The Hurting Stalemate of the South Sudan’s Peace Talks—Part 2
War as a Better Choice
The Unadulterated Resolution of the Consultative Conferences by the Government and the Rebels
By PaanLuel Wël, Juba
I
On the 18th of December 2014, the warring South Sudanese cliques resumed their stalled peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This was after IGAD mediators had given them 15-day ultimatum to consult and reach political and military compromises over outstanding issues within the parameters of the proposed power sharing arrangements leading to the formation of a transitional government of national unity, comprising of all the stakeholders in the conflict pitting the government of President Kiir and the rebels of Dr. Riek Machar.
The recommencement of the peace talks, however, born little fruits insofar as furthering the pace of the peace talks is concerned. Apparently, the consultative conferences have widened and hardened positions on both sides, leading to some reneging on previously agreed clauses of the IGAD-brokered power-sharing consensus. Hence, the talks were abruptly adjourned on December 21st, allegedly for Christmas break. The New Year 2015 has seen the renewed shelling of Nasir and Maban in Upper Nile state; and Bentiu in Unity state.
There is now palpable fear for more violence in and around Ayod in Jonglei state and Renk in Upper Nile state. The government is moving in too on the rebels’ stronghold of Lou-Nuer areas and may capture Akobo within this dry season.
How did it all come to this quagmire? This is a briefing on the outlook for how the current conflict between government forces and the SPLM-IO forces led by former vice president, Dr. Riek Machar, has so far developed and how it might progress in the next months or years, including the existing hurting stalemate on the ongoing South Sudan’s peace talks in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa.
In the previous part of this briefing, I have tried to outline the comprehensive outlook on war and peace in the republic of South Sudan within the context of the ongoing civil strife. In this part, I am going to look into how the recently concluded consultative conferences by the warring factions might have widened and hardened entrenched positions, leading the parties to resolve for the continuation of the deadly conflict rather than settling it peacefully through the existing peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
II
The government conducted their consultative conference on 24 November 2014 in Juba, South Sudan. On December 8th, 2014, the rebels held their belated consultative conference in Pagak, Maiwut County, in Upper Nile state, near the Ethiopian border. Like the recently concluded government conference in Juba, it was more about chest-thumbing and vindictive threats than a consultative gathering to explain the power sharing agreement with the government and to explore the feasible ways forward in light of the agreed principles to end the war.
It is apparent that both sides have settled for war. In order to better appreciate the abrupt U-turn provoked by the respective consultative conferences by the sparring camps, one must first understand what the conferences were all about, at least from the perspectives of the two adversaries.
For both parties, the consultative conferences were going to deliberate on a wide-range of fundamental issues regarding the IGAD-led peace process in Addis Ababa. It was widely believe that the conferences were going to produce groundbreaking resolutions that would have guided the negotiators in the following phases of the peace process. Among the pertinent issues for deliberation included the proposed interim leadership structure and the power-sharing arrangements between the government of President Kiir and the rebels under Dr. Riek Machar.
Superficially for both sides, too, it was an opportunity to listen to and get feedback from their respective constituencies—other political parties, the civil society, the faith-based groups, youth and women leaders. “When we called the consultative meeting with our members and other stakeholders,” said President Kiir, “it was because the peace talks were about the affairs of the country and so [we] wanted to hear from the people.” More importantly, the president added that he “was ready to accept the outcome of the conference and act upon whatever people were going to say and agree as the solution to the conflict.”
In Pagak, however, the consultation delved much on the rebels’ proposed system of governance (federalism) and the demand for security and political reforms during the transitional period. According to James Gatdet Dak, Riek Machar’s spokesperson, “the conference will also deliberate on the needed security, judicial, public service, governance and economic reforms in the country. Issues of justice and accountability for victims and perpetrators will also be looked into.”
So what were the resolutions? The IGAD mediators had billed the conferences as a rare opportunity to break the grinding deadlock over the main outstanding issues regarding the leadership structure and arrangements of the proposed power-sharing interim government. However, the resolutions of the two consultative conferences were dramatically different.
The main area of disagreement centered on the leadership structure during the transitional period. Whereas the government had settled for an executive president (Salva Kiir) with a vice president (Wani Igga) and a ceremonial prime minister (Riek Machar) with two deputies, the rebels resolved to have an executive prime minister (Riek Machar) without deputies and a ceremonial president (not necessarily Salva Kiir) without a vice president.
