{UAH} Leaders agree to dispatch military contingent to South Sudan to verify ceasefire

Leaders agree to dispatch military contingent to South Sudan to verify ceasefire

BY NICHOLAS KOTCH , 01 FEBRUARY 2014, 11:53

 

REGIONAL leaders agreed on Friday to dispatch a military contingent to South Sudan within 48 hours to verify and support a ceasefire agreement between the warring brothers in Africa’s youngest nation.

The decision, announced in the Ethiopian capital, came as international pressure mounted to end a six-week civil war in the oil-rich infant state.

The South Sudan conflict, and the grisly clashes between Christians and Muslims in Central African Republic, have dominated real business at the African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa, which is ending on Friday evening.

The official theme — boosting Africa’s agriculture and food security — quickly faded into the background as leaders recognised that the continent’s economic progress could be derailed unless conflicts are rapidly dealt with.

South Sudan was born in 2011 after southerners struck a deal to end their marathon civil war with Sudan and leave to form their own state. With rich oilfields, the country was set for a rosy future but tension between Salva Kiir, and his former deputy, Riek Machar, erupted into fighting in the capital Juba on December 16.

Mr Kiir, who did not attend Friday’s talks, had accused his former allies of plotting a coup. Mr Machar is believed to be somewhere in his strongholds among his Nuer people. The conflict has pitted the Nuer against Mr Kirr’s Dinka in an ethnic stand-off, which has hugely depressed foreign supporters of South Sudan’s struggle for autonomy over the past five decades.

"We are going to have to start again and reinvent South Sudan," said one.

The official death toll has remained at 1,000 for several weeks, but that figure is "way, way off" said one of the numerous special envoys at the talks.

Estimates range up to 10,000 killed. A worsening humanitarian crisis has forced almost 800,000 to flee their homes.

The international dimension of the conflict is underlined by the number of special envoys appointed to try to resolve it. They come from the AU, the European Union, the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), the US, the UK, Norway and China — the latter making a rare appearance above the political parapet in Africa because of its billion-dollar stake in South Sudan’s and Sudan’s oil sector.

The Igad leaders’ meeting on Friday ordered an agreed Monitoring and Verification Mechanism to be in place no later than Sunday, a super-fast schedule for an unspecified number of foreign military personnel to be deployed in the battlefields to ensure a ceasefire is honoured, among other duties.

The government and Mr Machar’s faction are due to resume peace talks in Addis on February 7.

The final communiqué on Friday urged the warring factions to ensure the "progressive withdrawalof armed troops and all allied forces invited by either side from the theatre of operations".

This principally referred to neighbouring Uganda, which has confirmed it sent troops into South Sudan, initially to defend its large community in the capital, Juba. Perversely, South Sudan’s foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, denied this.

"There are no foreign troops fighting in South Sudan," he told reporters, adding "we are a sovereign state".

The Igad meeting was chaired by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and attended by the presidents of Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan. President Yoweri Museveni left the AU summit before the regional summit and was represented by his foreign minister.

At South Sudan’s instigation, diplomats said, the communiqué included a clause that stated that "Igad does not condone any unconstitutional attempts to change the legitimately elected government of South Sudan by force".

This reiterates official AU policy but it also protects Mr Kiir from future pressure to step down in the name of compromise.

"There is a generalised concern that this should not be allowed to become a regional conflict," one of the special envoys said.

South Sudan has released seven of 11 key leaders held after last month’s alleged coup plot.

The communiqué released after Friday’s talks stopped short of appealing for the release of the other four, calling instead on the Kiir government "to expedite the legal process of the remaining detainees considering their role in an inclusive political dialogue and national reconciliation".

• Kotch is in Addis Ababa as a guest of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation