South Sudan Peace: Tough Choices Ahead
7 min read
August 25, 2015 (SSB) — President Kiir’s dramatic last minute decision to decline the signing of the IGAD-Plus brokered peace agreement last Monday, August 17th, will be permanently imprinted in the collective memory of the people who earnestly followed the developments of that day.
Regional and other international politicians expressed their shock and disappointment. Some threatened sanctions and a few warned of unspecified grave and dire consequences. The media as usual stole the story and rushed to draw wild conclusions. The world is endlessly searching for a new monster – the Idi Amin or the Pol Pot of our times. Kiir is in danger of being made one.
But even those finger-wagging leaders must know that a complex peace agreement such as the one tabled could not be consented to easily by all sides. How genuine was the President when he pledged to return to Addis Ababa in 15 days and sign the agreement? Will he honour his word?
Resistance
If that is the case, we must conclude that the government has accepted the agreement in its entirety and that it requested the 15-day period for the simple reason that it needs to engage the remaining dissenting voices back home. It would be foolish to put out a fire in one room only for another to flare up elsewhere in the house. The President is seeking a full solution.
At the forefront of the dissenters is the army. Defence spending has gone up markedly during the war and the army is beginning to gain a clear upper hand. Machar’s forces are demonstrably capable of mounting hugely damaging hit and run attacks, however the army believes that it is poised to ending the war militarily.
Past unfettered integration into the national army, of former anti-government militia, is blamed for precipitating the current war, and the army fears that the re-absorption of Machar’s fighters is an unwarrantable repeat of that failed policy.
These sentiments notwithstanding, the President must know that an outright military victory will not be so easy, and even if it were achievable, the human cost it will require as well as the bitter legacy it will leave behind can never be justified. He will need many allies from within the wider security sector if he is to succeed in wooing the army.
Another powerful group that would be very hostile to the agreement are the government allied Bul Nuer militia who control Unity State. The power sharing arrangements of the agreement require that Unity State be handed over to Machar’s SPLM In Opposition (SPLM-IO) to govern. This means that the current governor Joseph Monytuil will lose his position.
Monytuil’s own brother is a senior commander in the militia force and the rest are their relatives and close allies. Requiring them to relinquish Unity State for which they fought valiantly would amount to a kick in the teeth after all the sacrifices that they have made.
Worse still, the world of the Bul Nuer militia is a perilous unfamiliar territory for the President. He will need all his diplomatic skills to sell the Addis deal to this constituency.
Distrust
The South Sudanese public, both inside and outside the country, and in particular the supporters of the government, are dismayed at the proposed agreement. There is a widespread belief, amongst them, that IGAD-Plus are using the peace talks to subvert the interests of South Sudan.
Many are convinced that the peace deal that is being imposed on the country is grossly unfair and is a mere ploy to weaken the government, rollback the country’s gains, erase its history and get access to its ample natural riches.
In this frenzy, no one is willing to pose and question the plausibility of such a grand conspiracy theory. IGAD-Plus comprises 10 African countries, USA, UK, Norway and China in addition to the AU, EU and the UN. It is unlikely for all these countries and international bodies, many of whom have conflicting interests, to unite and collude to rob South Sudan.
These apprehensive South Sudanese need to also appreciate that the toll of suffering the war have brought upon the civil population is a good enough reason for the international community to clamour for peace of any kind.
On close examination, this peace deal, as much as it may seem to give too much to Machar, does essentially allow the government to retain authority over Machar in all spheres.
Buying Time
If the government could secure the acquiescence of the dissidents from within its camp then the President would be able to return to Addis with the goods that he has promised the world.
South Sudan is not an easy country to understand. It is extremely difficult to obtain credible information about the ongoings of the government although there is never a shortage of wild rumours.
It cannot be discounted that the government is still unhappy with one or several of the provisions of the agreement. While it is mindful of the grim consequences of failing to sign the deal by September 1st, it is perfectly plausible that the government could still use the remaining few days to secure last minute concessions from its negotiating partners or at least the reopening of the talks.
Kenya is said to have already offered to convene further talks between the two sides, albeit unsuccessfully thus far. Machar has reportedly flatly refused to take part.
Uncertain Future
It is intriguing that all the focus currently seems to be on whether or not the government of South Sudan will sign the agreement. Our fears should also be about whether any signed peace will hold.
How much planning or resources have the vocal proponents of the proposed peace agreement invested so far? How much thinking has gone into sustaining peace through the implementation phase, the 90 day pre-interim period, the 30 month interim period, the succeeding elections and their immediate aftermath?
Will all sides cooperate at every step along the way? Will they play by the rules, or will they use the lull in the war to reorganise and prepare for the next round of fighting?
Will the SPLM (in the spirit of the Arusha Reunification Agreement) remain united considering how embittered everyone has become, or are we approaching the SPLM’s moment of reckoning when it will so prematurely have to fragment into two or more separate entities? Can that ever happen amicably?
Will the prescribed collegial presidential arrangement result in a paralysed government at the time when the leaders will be required to commit all their time and energy to restoring and rebuilding the country?
Will the international community perform its usual manoeuvre of switching its attention elsewhere as soon as the guns have gone silent and leave a vacuum that could easily be filled by renewed violence?
Will the new proposed move to a federal system become the hotspot from which new disagreements will arise?
How realistically will the proposed hybrid court function? Won’t it be precipitating new crises if it tries to prosecute or even simply summon senior personalities from either side?
What wise court in the world would try to summon Peter Gadet or Paul Malong Awan?
Only fair play will serve everyone
If the belligerents decide to implement the agreement in good faith, they will without a doubt do so while fully focusing on the post-interim-period elections which will be held on or around 30th May 2018 assuming President Kiir signs the agreement on exactly 1st September 2015.
It is worth remembering that neither the government (SPLM-IG) nor Riek Machar’s SPLM-IO can be sure of winning those elections.
The SPLM-IO could suffer an election defeat for waging a war against the country and causing huge loss of lives and property as well as the destruction of national infrastructure.
Similarly, the SPLM-IG could suffer an electoral meltdown for mishandling the crisis that led to the rebellion and for not coming up with its own workable peace initiative much earlier in the conflict.
The electorate may all together opt from a third party; one that is not tarnished by corruption and the failure to deliver services or development. After all, the SPLM-IG, the SPLM-IO and the former detainees (SPLM-FDs) were a single exclusive club till they imploded in December 2013. They are all tarred with this same brush.
If the agreement is signed, and there is good ground to believe that it will, the obvious, sensible, humane, decent and patriotic thing the peace partners should do is to work to implement the agreement in good faith, cooperate to solve any emerging difficulties and avoid exploiting each other’s vulnerabilities for short-term political gain.
They may even need to consider parting ways and creating new political parties in order to end the chronic SPLM infighting once and for all. They should work to conduct clean and fair elections and accept the results of those elections gracefully.
Sadly, adjectives such as sensible, humane or patriotic are not usually associated with South Sudanese politicians, nor is this reality likely to change anytime soon.
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