 when Ramaphosa personally escorted members of the SPLM-FD back to Juba to take up posts in a proposed transitional government – but left out Machar’s SPLM-IO.

Machar had fled South Sudan after the first outburst of fighting in 2013. Though he had signed the Arusha Agreement, a peace pact, in Tanzania with Kiir’s SPLM and SPLM-FD, in January 2015, he remained concerned about his personal safety, convinced that Kiir would try to kill him again if he returned to Juba.

He eventually did return in April 2016 and Endley went with him. But in July 2016, as feared, Kiir’s and Machar’s troops got into a firefight in the capital which quickly spread into another phase of the civil war. Machar again fled for his life, undertaking a long march on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), dodging Kiir’s attack helicopters trying to find him. He eventually moved to South Africa. 

Endley stayed behind to protect his friend Eden Worku. He was arrested by agents of the feared National Security Service (NSS) on 18 August 2016 and taken to Blue House prison. He calls it an abduction rather than an arrest because no one knew for a while what had happened to him and no charges were laid against him for many months. 

Virtual prisoner
Meanwhile, in South Africa, Machar was also in effect imprisoned. He unwittingly became a pawn in a plan hatched by governments in South Sudan’s region, the United States and South Africa, to remove him from South Sudan’s toxic politics in the belief that no peace would be possible with both Kiir and Machar in the ring. And so Machar had to go.

SA agreed to go along with this plan in part because of US pressure, but also because of its prejudice against Machar, Endley claims. He is harsh on John Kerry, then-president Barack Obama’s secretary of state who he believes was the mastermind of this ill-conceived plot. 

After trying to return to the region in late 2016, but being blocked at every turn, Machar returned again to South Africa. In November 2016 he was moved to a National Intelligence Service house at Hartebeespoort Dam where he was to spend the next 18 months as an unwilling guest of the South African government. Endley says in May 2018 Machar was moved to another NIS facility, a training centre and workshop close to the Botswana border, apparently for his own safety as his life had been threatened. He was eventually released in June 2018 and later returned to Juba to take up his vice-presidency once again after yet another peace deal. 

Communications intercepted
Endley notes that Machar was given one break from his house arrest – which the South African government never acknowledged as such. From 7 to 14 July 2017 he was taken on an excursion to Cape Town and East London. But Endley says that according to Machar’s chief of protocol, Brigadier General Simon Bangoang Tuong, “this was merely a ruse to get them away from the complex so that the interception and jamming devices in the complex could be upgraded”. 

Back in the Blue House, Juba, Endley was dying, he says. He had malaria, complicated by another mysterious complaint. The NSS prison medical authorities were indifferent to his fate and it was only the help of one or two kind fellow prisoners that saved his life. 

In South Africa, a Free Will Endley campaign had been launched by his sister Charmaine Quinn. At first, he says, the South African government was uninterested – or worse. He says that Machar’s protocol chief Bangoang told him that a NIS representative called “Dele” (who Endley also refers to as “Bele” and who seems to be the same person referred to as “Dali” in the caption of a photograph of him) told Bangoang that Endley “was a criminal and that they were going to arrest me if I ever returned to South Africa”. In the caption, Endley labels Dali as “an NIS operative working for the Deputy President of South Africa” (Ramaphosa).

Left to rot in jail 
It seemed Endley would literally rot in jail until a new South African ambassador to Juba, Gordon Yekelo, was appointed late in 2017. Endley believes Yekelo put pressure on Kiir’s government to bring him to trial and he eventually appeared in court for the first time on 28 December 2017. It was clear from the start though, that the South Sudanese authorities hadn’t intended to try him at all. 

The trial was a farce. It began even before charges had been laid against him and in the absence of his lawyer. A Rwandan police expert witness on cybercrimes who had examined his confiscated phone and laptop clearly found nothing incriminating, but nonetheless testified that he had discovered enough evidence of crimes – even though Endley had not yet been charged with anything.

Only on his fifth court appearance was he eventually charged; for entering South Sudan illegally, for espionage, insurgency, terrorism and recruiting and training SPLA-IO fighters against the government. The NSS testified that as senior security consultant to Machar, he bore responsibility for the deaths and damage during the rebellion. It was clear that Kiir’s government simply regarded him as a “white South African mercenary” and therefore guilty by definition. 

But his lawyer argued that Machar had hired Endley, not to train his fighters, but to help integrate the various disparate elements of the SPLA into one South Sudanese army under the 2015 peace deal – drawing on his experience of integrating ANC and other liberation fighters and soldiers of the old SA Defence Force into the new SA National Defence Force after 1994. The lawyer also argued that in any case, under the 2015 Arusha peace deal all political prisoners and prisoners of war were supposed to be freed.

The judges were clearly not interested in such legal niceties. They refused to subpoena senior government figures to come to court to testify to the truth about Endley’s role in Machar’s operation. Chief of these was Taban Deng Gai, who had been deputy to Machar in the SPLM-IO, but who later switched sides to become first vice president to Kiir after Machar had been sidelined and detained in South Africa.

And so Endley was duly convicted of all charges and on 23 February 2018 sentenced to death by hanging, to be preceded, bizarrely, by an effective nine years in prison.
Taban Deng Gai is a key player in Endley’s account, not only of his own ordeal, but also of relations between Juba and South Africa – particularly Ramaphosa – and of South Sudan’s own turbulent history of that time. He is convinced that Taban Deng Gai, “a master of betrayal and deceit”, was instrumental in his own imprisonment, conviction and sentencing, perhaps because of his animosity to Machar.

Murky dealings and dirty oil
Endley also believes Taban Deng Gai was Ramaphosa’s main ally in his mediation and the facilitator in a murky oil deal which Radebe signed with South Sudan. Taban Deng Gai, after displacing Machar as vice president, got his “lackey” Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth installed as petroleum minister. He notes that Taban Deng Gai had made his personal fortune from oil as a state governor and wished to continue tapping the oil bonanza. 

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa shifted his brother-in-law Radebe from the presidency to the energy portfolio on 26 February 2018 just as Zuma was ousted as president. 
“The stage was set for the likes of Ramaphosa and Taban Deng Gai to make their moves into the lucrative oil fields of South Sudan for their personal interests,” Endley claims, recalling how Radebe had signed an MOU with Gatkuoth in November 2018 for a $1-billion South African investment into South Sudan’s block 2, which included exploration and production rights and the construction of an oil refinery. 

The Sunday Times reported in March 2019 that Radebe had signed the deal despite the disapproval of the Central Energy Fund and the Treasury and without Cabinet approval. It later reported that Radebe and rushed to sign a final agreement on the deal with Gatkuoth just two days before South Africa’s 8 May 2019 general elections and just weeks before Ramaphosa dropped Radebe from the Cabinet on 29 May.

Endley asks: “Is the known friendship and shared interests between Taban Deng Gai and Cyril Ramaphosa the main reason behind the house arrest of Machar and my incarceration? Only time will tell.”
He also slates other links between the ANC government and the SPLM government, including the defence cooperation agreement signed by SA defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and her South Sudanese counterpart Lieutenant-General Kuol Manyang Juuk in Juba on 30 January 2018.

Endley expresses his dismay at Mapisa-Nqakula being “upbeat and positive about working with a military force facing the wrath of the international community for atrocities, war crimes and acts against humanity…” This deal had given Kiir “moral support” to continue these “crimes against humanity” with total impunity.

