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Will Igad succeed in South Sudan peace efforts?
President Museveni and his South Sudan counterpart Salva Kiir at State House Entebbe on Friday. Uganda last year deployed a sizeable force in South Sudan to protect key installations and also help evacuate Ugandan citizens. PPU PHOTO
What you need to know:
Analysts say the biggest problem now is that both president Salva Kiir and Dr Riek Machar think the war can be worn militarily.
KAMPALA- For eight months now, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) has been spearheading a process to end hostilities between South Sudan president Salva Kiir and his former deputy-turned-rebel leader, Dr Riek Machar.
The notable development in all this is characterised by rather regular agreements and disagreements between the two.
The death toll so far in the world’s newest nation since unrest broke out last December, according to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, is more than 10,000 and more than two million have been displaced internally and thousands, according to refugee agencies, continue to flee to neighbouring countries.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees, external relations officer, Karen Ringuette, said Uganda was hosting about 386,000 refugees as of May, but it is believed more refugees keep crossing the border daily.
The current political turmoil started in the capital, Juba, and it was reported Dr Machar was behind the chaos, which later would be translated into an attempted coup. Within days, violence had spread throughout the country.
Days later, Uganda deployed a sizeable force to protect key installations and also help evacuate Ugandans trapped in the middle of the crossfire.
But to this day, the avenues explored so far have been unsuccessful.
Ping-pong of peace process
The peace talks in Addis Ababa started in the plush Sheraton Hotel, then moved to a night club at one time, and later back to the hotel. But throughout this circus, reports indicated no agenda was on the order paper.
On May 9, the two leaders against pressure from the international community, signed a peace deal that would allow humanitarian aid reach hundreds of people displaced internally.
President Kiir had been urged to organise fresh elections to allow an all-inclusive government, but on return home said, he had been forced to put signature to paper and was also threatened with arrest by the Igad chairman and Ethiopian prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn.
He expressed reluctance about doing as was agreed and as a result, the agreement collapsed and fighting continued.
On June 10, another peace deal was signed, also emphasising formation of a government of national unity by August to allow social cohesion; but that was all.
Peace talks were scheduled to resume on July 30 but were pushed to August 4 and later rescheduled following a visit of members of the UN Security Council to South Sudan to assess the situation. No other date has since been communicated.
South Sudan information minister Michael Makuei Lueth on Tuesday said they would not take part in negotiations again with the rebels unless both parties agree on a meaningful cessation of hostilities deal.
These pre-conditions, according to Sudan Tribune Online, had been submitted to the mediators. Igad is yet to issue a statement but the revelation meant going to back to where everything started, something which casts doubt on current peace efforts and if they can achieve anything, at least by the end of this year.
On Tuesday, barely a day after the government had set the new preconditions; the rebels hit back at the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) government, saying it is a plan to boycott the negotiations. They indicated willingness to engage in “direct negotiations” on various substantial issues.
Among these, the rebel leaders, according to Sudan Tribune Online, proposed a democratic federal system of governance with a presidential system of transitional government, in which the power-sharing ratios shall be 70 per cent for the SPLM-in-opposition; 20 per cent for the government and 10 per cent for other stakeholders –at the federal, state and local government levels.
Authorities at the South Sudan Embassy in Kampala were unavailable for comment on the proposition as Ambassador Samuel Lominsuk was reported out of the country, while the acting ambassador was said to be too busy.
Can peace talks do magic again?
US secretary of state John Kerry said last week in a statement: “We’re past the point where enough is enough. Deadlines keep passing and innocent people dying.”
He called on Igad, the eight member regional bloc of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and others, and the African Union to immediately take appropriate action against both Kiir and Machar to bring peace to the people of South Sudan.
“Peace talks have been ongoing for six months, while the people continue to suffer and the war persists,” Mr Kerry said.
The Igad heads of state at their next meeting, which was rescheduled from early this month, are expected to discuss the way forward, probably sanctions against the principle parties or continue to squeeze juice out of the rocks.
This school of thought is shared by Nathan Laurie, a facilitator of diplomacy matters at the Centre for Mediation in Africa at South Africa’s University of Pretoria.
The biggest problem to any progress right now, Mr Laurie who took part in the negotiations of the Sudan/South Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 and the African Union peace efforts after Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence, said is the mentality held by both parties that the war can be won militarily.
This, he added, is stirred by the fact that some Igad mediating countries have taken sides and discussion put on the table is viewed with suspicion. But nonetheless, the first step, he acknowledged, is to halt all hostilities to allow humanitarian aid reach the combat zone to the internally displaced people.
The UN Security Council is also pondering adopting sanctions against the two heads if all avenues explored fail.
But as the two leaders continue to waste away time, with the UN warning on Tuesday that 3.8 million people displaced internally are at the brink of starvation, can the two leaders chose to trade power for peace—for the good of the majority?
THE WAY FORWARD
Former transitional president of Sudan (1985 -1986) Field Marshall (FM) Abdel Rahman Swareldahab, who is also on the mediating team, in an interview with Sunday Monitor, said there is still chance for both parties to reach a common ground and bring the stalemate to an end.
“By now they must have come to the realisation that this conflict cannot be resolved through armed conflict,” he said. The problem, however, is “both parties still lack confidence and without it is why we go back where we started”.
FM Swareldahab, further indicated it will “take restoration of confidence” into the parties and then persuade them into meaningful discussions, otherwise the conflict may never be resolved.
