The United Nations headquarters has denied planning to make South Sudan into a trusteeship or protectorate owing to faltering peace talks.

UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, speaking to press in New York yesterday referred to “rumors as reported in South Sudanese and other regional media alleging that the UN has a plan to place the Republic of South Sudan under a ‘protectorate’.

“I can tell you that these reports are completely false nor true.

The Secretary-General wishes to make it categorically clear that neither he nor the UN Mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, is aware of any plans or discussions within the United Nations to take such course of action.”

He pointed out that the UN has supported “the cause of self-determination” for South Sudan from the time of the 2005 through to the 2011 referendum and independence.

The spokesman may have been responding to a report published by the East African on Saturday, which said the United States government “wants UN trusteeship” in South Sudan.

Without citing any sources, the report claimed that “three members of the UN Security Council, led by the US, have drafted a master plan to put South Sudan on the trusteeship similar to that of Iraq, for 10 years.”

However, few if any members of the United States government have actually voiced any support for such a plan. Only a former Bush Administration official has strongly supported the idea.  

Last January former US State Department official Hank Cohen, who ran US Africa policy under President George H.W. Bush, said it was time for South Sudan to be placed under UN trusteeship.

The former official said it was delusional to think that South Sudan could be ruled by warlords” and “corrupt former fighters,” concluding that the UN Security Council should establish a UN mandate over South Sudan similar to the one established for the Congo in 1960.

File photo: UN Security Council