Endley writes that South Africa justified its close involvement in South Sudan on the basis of a history of liberation movement solidarity and mutual support between the ANC and the SPLM. He dismisses this as a “false narrative” as he says the SPLM was only formed in 1983 and so could hardly have played much of a part in the ANC’s liberation struggle – or vice versa. 

He believes the personal interests of some ANC members overshadowed any historical fraternity between the two parties – and also overshadowed South Africa’s national interests in the conflict. Though Endley acknowledges that the South African government grew more interested in his case as time passed and helped pass on food parcels, money and medicine, he believes it was Machar and his wife Angelina Teny who saved his life and got him freed. While Machar was stuck in South Africa, Teny represented him at peace meetings which gave her the opportunity to lobby key regional governments such as Uganda, Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia for Endley’s release.

Kiir continued to resist such entreaties, though, because he saw Endley as just a South African mercenary. In the end, it took some brinkmanship by Machar to persuade him. By then Machar had been released by the South Africans and yet another peace deal had been signed in September 2018. Endley said Machar made it a condition of his participation in the transitional government spelt out in this latest agreement that both Endley and Machar’s spokesperson James Gatdet Dak — who had also been condemned to death — should be spared and freed.

Eventually, in a speech on 31 October 2018, celebrating the peace deal, Kiir announced – grudgingly it seemed – that both men would be freed, to advance the peace process. Endley was released two days later and returned to South Africa.

‘Strategic blunder’ 
Looking back, he believes that South Africa’s decision to keep Machar out of South Sudan politics by keeping him under house arrest was a “strategic blunder that was detrimental to the stability of the region and the continent as a whole” – and prolonged and intensified the conflict. This is a view shared by many analysts and seems to be borne out by the facts. The 2018 peace deal which Machar signed and his return to Juba as vice president in the transitional government appear to have given South Sudan at least a sporting chance of peace, though that is far from assured.

Endley also believes it was the departure of the Obama administration– and especially Kerry – which made peace possible. The Trump administration has been much tougher on Kiir’s government, including enforcing arms embargoes and sanctions, he says. And that seems to have restored the balance in relations between Kiir and Machar and laid the basis for a mutual agreement. 

South Sudan’s Blue-House is an avenue of torture and death – report

December 17 2020
THE EASTAFRICAN

A new report released by a human rights group has described South Sudan’s National Security Detention Centre as an avenue for torture and death.

A testimonial titled “What Crime Was I Paying For?” released on Friday by Human Rights Watch described the Juba-based National Security Facility, commonly known as the Blue-House, as a place full of abuses, including crimes against humanity.  

“One hot evening in May 2017, Adiang received a call from an acquaintance who told him security officers planned to arrest him. The caller, not a regular source or a friend, asked to speak to him about it over a cup of tea at a cafe in Juba town.

“The call unsettled the 37-year-old journalist Adiang Malish, not his real name. For a moment he hesitated, thinking about the threatening calls. He decided to go anyway,” said Human Rights Watch.

HRW stated that Adiang didn’t report the threats because he doubts police would have investigated them.

“I also didn’t think there was a connection between the threats and this invitation for tea. Within minutes of arriving at the cafe, two cars pulled up, and National Security Service officers in uniform and armed with AK-47 rifles stormed in and asked him to confirm his identity.

“When I did, they pushed me to the ground, kicked me, and hit me with their rifles. They put a hood over my head and carried me into a vehicle for a long fast drive. I lay on my stomach in the car with thoughts rushing in my mind,” Adiang narrated.

Adiang revealed that his tea invitation led to a nine-month ordeal in detention, with hopes of no life at a detention centre where he survived on one daily non-balanced diet beans meal.

“I thought I would die. My children would never know what happened to me. The NSS interrogative officers asked me why I was a journalist, why I spoke to opposition politicians, why I wrote this article or that article,” said the father of four who was released in 2018 without any charges, after undergoing torture and abuses. 

Adiang, who is still undergoing treatment outside South Sudan due to spinal injuries suffered while at the detention centre, said that once given a chance, he would ensure South Sudan is a stronger democracy for future generations, where journalism can drive change.

The National Security Service was established in 2011 as an intelligence agency to collect information and advise relevant authorities.

But then, in the NSS Act of 2014, the agency was given broad powers of arrest, detention, search, and seizure without effective civilian or judicial oversight, according to Human Rights Watch.

In the Thursday report, the rights group claims that the NSS has used these powers to arbitrarily detain people – including political critics, journalists, human rights defenders, aid workers, and others – and then hold them in appalling conditions without medical care or adequate food, and abuse them.

“This Human Rights Watch investigation found that many South Sudanese, government critics, and activists, live in fear of the NSS, which operates unchecked. South Sudan’s government should repeal the extensive police powers of the NSS and ensure justice for victims.

“South Sudan’s future should be built for diverse and dissenting voices like Adiang’s, not for citizens to live in fear of a sadistic, lawless security service,” said HRW.

The Juba-based NSS Facility – Blue-House – has served as home for months and years to government critics and civil society activists such as Peter Bair Ajak who this year fled to the United States, claiming his life was in danger. 

Others include businessman Kerbino Wol who was killed in Lakes State this year by President Kiir’s forces after declaring his armed rebel movement, 7th October Movement, to fight for the rights of marginalised citizens.

Verint Systems supplied South Sudan with surveillance technology says Amnesty

Omer Kabir 

02 February 2021

The Israeli branch of U.S.-based Verint Systems Inc. provided the South Sudanese government with surveillance equipment to intercept communications devices, although the country has a long history of human rights violations, and despite the high risk that it posed to continuing those abuses, said a report published by Amnesty International on Tuesday.

The human rights monitoring organization’s report revealed new information about South Sudan’s surveillance capabilities as well as the role of companies whose technologies can intercept communications such as citizens’ telephone lines without legal permission.

South Sudan, which declared independence from Sudan in 2011, radically limits freedom of expression, and is considered by the United Nations to be one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. According to experts, the South Sudanese government exercises fear tactics, as well as harassment, arbitraty dententions, torture, kidnapping and extrajudicial executions in order to silence the regime’s opposition, human rights activists, and journalists. South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS) is used as the government’s main operational arm.

Amnesty’s report is based on a two-year investigation, which included interviews with 63 people, among them activists, journalists, and attorneys from South Sudan, which uncovered the country’s extensive physical and technological surveillance network that the country had created, and the extent of the systematic harassment that accompanies it in order to create an atmosphere of constant fear and sow doubt in the regime’s opponents and dissidents. The infiltrated bodies include nonprofits, news outlets, private companies, security and hotel chains, and an extensive telephone surveillance network.

According to the report, many who were interviewed felt that “the surveillance, harassment and looming risk of arbitrary arrest, detention and possible death does not stop them from speaking out, but that they carefully measure and regulate what they say, where they say it and to whom., with one activist saying, ‘You cannot speak without thinking twice.’”
As for Vernit’s activity in the country, the Amnesty report uncovered documents that prove that between March 2015 and February 2017, the South Sudanese government paid Vernit $762,000 for “providing technical services.”

“The ex-Vivacell employee said that the South Sudanese government required all telecommunication companies operational in South Sudan to pay Verint Systems Ltd, the Israeli subsidiary of U.S. Verint Systems Inc. for this equipment and annual service provision…between the years of 2015 – 2017 despite the high risk that the equipment could contribute to human rights violations,” the report read.

