How the Ceasfire was Signed: Dr Machar Was outnumbered, outgunned and outflanked diplomatically
How the South Sudan ceasefire was signed
By DANIEL K. KALINAKI | Friday, January 24 2014
South Sudanese government representatives (foreground) and South Sudanese opposition representatives (back) attend peace talks on the fighting in South Sudan, on January 13, 2014 in Addis Ababa. In the end, the opposition run out of options. PHOTO | AFP – Africa Review News
In the end the peace deal couldn’t come soon enough for Riek Machar and his fighters. Whilst fighters loyal to the former South Sudan deputy president continue to hold some towns in the country’s oil-producing states, Dr Machar has found himself at a military disadvantage and isolated diplomatically.
The gunfight between rival factions of the presidential guard that started on the night of December 15 in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, was an extension of a long-running political contest between President Riek Machar and Dr Machar whom he fired from the cabinet last July.
Yet the domestic, in-party contest soon spread across half the country, fuelled along the way by deep-seated grievances and confrontations between the president’s Dinka tribesmen and Dr Machar’s Nuer.
At the height of his powers, forces loyal to Dr Machar controlled the strategic towns of Bentiu, Malakal close to the oil-producing areas, and Bor, only 190 kilometres north of Juba.
Dr Machar’s initiative did not last long, however. First an assessment by Sudanese intelligence informed the policy wonks in Khartoum that Dr Machar’s forces did not have the resupply lines and the local support to hold the territory. Thus although President Omar al-Bashir had a history of cooperating with Dr Machar, he visited Juba and assured President Kiir that Khartoum would not support the rebels but urged him to end the uprising quickly and without disrupting the oil which is produced in the south and transported by pipeline to refineries in the north.
Dr Machar’s second misfortune was the entry of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces into the conflict. Ugandan intelligence – and in particular President Yoweri Museveni – have never forgiven or forgotten Dr Machar’s ties with Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. President Kiir was quick to remind his counterpart of the fact when Mr Museveni visited Juba in late December.
Ugandan intelligence reports to President Museveni also warned of a resurgence of the LRA if Dr Machar took power in South Sudan or established a zone of military control. Rebecca Nyandeng, wife of South Sudan’s founding father the late John Garang visited Uganda and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Mr Museveni that not only was Dr Machar a changed man, he also represented the progressive and reformist wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
The Ugandan army had been deployed in South Sudan within the first two days of the conflict at the request of President Kiir and under a military pact signed earlier to allow it fight the LRA beyond the border.
Although initially used to secure key facilities such as the airport and allow the evacuation of foreign nationals, that mandate was quietly extended to allow the UPDF fight alongside the SPLA force, particularly in the battle for Bor.
Tipped the dominoes
SPLA spokesman Col. Philip Aguer confirmed that the Ugandan army – and in particular its helicopter gunships – had played a critical role in helping government troops retake Bor. That victory tipped the dominoes in Kiir’s favour as Dr Machar’s forces retreated north.
Dr Machar could have turned the deployment of Ugandan troops into a diplomatic crisis but he also found himself with few friends and allies in the country (his key political allies remain in custody) and even fewer in the region willing to speak out for him.
Asked whether Dr Machar has any friendly leaders in the region, a member of his delegation in Addis Ababa shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe Raila Odinga,” he said after a moment of reflection, speaking to the former Kenyan Prime Minister. “They used to be friends.”
In the meantime, and in response to growing concerns from Ethiopia and Sudan, Uganda lobbied to have the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the eight-nation regional body mediating the talks, agree to give legal and diplomatic cover to its troops fighting alongside Kiir’s.
Dr Machar had been out numbered, out gunned and out flanked diplomatically. The peace deal in Addis Ababa allows Mr Machar a dignified retreat from the trenches and returns the discussion to the politics where he is more comfortable and, at least within South Sudan, has more allies – assuming they are released from jail.
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