Talks between the South Sudanese government and rebel forces are due to
resume soon, but with what hope of success, asks Salah Khalil
Friday,19 September, 2014
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which is mediating
the negotiating process seeking to end the civil war in South Sudan, has
announced that negotiations between Juba and the rebel forces will resume on
22 September in Ethiopia.
Representatives from civil society, the business community and the clergy in
South Sudan will be taking part for the first time in the talks in the hope
of bringing a halt to the violent conflict over power that has been raging
in the country for more than nine months.
Nevertheless, there is widespread pessimism over the prospects for the
success of the forthcoming talks in spite of the intensive western
sponsorship of them.
IGAD has stated that the talks will focus primarily on political dialogue
and national reconciliation, and it has stressed that it will bring
international and regional pressure to bear to compel the conflicting
parties to abide by any agreement.
It has also said that in the event of negligence by either side harsh
sanctions will be invoked. The agency has said that its efforts are intended
to produce a consensus by bridging the conflicting parties' views for a
solution with a compromise vision that will be acceptable to both sides in
South Sudan.
IGAD has appealed to the two sides to freeze troop movements and disengage
in advance of the forthcoming talks in accordance with the previously signed
Matrix Security Agreement. It has stated that it hopes that the talks will
contribute to the realisation of a final agreement that will bring the
crisis in South Sudan to a close and achieve the aspirations of the people
of South Sudan, the region and the international community.
In Juba, official government spokesman Michael Makuei, who is also a member
of the government's negotiating delegation, said that Juba had received
IGAD's invitation to resume negotiations between the conflicting parties in
South Sudan in accordance with the negotiating principles and protocol laid
out by IGAD.
But it appears that contentious issues have arisen even before the round
begins. The senior negotiator for Juba, Nyal Deng Nyal, has stated that his
delegation has ruled out any discussion on power-sharing with the rebels led
by Riek Machar. He has also said that the question of power-sharing has to
engage all national forces in South Sudan in order to reach a final
settlement to the crisis.
For his part, the former vice-president and leader of the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM in Opposition), Riek Machar, has
stated that he has submitted a number of proposals to African IGAD mediators
to resolve the political crisis in South Sudan.
His has called for renaming South Sudan the "Federal State of South Sudan",
dividing the country into 24 federal states instead of the current ten, in
accordance with the 1956 boundaries, changing the name of the People's Army
to the "Armed Forces of the State of South Sudan", restructuring the
government forces, and disassociating them from the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement Party.
He has also called for the restructuring of the Republican Guards and the
renaming and restructuring of the police into a federal police force. He has
cautioned that the proposals he has submitted to IGAD stipulate that the
opposition should have a 70 per cent share in the creation of the federal
army, leaving 30 per cent to others in South Sudan.
On the question of power-sharing, Machar said that his movement has
designated a formula for the interim government whereby it would be granted
a 60 per cent share of government and parliamentary seats, 30 per cent would
go to the current government headed by President Salva Kiir and 10 per cent
to other political parties.
He added that the interim government should manage 40 per cent of the
country and leave the remainder to the federal states.
Machar called for the abolition of existing government institutions and
their replacement by ones that would realise this federal concept. He also
stressed the importance of prosecuting those suspected of involvement in war
crimes, remedying the problems of refugees and displaced persons, and
introducing reforms to enable the country to stand on solid foundations,
with systems capable of achieving stability and justice.
South Sudan rebel forces spokesman Yohannes Musa has said that the current
negotiating round will discuss political issues, national reconciliation and
issues to be included in an agreement over an interim period under a new
president.
Questions that need to be discussed with regard to the interim period, he
said, were the restructuring of government agencies in an institutional
manner, restructuring of the armed forces and internationally supervised
parliamentary and presidential elections.
But the political and military situation does not appear to be conducive to
a peaceful resolution of the South Sudanese conflict that erupted in
December 2013. Hostilities have broken out again in the petroleum-rich
states of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei despite of the recently signed
truce. In addition, many towns in South Sudan have experienced violations of
the agreement against the backdrop of a total paralysis in the negotiating
process brokered by IGAD.