The fact that Verint supplied surveillance equipment to South Sudan is worrying because of the country’s long history of human rights abuses and freedom of expression. “South Sudanese authorities must rein in the NSS and put an end to the security service’s practice of operating outside the law. The intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrest and illegal detention of government critics must end,” the report read.

The report also quoted previous publications where Israeli companies were involved in South Sudan’s surveillance network, and in a UN report from 2016, it noted that Israeli-made communications interception equipment were believed to have aided in the identification and illegal arrest of citizens, according to an AP report from that year. “Amnesty International believes that such activity is contrary to Israel’s obligation to protect human rights,” another report read.

“Unchecked and unlawful surveillance by the NSS is having a chilling effect on civil society and peaceful activism. The threat of surveillance is a weapon in itself – government critics and human rights activists told us they live in constant fear of being spied on,” Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa said in the report.

“Despite this, many courageous South Sudanese activists continue to stand up for their and others’ rights, braving surveillance, intimidation and harassment. It is time for the South Sudanese authorities to halt the unlawful practices of the NSS and enable people to exercise their freedom of expression without fear of reprisals,” he added.

Verint Systems did not respond to a request for comment, but the Amnesty report came out a day after the company announced that it was splitting off its defense-focused activities into a separate company.

Rampant abusive surveillance by NSS instils climate of fear

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

February 2, 2021

South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS) is using abusive surveillance to terrorize journalists, activists and critics, leading to a climate of intense fear and self-censorship, Amnesty International said in a new report.

The threat of surveillance is a weapon in itself – government critics and human rights activists told us they live in constant fear of being spied on.
Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa.

“These Walls Have Ears” – The Chilling Effect of Surveillance in South Sudan” presents new evidence of the South Sudanese authorities’ surveillance capabilities, and also highlights the role played by telecommunication and surveillance companies who enable the interception of phone calls without adequate legal safeguards.

For example, Amnesty International discovered documents that show an Israeli company, Verint Systems Ltd., supplied communications interception technology to the South Sudanese government at least between 2015 – 2017, despite the high risk that the equipment could contribute to human rights violations.

“Unchecked and unlawful surveillance by the NSS is having a chilling effect on civil society and peaceful activism. The threat of surveillance is a weapon in itself – government critics and human rights activists told us they live in constant fear of being spied on,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa.

“Despite this, many courageous South Sudanese activists continue to stand up for their and others’ rights, braving surveillance, intimidation and harassment. It is time for the South Sudanese authorities to halt the unlawful practices of the NSS and enable people to exercise their freedom of expression without fear of reprisals.”

Since South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, freedom of expression has been severely restricted, and the country is considered by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan as one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. The government, primarily through the NSS, uses intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, torture, and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings to silence government critics, human rights activists and journalists.
During a two-year investigation, 63 people, including South Sudanese activists, journalists and lawyers, shared their experiences and knowledge of physical and communications surveillance in South Sudan with Amnesty International.

The real and perceived surveillance threat of the NSS, coupled with systematic harassment, is having a chilling effect on civil society and people described living in constant fear. One activist told Amnesty International: “I think physically it is really draining to continuously be worried about what will happen to you, or to your family and that disturbs you mentally.”

Amnesty International also reviewed over 57 reports and studies by UN bodies, intergovernmental, non-governmental organizations, as well as resolutions, laws and conventions. South Sudan’s legal framework gives the NSS sweeping, yet unchecked, powers to conduct surveillance without sufficiently protecting the right to privacy.

Most activists said that the surveillance, harassment and looming risk of arbitrary arrest, detention and possible death does not stop them from speaking out, but that they carefully measure and regulate what they say, where they say it and to whom. One activist said, “You cannot speak without thinking twice.”

Infiltration

The NSS deploys agents throughout South Sudan and neighbouring countries, penetrating all levels of society and daily life. NSS approval is required to hold public events, suffocating genuine dialogue. Credible and consistent accounts from multiple sources demonstrate that intelligence agents have infiltrated NGOs, the media, private sector security companies and hotels. The depth and breadth of the NSS’s spy network creates an environment that infringes on freedom of opinion, expression and privacy.

Phone tapping

Almost all the activists that Amnesty International interviewed are worried about surveillance and avoid talking about sensitive topics over the phone, preferring to talk in person or through encrypted apps. Tapped telephone conversations have been presented as evidence in court, and at least one high profile case was thrown out by the judges on grounds that the recordings were illegally obtained and violated the right to privacy. NSS agents have also recounted telephone conversations to detainees in interrogations, and recordings appear to have provided leads for arbitrary arrests.

Abdalah (pseudonym), a South Sudanese human rights defender, told Amnesty International that in August 2018, before he was arbitrarily arrested, an NSS officer called him and recounted a telephone conversation Abdalah had with a staff member of an international organization about the threats he was facing. Abdalah believes the NSS could not have known the contents of the phone call without tapping his phone.

The NSS can likely only conduct communications surveillance with the collaboration of telecommunication service providers. A former employee of Vivacell, a telecommunications company that operated in South Sudan until March 2018, told Amnesty International that the NSS has direct access to all telecommunication service providers in the country through surveillance technology procured in Israel that, they believed, could be classified as dual use.
Dual use technology can serve a legitimate purpose like ensuring that telecommunication networks are accessible, provide quality services to clients and billing monitoring, but can also be used for unlawful government surveillance.

A former employee of telecoms company MTN South Sudan told Amnesty International that, in 2013, the NSS, through an Israeli company, installed a ‘box’ at their company. ‘Box’ installations could be how the government, including the NSS, gains direct access to data from service providers.

The ex-Vivacell employee said that the South Sudanese government required all telecommunication companies operational in South Sudan to pay Verint Systems Ltd, the Israeli subsidiary of US Verint Systems Inc. for this equipment and annual service provision.

Amnesty International wrote to all the companies regarding the findings and only received a response from MTN Group, which stated that South Sudanese authorities and laws require telecommunications companies “to cater for legal interception” and explaining that MTN does not operate the system.

“Telecoms and surveillance technology companies have a responsibility to respect human rights in all their business operations. Providing the NSS surveillance systems when there is a significant human rights risk and giving them unchecked access to telecoms networks is a dereliction of the companies’ responsibilities,” said Deprose Muchena.

“South Sudanese authorities must rein in the NSS and put an end to the security service’s practice of operating outside the law. The intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrest and illegal detention of government critics must end.”

Amnesty International is calling on the South Sudanese government to stop the use of surveillance until a proper human rights regulatory framework is in place and to urgently conduct independent investigations into cases of unlawful surveillance and other human rights violations to hold those responsible to account.

State surveillance rife in South Sudan, Amnesty finds

Deprose Muchena

 3 Feb 2021

Imagine living in a country where you are afraid to speak on the phone because you know the government could be listening in or your private conversations could be watched by government spies targeting dissent. 
That’s the daily reality for many journalists, activists, government critics and opponents in South Sudan, as Amnesty International found out in a new investigation.

The National Security Service (NSS), South Sudan’s national security wing, uses both electronic and physical surveillance to silence critics, leading to a climate of intense fear. The surveillance is so widespread and operates under conditions of secrecy and without any clear legal safeguards, that just the threat of being spied on is enough to make people censor themselves. Amnesty International’s report, the result of a two-year investigation, also highlights the role played by telecommunication and surveillance companies, which enable the interception of phone calls without adequate legal safeguards.
Through telecommunication companies, Israeli company Verint Systems supplied communications interception technology to South Sudanese authorities, including the NSS, at least between 2015 and 2017, despite the high risk that the equipment could contribute to human rights violations.

The South Sudanese government’s use of phone tapping as a tool to intimidate its critics is well documented. Tapped telephone conversations have been presented as evidence in court, and at least one high-profile case was thrown out by the judges on the grounds that the recordings were illegally obtained and violated the right to privacy. NSS agents have also recounted private telephone conversations to detainees in interrogations, and recordings appear to have provided leads for arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations.  

Women human rights defenders face a dual challenge. Women who speak out against the government are often perceived as transgressing South Sudan’s gendered social norms, and many face threats and intimidation both in public and private spheres.
One woman told Amnesty, “If you are a woman, they come through your family to shut you up. They will even ask: ‘Who will marry you, you speak too much, you travel too much. Who will marry you?’”

While many human rights defenders continue to work courageously within the limits of this repressive environment, free speech is fraught with danger.
Activists told Amnesty International that they avoid talking about sensitive topics over the phone, preferring to talk in person or through encrypted apps.
One activist told the organisation: “I don’t know who is tracking my phone, when and where. In South Sudan, they know if you are a human rights person … they can be following your phone conversation, can be checking on your phone every now and then and one day they will turn against you.”

Another activist said: “I’ve gotten to the extent [where] I fear holding my phone, could it be tapped?”
While the lack of government and corporate transparency makes it impossible to know the exact mechanisms used in these surveillance practices, the NSS can likely only conduct communications surveillance with the collaboration of telecommunication service providers. 
A former employee of MTN South Sudan, part of the South African multinational corporation the MTN Group, said that the NSS, through an Israeli company, installed a “box” at their company’s headquarters in Juba in 2013. This could be how the government, including the NSS, gains direct access to data from service providers.

A former employee of Vivacell, a Lebanese company that operated in South Sudan until March 2018, said that the government required all telecommunication companies operational in South Sudan to pay Verint Systems, the Israeli subsidiary of the US Verint Systems, for technology that gives the NSS direct access to its services.

Amnesty International wrote to the four companies included in its report regarding the findings. It only received a response from one company.  MTN Group explained to Amnesty International that MTN South Sudan was required to pay for lawful interception equipment and services to surveillance vendors. MTN said that this was done in accordance with the law and coordinated through the South Sudanese National Communication Authority with all mobile networks operating within the country. MTN did not mention the specific legal provisions or which particular vendor it paid.

State surveillance in South Sudan goes beyond phone conversations. The NSS also monitors social media to target government critics and deploys agents throughout South Sudan and neighbouring countries, penetrating all levels of society and daily life. 
NSS approval is required to hold public events, disabling genuine dialogue. Credible and consistent accounts from multiple sources demonstrate that intelligence agents have infiltrated NGOs, the media, private sector security companies and hotels. The depth and breadth of the NSS spy network creates an environment that infringes on freedom of opinion, expression, and privacy.

The government of South Sudan must stop targeting journalists, activists and government critics through the unlawful use of surveillance including interception of their telephone communication.
Telecommunications and surveillance technology companies have a responsibility to respect human rights in all their business operations, as laid out in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Providing the NSS with surveillance systems when there is a significant human rights risk or giving them unchecked access to telecommunications networks is a dereliction of the companies’ responsibilities.

Extrajudicial Killings in South Sudan: The Abduction and Execution of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri

AFRICA UNCENSORED

February 10, 2021
The War and Injustices

In December 2013, civil war broke out in South Sudan after President Salva Kiir – a member of the largest ethnic group in the country, the Dinka, and the leader of the ruling SPLM party – fired his then-vice president, Riek Machar, a member of the second-largest community, the Nuer. The result has been civil war, the death of hundreds of thousands and the mass displacement of millions of South Sudanese nationals over the years.

Obstructions from both civilian and armed actors affiliated with the SPLM/A have made peacekeeping and humanitarian operations difficult, a situation a 2019 UN Panel of Experts report describes as resulting from, “the policies and actions of SPLM/A in Government, which have involved both an increase in onerous bureaucratic restrictions and overt intimidation.”

According to Amnesty International, challengers of the South Sudan government, from activists to opposition members, have been threatened and intimidated by South Sudanese government sources, including the National Security Service (NSS) and Military Intelligence. This has happened both within and outside of the country’s borders.

Missing: Abducted and Deported

In August 2013, Dong Samuel Luak, a lawyer and human rights activist fled to Kenya after receiving threats from the South Sudanese government. While in Kenya, Dong continued to call out the injustices happening in his country, condemning the corruption, as well as human rights abuses of the government. Three and a half years later, he would go missing from Kenya’s capital.

The Dream Bean House restaurant, located along Kaunda Street in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD), is the last location that Dong was seen before he went missing on 23rd January 2017. The restaurant’s CCTV footage captured his last moments in the area in the company of two people, Michael Kuajien, a South Sudanese intelligence officer, and Luke Thompson.

Dong left the restaurant that evening and was heading home to South C, a residential estate in Nairobi, but he never got there. Worried about his sudden disappearance, his family filed a missing person’s report the following day at the Industrial Area Police Station.

While this was happening, yet another South Sudanese citizen would go missing: Aggrey Ezbon Idri, a member of the SPLM-In-Opposition (SPLM-IO) and a vocal government critic. Up until his disappearance, Aggrey had lived in Kenya for five years. Just like Dong, he too moved to Kenya in 2013, but on a visitor’s pass, after the conflict broke out in South Sudan.

According to his wife, Ayah Benjamin, Aggrey left their home at Valley Arcade, a neighbourhood in Nairobi, for a morning jog on 24th January 2017, but never came back. On the same day, the family filed a formal missing person’s report at two police stations, Muthangari Police Station and Kilimani Police Station.

According to court documents, the phone records availed to the police by Safaricom Limited, a Kenyan mobile network operator, show that Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri’s mobile numbers became inactive at the time they were reported to have disappeared.

At the time of his abduction from Kenya, Dong was a registered refugee in Kenya and was under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), in Nairobi. Aggrey, on the other hand, had a valid visa to remain in Kenya and was in the process of seeking UNHCR protection in Nairobi.

According to Amnesty International, “the unwillingness and inaction to investigate the disappearances and whereabouts of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri by the South Sudanese government is an abdication of its binding legal obligations, demonstrates a total disregard for the men’s fundamental rights, and exacerbates their families’ concerns.”

This was not the first time that South Sudanese refugees were forcibly disappeared from Kenyan territory and illegally deported to South Sudan with help from the Kenyan government.
In November 2016, James Gatdet Dak, the spokesman for South Sudan’s political opposition at the time, was deported by Kenya to South Sudan. Gatdet would later be sentenced to death by hanging for treason but he was pardoned on 31st October 2018.

James Gatdet Dak’s account of his illegal deportation confirms collaboration between the highest levels of the Kenyan and South Sudanese governments. The forcible disappearance and return of the men to South Sudan, where they risk being tortured and experiencing other ill-treatment, violates international law, as well as regional and national Kenyan laws. Enforced disappearances and torture are both crimes under international law in all circumstances and may be subject to prosecution as war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Missing: Timeline of events

23rd January 2017
Dong Samuel Luak disappears off the streets of Nairobi. He was last seen at Dream Bean House Restaurant on 23rd January 2017 at 8.31 p.m.