Already IGAD has postponed the negotiations three times, while the peace
negotiations in Addis Ababa have so far failed to reduce the animosities
between the parties in South Sudan and to reach a power-sharing formula.
South Sudan has been plagued by bloody clashes between government forces and
rebel forces led by Riek Machar, the former vice-president of President
Salva Kiir, who accuses Machar of trying to wage a military coup against
him, a charge that Machar denies.
While some observers attribute the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan to
internal causes, they also maintain that regional and international powers
have sought to capitalise on domestic fragility to promote their own
interests in the larger context of the conflict over power and influence in
the region.
The fledgling state's vast potential wealth and its oil resources have been
a great lure to foreign powers. Observers have noted the increasing Chinese
influence in the country, which, they say, has compounded the foreign factor
as a chief cause for protracting the conflict between the domestic rivals.
China is reported to have deployed 700 troops as part of the international
peace-keeping forces, with the purpose of protecting oil fields and Chinese
workers in South Sudan.
Regarding military developments on the ground, rebel forces have now seized
Duk Fadit county in Jonglei, while clashes between them and government
forces continue to rage around Bor, the state capital. In another
development in the escalating fighting, rebel forces have also seized the
Manaqa oil fields and partially destroyed a petroleum refinery. They have
also taken control of oil fields north of Bentiu.
Observers fear that if the forthcoming talks fail, the humanitarian plight
in South Sudan will worsen. But they hold out little hope for the
negotiations, in part because of the ambiguity of the issues on the agenda.
IGAD has not succeeded in persuading the two sides to negotiate directly
over the issues. Meanwhile, international and regional humanitarian and
relief agencies have begun to warn that famine could strike within the
coming weeks if the forthcoming round of negotiations fails to bring an end
to the hostilities.
The civil war, which had its origin in political disputes that mutated into
an ethnic conflict, has thus far claimed thousands of dead and driven more
than a million and a half people from their homes. It has also reignited
tensions between the Dinka ethnic group, to which Salva Kiir belongs, and
the Nuer, to which Machar belongs.
Meanwhile, alternative voices to both that of Juba and the rebel forces are
making themselves heard. The South Sudanese community in Britain, for
example, has condemned both sides in the conflict and demanded an interim
government without either Kiir or Machar.
The government should be headed by an independent, it has said, also
expressing a lack of confidence in the forthcoming IGAD talks because of
divided loyalties among IGAD members. The community has agreed to form a
delegation to convey its views to the UN, the EU, the African Union and the
Arab League.
Inside South Sudan itself, the positions of the ten states vary considerably
as tensions mount in tandem with the re-emergent voice of the military
machine, the growing scope of the alliances between Machar's forces and some
of the smaller ethnic groups, and the general refusal to acknowledge the
perilous humanitarian conditions.
The nascent state risks being torn apart while a humanitarian catastrophe
hovers. A power-sharing formula needs to be found that can strike an
equitable balance between all the ethnic groups, especially the Dinka, the
Nuer and the Shilluk, in order to spare the country the consequences of
further prolongation of the civil war and an economic and social collapse.
At the same time, it should be noted that the efforts being exerted by
regional forces and the AU to broker a solution to the crisis require
stronger international backing in order to restore stability to South Sudan,
safeguard the nascent state from collapse and steer it toward national
reconciliation and democratic pluralism.
Continued conflict would not only affect South Sudan but also have
repercussions in all the countries of the region, not least of which is the
spectre of the spillover of ethnicised conflict that could engulf the whole
of the Horn of Africa in a series of border wars.
Undoubtedly, the conflict in South Sudan will impact negatively on north
Sudan, especially if the conflict persists. The countries share a
1,200-km-long border, and the lives of people on both sides of the border
overlap in ways that are complex and difficult to monitor or control.