24th January 2017
Aggrey Ezbon Idri goes missing. The families of Dong and Aggrey report their mysterious disappearances.

25th and 26th January 2017
A prisoner, detained at the same time as dong and Aggrey in Blue House, has since revealed that he saw and spoke to Aggrey in Juba on these days. He stated that Dong and Aggrey arrived in Juba together and had been taken to Blue House, a National Security Service (NSS) detention centre. Dong was held at the ground floor while Aggrey was housed on the upper floor of the detention centre.
His description of events indicates that Dong and Aggrey were already in Juba on the 25th and 26th of January, 2017. However, a 2019 UN Panel of Experts report confirms that the two men arrived in Juba on 27th January 2017.

Despite these discrepancies, the prisoner and the UN report both confirm that Dong and Aggrey had been detained on separate floors at the Blue House centre. Dong was held downstairs in the criminal section while Aggrey was held upstairs in the political detainees’ section.

27th January 2017
A Kenyan court rules against the deportation of Dong Samuel and Aggrey Idri to South Sudan. However, according to multiple reports from international organizations, the two individuals had already been moved to Juba and had been seen in the custody of the National Security Service (NSS) by the time of the ruling. The UN Panel of Experts report published in 2019 revealed that Dong and Aggrey were transported from Kenya in a chartered commercial plane on 27th January 2017 by the Internal Security Bureau of South Sudan’s NSS with the help of the Embassy of South Sudan in Nairobi.
Credible sources, including the UN Panel of Experts report, have since disclosed that, on the same day, Dong and Aggrey were moved from Blue House detention centre to another National Security Service facility in Luri, which is part of a ranch and military compound owned by Salva Kiir.

30th January 2017
Three days after their transfer from Blue House, Dong and Aggrey were executed by Internal Security Bureau agents at the Luri facility.  This was confirmed by a UN Panel of Experts on 1st May 2019.
 
Throughout the period that Dong and Aggrey were missing, the Government of South Sudan continued to deny having any knowledge of their whereabouts, as well as that they were in South Sudan. This was despite reports from multiple sources, including international human rights organizations and media outlets reporting that Dong and Aggrey were abducted in Nairobi by members of the South Sudanese security services and brought back to Juba.

According to Amnesty International, since South Sudan’s civil war began in December 2013, the NSS has arbitrarily detained dozens of perceived opponents, often torturing and ill-treating them with electric shocks, beatings, and harsh conditions. Authorities have also been responsible for enforced disappearances, as part of their campaign against those perceived to be government opponents.

Who Is Responsible for the Forced Disappearance of Luak and Aggrey?

On 10th December 2019, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against 18 individuals located in Burma, Pakistan, Libya, Slovakia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and South Sudan for their roles in serious human rights abuse, including against five individuals responsible for the abduction and murder of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri.

On 9th January 2020, the U.S. Treasury also sanctioned the First Vice President of South Sudan, Taban Deng Gai (Deng), for his involvement in serious human rights abuse, including the disappearance and deaths of civilians.

Additionally, a 2019 UN Panel of Experts report, Kenyan court documents, media reports, and several sources close to Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri reveal a number of individuals and institutions were part of their illegal abductions, deportation and execution.

John Top Lam

John Top Lam, a South Sudanese intelligence officer was one of the individuals involved in the disappearance of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri. Court documents reveal that Dong’s family submitted an affidavit stating that one John Top Lam was involved in his disappearance. The affidavits also disclose that John Top Lam had called Dong’s brother, Polit James, in relation to his disappearance.

According to call transcripts availed in court, Lam “appears to insinuate that he had knowledge of the whereabouts of both Dong and Aggrey and would avail the information if he was facilitated with the sum of USD 10,000 (Kshs 1 Million).”

In September 2017, the Daily Beast, an American news and opinion website, reported that, in addition to soliciting a bribe, John Top Lam also implied that the USD 10,000 was for the head of Kenya’s intelligence service, Major-General Philip Wachira Kameru.
After investigations by the Kenyan police, Mr Lam recorded a statement and swore an affidavit denying the allegations made by Dong’s family that he had any knowledge of the whereabouts of the two missing South Sudanese nationals. It is unclear whether the money he requested was ever paid out.

Credible sources with direct knowledge of the case identify John Top Lam as a close associate of First Vice President Taban Deng Gai.

Colonel Michael Kuajien Duer

Colonel Michael Kuajien Duer, a South Sudanese intelligence officer, was also involved in the kidnapping of Dong and Aggrey. According to subsequent court proceedings and the UN Panel of Experts, Kuajien is believed to have played a direct role in the abduction of Dong Samuel.

In 2019, the Daily Nation, a Kenya newspaper, citing an affidavit filed in Kenyan court, reported that, “Mr Michael Kuajien, in a recorded phone conversation, now part of the court filings, together with John Top Lam, claim[ed] that the two missing men were in the custody of Kenyan intelligence agents.”

According to another affidavit, Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations “put the blame back on Mr Kuajien who the police accused of having a hand in the kidnapping and deportation of Dong and Aggrey.”
According to other documents obtained by The Sentry, Kuajien was also involved in the negotiations of weapons deals for the SPLM-IO during the early stages of the South Sudanese Civil war, which erupted in December 2013.

Brigadier General Abud Stephen Thiongkol and Brigadier General Malual Dhal Muorwel

It is very likely that agents of the Internal Security Bureau were involved in the execution of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Idri at the National Security Service facility in Luri. The chain of command for execution orders included the Director-General of the Internal Security Bureau of the National Security Service, Akol Koor; Commander of the National Security Service training and detention facilities in Luri, Malual Dhal Muorwel; and the Commander of the National Security Service Central Division, Abud Stephen Thiongkol.

Operating on orders from both NSS Central Division Commander Abud Stephen Thiongkol and Director General of Internal Security Bureau Akol Koor, the NSS commander in charge of the Luri facility, Malual Dhal Muorwel, ordered the execution of both Dong and Aggrey on 30th January.

Brigadier General Napoleon Adok Gai

Brig. Gen. Napoleon Adok Gai also played a key role in the abduction of Dong and Aggrey. Napoleon Adok Gai has served as the Director of Cyber Security in the Office of the President and is an apparent associate of Michael Kuajien. He has in the past been found to have illegally spied on several people suspected to voice any criticism or dissent against the South Sudanese government. He has also been involved in digital surveillance operations conducted by South Sudanese intelligence services in Kenya.

On May 27, 2017, the Court of Appeal in South Sudan ruled that “the use of a particular wiretapping device relied on by Adok in Kenya, acquired from Israel was unconstitutional and in violation of Article 22 of the South Sudan constitution.”

In addition to his title at the Office of the President, Gen. Napoleon is also identified as the head of National Security Service phone monitoring headquarters, the Aquilla Center. According to an article by The Sudan Tribune, “the Aquilla Center has been used as an operation base for the National Security Service, where they have monitored phone communications of citizens with rebellious voices, political leaders, opposition lawmakers, and civil society activists.”

Lieutenant General Akol Koor Kuc

The April 2019 UN Panel of Experts report on South Sudan confirmed that the abduction and execution orders for Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri came from Lieutenant General Akol Koor Kuc.

Akol Koor, the Director-General of the Internal Security Bureau of the National Security Service is also affiliated with other roles in the South Sudanese government. He has served on the board of Nile Petroleum (NILEPET), South Sudan’s main state-owned oil company.

In 2016, just a year before Dong and Aggrey were abducted and forcefully deported from Kenya, a UN report on South Sudan stated that “Gen. Akol Koor Kuc is one of a narrow circle of senior individuals in the military and security services who were waging an aggressive war involving the targeting of civilians and extensive destruction of communities.”

The Panel also found what they called “clear and convincing evidence…that most of the acts of violence committed during the war by the government and government-affiliated forces…had been undertaken with the knowledge of individuals at the highest level of government, including Akol, the Director-General of the NSS’s Internal Security Bureau.”

The UN Panel also found the existence of two small killing squads under the command of Gen. Akol referred to as ‘Inside Tiger’ and ‘Outside Tiger.’ They are alleged to have carried out a number of targeted killings in recent years, including of journalists and civil society activists in South Sudan, as well as of perceived critics and political opponents seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.

The National Security Service/Internal Security Bureau (NSS/ISB)

Dong and Aggrey’s whereabouts remained publicly uncertain until April 2019, when the UN Panel of Experts released a report stating they had “corroborated evidence strongly suggesting that the two South Sudanese nationals were kidnapped in Kenya by the Internal Security Bureau of South Sudan, which is part of National Security Service.

The Internal Security Bureau team transported Dong and Aggrey from Kenya to Juba in a charted commercial plane on 27th January 2017, with the help of the Embassy of South Sudan in Nairobi.”
Once in Juba, Dong and Aggrey were taken to the Blue House detention centre where they were detained before being moved to an NSS Training Facility in Luri, where they were eventually executed on 30th January 2017.

According to a 2016 UN Panel Experts report, “The [Internal Security] Bureau, under Akol Koor, at the time of writing the report was holding at least 50 individuals in a detention site at its headquarters in Juba, together with an unknown number of suspects at a site located close to the River Nile in Juba.

Detainees are subjected to beatings and other forms of inhuman or degrading treatment.” The Panel also found that it was “probable that the Service is responsible for setting up a dedicated team that carries out targeted assassinations, mostly in Juba, who have become widely known as the ‘unknown gunmen.”

The UN Panel of Experts concluded that “the National Security Service and the Internal Security Bureau in particular…act outside the rule of law and official state structures.”

First Vice President Taban Deng Gai

Several individuals close to Dong Samuel and sources with links to the office of the First Vice President believe that Deng was ultimately responsible for ordering Dong and Aggrey’s abduction and execution.
Other sources cite threats made by Taban Deng Gai to Dong Samuel Luak in 2016 as support for his alleged involvement in the abduction.

According to the US Department of the Treasury, Taban Deng Gai, “reportedly arranged and directed the disappearance and deaths of human rights lawyer Samuel Dong Luak (Dong) and SPLM-IO member Aggrey Idri (Aggrey).  He directed these actions in order to solidify his position within President Kiir’s government and to intimidate members of the SPLM-IO.”

Conclusion

For two years, the families of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri continued to seek judicial help in searching for their loved ones and the truth about what happened to them. However, on 17th January 2019, a Kenyan High Court officially ended its investigations into the disappearances of the two South Sudanese nationals.
Despite three years elapsing since the deaths of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri, the South Sudanese government has shown no indications of holding the individuals involved, or any others, to account, and has not taken any corrective measures since the publication in April 2019 of the UN Panel of Experts report.

According to Jehanne Henry, associate Africa director at Human Rights Watch, “The UN experts panel’s finding that Dong and Aggrey were most likely murdered days after their abduction while family and friends were stonewalled by Kenyan and South Sudanese authorities shows shocking cruelty.”

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly documented the South Sudanese government’s arbitrary arrest and detention of perceived opponents in official and unofficial NSS facilities across the country, where they are often held for months to years without charges, and without access to proper food, sanitation, medical care, or legal representation.

“Kenya and South Sudan failed miserably in their duty of care toward Dong and Aggrey,” Seif Magango, Amnesty International’s deputy director for East Africa, the Horn, and Great Lakes Region is quoted saying. “Both governments must end the blanket denials now, tell the families and the world what exactly happened to the two men and bring those responsible to account.”

South Sudan Government Threatens Rights Activists Living Abroad, Report Says

VOA

March 25, 2021

A new report says South Sudanese journalists, rights activists and opposition members living outside the country are still at risk of being harassed and even killed by South Sudanese authorities, most notably by the National Security Service (NSS) intelligence agency.

The 43-page report, “No Refuge: South Sudan’s Targeting of Refugee Human Rights Defenders,” was compiled by Ireland-based rights group Front Line Defenders and contains testimonies from 14 South Sudanese human rights defenders living in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

Adam Shapiro is the Frontline Defenders head of communications. He told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus that when human rights defenders leave South Sudan to seek refuge, there is no guarantee of safety for them.

“The picture painted by the research leaves no doubt. South Sudan’s NSS is able, and more than willing, to try to silence civil society even when human rights defenders leave South Sudan. The agency is responsible for the creation of a climate of fear and distrust among refugee human rights defenders in neighboring countries,” Shapiro said.

The report documents instances of surveillance, both digital and physical; disruption of peaceful activities; attempts to kidnap and deport human rights defenders to South Sudan; and the sharing of information with South Sudan embassy personnel, for the alleged objective of targeting those activists.

South Sudan in Focus reached out to government officials for reaction to the report but did not get a response.

In perhaps the most notorious case, human rights lawyer Samuel Dong Luak and opposition member Aggrey Idri Ezbon were kidnapped in Nairobi in 2017. A 2019 U.N. report said the abductions were carried out by South Sudan’s Internal Security Bureau. The report said Luak and Ezbon were flown to Juba and executed – something the South Sudanese government has repeatedly denied.

In January 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Taban Deng, one of South Sudan’s vice presidents, for his alleged involvement in the case. It said Deng reportedly arranged for Luak and Ezbon’s disappearance and deaths.

Shapiro says the international community has a role to play by reminding South Sudan’s government of its core responsibility to protect its citizens against all forms of abuses in the country. He says the Front Line Defenders will engage South Sudanese diplomatic missions abroad, as well as authorities in Kenya and Uganda where South Sudanese rights activists have faced attacks.

“We do believe that the government of South Sudan has obviously the responsibility to protect and guard the human rights of its citizens, but also to ensure that human rights defenders and civil society in the country can operate freely and carry out their work without fear of reprisal, intimidation, harassment, abuse and imprisonment,” he said.

In the past, South Sudan’s senior government and military officials have dismissed reports of serious human rights violations committed by some members of the NSS and the South Sudan People’s Defense Force (SSPDF), which is the national army.

“If you believe the [South Sudan] authorities, everything is copacetic, everything is fine and well in South Sudan and nobody should have any complaints. We know that is not true, we have documented, other organizations have documented, and the U.N. has documented what is going on in South Sudan,” Shapiro said.

On Wednesday, the United Nations Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of the commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. Several international rights watchdog groups have praised the move to extend the mandate of the commission for another year.

Nyagoah Tut Pur is Human Rights Watch’s researcher for South Sudan. She says the international community must continue to report the atrocities committed against civilians in South Sudan.

“The renewal of U.N. Commission of the Human Rights in South Sudan’s robust investigatory mandate is key to ensuring accountability for grave violations in South Sudan and ending the ongoing cycles of abuse,” Pur told VOA.

Will South Sudan rein in its notorious National Security Service?

African Arguments

May 6, 2021

We met a young man on a hot and humid Saturday morning along the banks of the Nile in South Sudan’s capital Juba. With misty eyes and a shaky voice, he spoke about his new wife who was being held at a detention center known as the “Blue House”. He told us that three weeks after their wedding, the National Security Service (NSS) had summoned her for questioning and then detained her on accusations of fraud in the government agency for which she worked.

In the three months since, she had not been taken to court or charged with any offence and had been denied access to her lawyer. Her husband had tried to see her many times, but the NSS turned him away too. “Even if she had been a murderer, even if she was the worst criminal, I should have been allowed access to her,” he said heartbroken and in anguish.
This story is sadly not unique.

A Human Rights Watch investigation based on testimony from 85 people, including 48 former NSS detainees, offers in-depth insight into the security service’s patterns of abuse between 2014 and 2020. We found that detainees were tortured and ill-treated, leaving many with long term physical and mental conditions.

Not only are abuses in NSS custody rife, but detainees are denied basic due process rights and access to justice. South Sudan’s government has poor judicial or legislative oversight of the NSS and has missed multiple opportunities to reform it.
The NSS was established at independence in 2011 to “collect information, conduct analysis, and advise relevant authorities”. It repeatedly overstepped this constitutional mandate.

In 2014, shortly after civil war broke out in December 2013, the National Security Service Act expanded the NSS’s responsibilities. The new law gave it broad powers of arrest, detention, search, seizure, and surveillance. Its officers used these powers to target people deemed to be anti-government, including human rights defenders, journalists, opposition party members and suspected rebels, profiling them based on their ethnicity. They also detained people accused of fraud, petty offences, or at the behest of individuals fulfilling personal vendettas.

The NSS has become a feared agency and a vital tool in the government’s campaign of silencing dissent.
The wife of the young man we met finally had her day in court after which she was released for lack of evidence. A year after her detention, she was finally reunited with her husband.
The fact she saw a courtroom at all, however, is rare. In most cases, detainees are released without charge or trial following months or years of detention. We also documented five cases of enforced disappearances from NSS custody and twelve instances of detainees dying in custody due to harsh conditions like inadequate food, water, and medication.

Worryingly, NSS abuses also stretch beyond South Sudan’s borders. In some cases, it has harassed and repressed South Sudanese activists in Kenya and Uganda with the aid of local authorities. In the prominent case of Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Idri, the two men were abducted from Kenya in January 2017, detained at the Blue House, and allegedly killed by the NSS a few days later. Both Kenya and South Sudan repeatedly deny any responsibility for the men though they were spotted in detention in South Sudan.

These abuses foster a culture of impunity, which cannot continue. Fortunately, the government has the power, through the 2018 peace deal, to reform the governing law of the NSS. It can reform it to ensure it meets its constitutional mandate to be a professional agency focused on information gathering and one that will “respect the will of the people, the rule of law, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

South Sudanese authorities should also immediately open an investigation into the security service abuses and hold officers to account while ensuring redress for victims. The investigation should include the role of senior leadership of the NSS in perpetuating abuses. The African Union and South Sudan’s neighbors should apply consistent diplomatic pressure to ensure these reforms. This could help transform the NSS into an agency that respects fundamental rights and freedoms not only in South Sudan, but the region.

South Sudan’s new deputy spy chief is Kiir’s own brother in law

December 2, 2021

JUBA — South Sudan’s new Deputy Director General of General Security Service of the country’s National Security Service (NSS) General Gregory Deng Kuac is a brother in law to President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Kiir in a number of presidential decrees read out on the state-own South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC), appointed General Deng as the new Deputy Director-General of the General Intelligence Bureau of the National Security Service.

“In exercise of powers conferred upon me under section 17/1 of the NSS Act 2014, I Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the Republic of South Sudan and Supreme commander of all the regular forces do hereby issue this republican decree for the appointment of Maj. Gen. Gregory Deng Kuac as Deputy Director-General of the General Intelligence Bureau, NSS with effect from 1 December 2021,” the decree read in part.   

Another presidential decree transferred Gen. Deng from the army, the SSPDF to the NSS.
Gen. Deng, famously known as Gregory Vasili, briefly served as the governor of the now-defunct Gogrial State from January to September 2017 and was in the past involved in land disputes in Juba some of which ended in court.

NISUC Graduates Senior Members of South Sudan Intelligence Officers

niss.gov.et

2022

National Intelligence and Security University College (NISUC) has trained and graduated senior Intelligence officers of South Sudan National Security Service in fields of Intelligence and security . 

It is part of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and its South Sudan counterpart the National Security Service ( NSS)  agreement to collaborate  in areas of  regional security issues  and  capacity  building disclosed during  the  graduation  ceremony.      

Director General of NISS, Temsgen Tiruneh speaking at the graduation Ceremony that Ethiopian and South Sudanese Intelligence and Security Services were jointly undertaking activities to exchange information, counter terrorism , control trans boundary crimes , protect illicit financial flows  and  maintaining  the regional peace  and security  based on previous   agreement between two organizations.     

According to the Director General, NISS has strengthen its cooperation with different regional, continental and International security and intelligence agencies to jointly avert security threats. The successful accomplishment of the training of south Sudanese National Security members indicates the strong cooperation of both countries, the Director General stated. He also calls  South Sudanese graduates to make practical the experience acquired during the training.          

The Director General also expresses that exerted efforts has continued to make the National Intelligence and Security University College (NISUC) a center of excellence for Intelligence, security and strategic fields of studies in East Africa and whole African Continent. Other african countries also increase their  demand to train officers in NISUC , he underscored.             

Director of the National Security Service (NSS) of South Sudan, General Akol Koor Kuk , has  extended his gratitude to the leaders of the National Intelligence Security Service, members of the National Intelligence and University College and others Ethiopian government officials for their contribution  to make the trainings successful .     

General Akol koor Kuk also express his appreciation for the people and government of Ethiopia that had been played a pivotal role for the rebirth of South Sudan as a country.   The bilateral relations of the two sisterly countries will bolster further, he added.  

President of the National Intelligence and Security University College (NISUC)   Wondewossen Kassa said  at  the graduation ceremony that the University College has  given in-depth trainings in the fields of Intelligence and Security for senior members of  the National  Security Services ( NSS) to  conduct  their duties  efficiently and  effectively.  

Ethiopia and South Sudan collaboration in the fields of Intelligence and Security were bolster from time to time based on the agreement reached between intelligence and security agencies of the two countries.  

Inside the National Security Service

The Sentry

8 December 2022

In South Sudan, the state’s absence is often more obvious than its presence. Infrastructure is dismal: schools and hospitals are crumbling paved roads are scarce, and access to running water and electricity is a luxury that few can afford. But across the country, and even for many South Sudanese abroad, one element of the state is omnipresent: the watchful and intimidating eye of the National Security Service (NSS).

The NSS has infiltrated almost every aspect of life. It can eavesdrop on phone conversations and monitor movements throughout Juba via its network of surveillance cameras and informants. It is present in civil society meetings, influencing agendas and installing agents. It shuts down news outlets that print unfavorable stories, and, through a series of front companies, it controls its own newspaper. While the government fails to provide many of its citizens with basic necessities, the surveillance state thrives, intimidating, detaining, or disappearing those who dare to oppose it.

Challenging the NSS, or those that it seeks to protect, is both difficult and dangerous. The NSS surveils the population; it has perpetrated human rights violations including illegal detention and torture, and it has orchestrated extrajudicial killings. The agency has set up its own detention facilities, in which detainees are often held without trial for a prolonged period with limited access to food, clean water, medical care, legal representation, or communication with the outside world.

This repression and violence towards the civilian population, coupled with thoroughgoing media censorship, enables the NSS to avoid scrutiny of and accountability for its politicization and its surreptitious capture of substantial chunks of the economy. With agents embedded in many corners of South Sudanese life overseeing a regime of violence and intimidation, and senior members in positions of significant political influence, the NSS is free to pursue its private sector interests unchallenged.

The NSS and its senior personnel are engaged in a range of commercial activities that provide both the incentives and the means to strengthen its position within the country’s kleptocratic system. The agency’s power and influence provide an inside track to off-budget wealth, while their revenue streams provide them with the resources needed to tighten their grip still further and fund campaigns of violence, all without having to answer to anyone.

The financial gains made under cover of this lack of transparency and accountability incentivize the kleptocratic system to maintain the status quo of corruption and oppression. But the commercial activities of the NSS, both inside and outside the country, are also pressure points vulnerable to action by international governments and organizations to curb the agency’s abuses and hold its officers accountable.

Political instrumentalization

The NSS was established in the wake of South Sudan’s independence in 2011 as an advisory and intelligence gathering agency. The NSS “shall respect the will of the people, the rule of law, civilian authority, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms,” says the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011, which is still in force. In the decade since its creation, the NSS has gone far beyond its remit to advise and gather intelligence, having grown into a highly militarized force that now has some 10,000 agents and its own tanks, weapons, and training facilities.

“The NSS has taken over the role of the police,” a South Sudanese civil society activist told The Sentry, continuing, “They also act as a combat force; they are heavily armed. They havepartly taken over the role of the military.”28 The NSS is an “autonomous fighting force capable of influencing South Sudan’s politics, society, and economy,” and it is “better equipped and trained than regular SSPDF [South Sudan People’s Defense Forces] forces,” according to the United Nations Panel of Experts in 2019.

Operating under the direct supervision of the President Salva Kiir, and with Kiir loyalist Akol Koor Kuc serving as director general of the Internal Security Bureau (ISB), the NSS has been repurposed as the president’s own security force against internal threats to his rule. As early as 2013, the agency was expanded in response to concerns that the then-army chief of staff General Paul Malong, with whom Kiir and Kuc have had a long-running political rivalry, was becoming a threat to Kiir’s power. Although Malong is no longer army chief of staff, he still holds significant influence, having command of rebel forces.

Economic Capture

Throughout South’s Sudan’s short history, public institutions, revenue streams, government contracts, and sometimes entire sectors have been captured by politically connected elites who seek to line their pockets at the expense of the public. The NSS plays a critical role in the capture of public institutions and revenue streams in South Sudan. Published reports, correspondence, eyewitness accounts, and corporate records indicate that the NSS has a broad set of tools and tactics for infiltrating and influencing public and private sector institutions for political and economic gain.

To map the extent of NSS commercial activities, The Sentry compiled a list of 684 members of the NSS,
drawn from a roster of NSS officers included in a 2019 report by the UN Panel of Experts on South Sudan in 2019, as well as other official documents listing NSS personnel. The Sentry cross-referenced names on this list with corporate records filed with South Sudan’s Ministry of Justice and found that 50 NSS officers on the list have, between them, held stakes in companies operating across South Sudan’s economy, including in oil, mining, agriculture, aviation, telecommunications, publishing, logistics, import and export, and procurement.

NSS personnel have occupied key posts in state institutions, including the National Revenue Authority
(NRA) and the national oil company, Nile Petroleum Corporation (Nilepet). The NSS also has a
role in approving private company operations in the mining and security sectors, which in practice makes it a gatekeeper of these sectors. Security agents have been able to quietly embed themselves in various commercial institutions and business sectors, as the example of The Dawn Newspaper illustrates. These companies are often jointly owned or operated with other Kiir regime insiders, reinforcing a collective interest in maintaining the status quo. Taken together, these commercial operations provide the NSS with both the incentive and the means to resist oversight and regulation, as their commercial operations grant opportunities for enrichment and the revenue needed to operate autonomously, lessening the organization’s dependence on budgetary funding.

While government officials are legally required to declare their assets, there is no such requirement for members of the NSS. NSS members have been able to sidestep, undermine, intimidate, or eliminate individuals and institutions seeking to scrutinize their activities, penalize personnel involved in misconduct, or otherwise challenge NSS authority. NSS access to off-budget finances and diverted revenues undermines any attempt at scrutiny or operational oversight. When one NRA official refused to grant favors to regime insiders or ignore blatant misconduct, NSS officers appeared in his office to harass and intimidate him, and he was summoned to the Blue House to explain his actions before the NSS Economic Committee.

Oil sector

Oil is the most profitable sector in South Sudan, and revenue from crude oil sales accounts for more than
90% of the government’s operating budget. Inadequate due diligence in the oil sector has allowed for
politically connected elites, including the NSS, to capture portions of the market and the means to make substantial profits.

The NSS is involved in every decision made in the oil sector, a source with years of experience in the oil sector told The Sentry. The NSS has an interest in hundreds of oil companies registered in the names of unaffiliated civilians to cover its tracks, said the source. The vast majority of government contracts in the oil sector are awarded to these companies, the source further alleges. The Sentry found that at least 10 private oil and petroleum companies registered in South Sudan have NSS shareholders. Some of them have been involved in multimillion-dollar corruption scandals, while others have influence in local supply chains relied on by airlines, NGOs, and the UN.

A source in the oil industry told The Sentry that the NSS is also involved in ensuring that all information regarding corruption and environmental damage within the sector is kept hidden. The NSS has “blatant control over the State-owned oil company Nilepet,” according to the UNHRC. The
involvement of the NSS in Nilepet, a company integrated into the global oil market with annual revenues in the hundreds of millions, is of particular concern, as it gives the NSS the ability to rob the people of South Sudan by withdrawing money to fund its own projects. Akol Koor Kuc, director general of ISB, was appointed by Kiir to Nilepet’s board in 2021.

Kuc had held a “secret seat” on the Nilepet board from 2014 to 2020, and he was “highly influential in deciding how the company and its resources were deployed,” according to the UNHRC. For instance, in 2016, then-Minister of Petroleum and Mining Stephen Dhieu Dau wrote to Nilepet to ask for $1.5 million to cover security expenses, including costs incurred by ISB personnel. Dau’s letter cites an earlier letter signed by Kuc, suggesting that Kuc had sway over Nilepet expenditures. In fact, millions of dollars of Nilepet’s oil revenues have been diverted to the security services, who have used the money to fund militias and purchase weapons and other military equipment to pursue a devastating civil war.

In 2015, much of Nilepet’s revenue was used to fund soldiers stationed in conflict areas near oil fields. There were around 100,000 active soldiers in the field, but funds were reportedly claimed for over 200,000 personnel, with wages for the “ghost” soldiers allegedly diverted into the pockets of more than
700 generals. The same year, Nilepet purchased small arms and ammunitions that were then transferred
by Kuc’s ISB to the Padang Dinka, one of the local militias recruited to fight alongside the government.
The United States Department of State described the fighting in 2015 as “some of the worst violence of the conflict” in South Sudan, with 300,000 people in Upper Nile driven from their homes and many subjected to “rape, extrajudicial killings … and denial of humanitarian access.”