Rebels demand a prime minister with full executive powers to head the interim government, allegedly, to ensure the initiation and full implementation of the proposed structural reforms—in the political, economic, security, judicial and public service sectors—to preclude the recurrence of conflicts and division within the SPLM leadership. The government, on the other hand, ridicules rebels’ claim for an executive prime minister, terming it a desperate and cheap attempt by the rebels to ensure the success of the failed coup at the negotiating table in Addis Ababa when it had failed on the ground in South Sudan.
What the rebels seems to be haggling for, though, is the prime minister to be head of government and the president head of state. The government, however, has made it very clear that they agreed to power-sharing arrangements on the condition that the rebel-appointed prime minister takes a non-executive position (Tanzanian/Ugandan Model)
On the security front, the rebels’ demand was (and still is) the institution of two separate armies during the transitional period with equal status and funding from the central government. From the perspective of the rebels, the ceremonial president shall be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces currently under the government while the executive prime minister shall be the commander-in-chief of the rebel forces and the white army allied with Riek Machar. Two separate armies are necessary, the rebels contend, not only to prevent witch-hunt of rebel leaders but also to guarantee the power sharing agreement, similar to the way the SPLA guaranteed the CPA in the post-CPA Sudan.
While some South Sudanese have seen the call for separate armies as an essential confidence building measure during the transitional period to address grave security concerns of top rebel commanders and senior politicians, others are fretting that the “arrangement would be a recipe for another disaster with more devastating consequences should there be a serious disagreement between the two principals in the course of implementation of the would-be peace agreement.”
To the government, the call for two separate armies during the interim period is an outright abominable. Speaking on behalf of the government after the conclusion of the consultative conference in Juba, cabinet affairs minister, Martin Elia Lomuro, stressed that the “unanimous decision of the conference is that we are one country and we have 64 communities or tribes. Therefore there is no way one community can demand to have 50 per cent or 70 per cent of the army.”
South Sudan’s defence minister, Gen. Kuol Manyang Juuk, has echoed the same entrenched position, with his declaration that “the leadership [in Juba] has agreed that there will be one army under one command. It was also resolved that those who defected will be reintegrated at the same rank when they left.” Gen. Kuol Manyang further revealed that “the integration process should only be limited to those who defected. Those who joined the rebels and were not in the SPLA [previously] shall not be accepted.”
“If he [Machar] is returned to the army,” Gen. Kuol Manyang illustrated, “we will take him at the same rank he rebelled with. If he doesn’t come by himself, we know how to bring him.”
III
As the two warring parties resume the next round of peace talks in Addis Ababa, it has become apparent that the consultative conferences have greatly widened the gap, and deeply hardened entrenched positions, between the warring groups. This is evidently clear in the uncompromising declarations made by various leaders across the aisle after the conclusion of the consultative conferences.
Minister for defense, Gen. Kuol Manyang, has been talking of clearing the Greater Upper Nile region of rebellion within the next few months. “Many areas of Ayod are still under rebels control, we will get them into our control. The whole of Akobo and Uror counties must come to our hands,” he vowed.
Chief of general staff, Gen. Paul Malong Awan, has warned against rewarding individuals who have taken up arms against the state, declaring that it has contributed to cycles of violence in South Sudan. “We must put [away] the culture of rewarding people who rebelled with positions because this is what causing the recurring conflict…this time, we must not forgive or compromise the enemy…we want to put this to an end,” thundered Gen. Malong Awan.
And Gen. Bona Bang Dhel, a purported member of the so-called Jieng Council of Elders, has questioned the constitutional rationale of the proposed power sharing arrangements between the government and the rebels. He dismissed the IGAD-brokered power-sharing deal as unconstitutional, stating that President Kiir “should not be pushed into a power-sharing agreement as the country’s transitional constitution does not recognise the position of a prime minister.”
Gen. Bona Bang expounded thus: “What this means is that the powers of the president will remain as defined in the transitional constitution of the republic of South Sudan, unless there are people wanting to go against the constitution which is what others have been citing as one of the causes of this conflict.”
More confusingly, President Kiir has instructed the electoral commission to conduct general elections in June 2015. The American government has promptly poured cold water on the idea, declaring it impractical given the bad timing and the adverse prevailing conditions across the country. The rebels, along with other political opposition parties in Juba, see the move as one more unmistakable proof of a clueless government drifting, slowly but surely, into the abyss.
Relatedly, the army commanders from the rebel side, just like those from the government, have contentedly displayed uncompromising positions prior to, during and after, the Pagak consultative conference. For example, Gen. Peter Gatdet Yak unequivocally declared: “we cannot reward an enemy of this nation who killed thousands of people to remain in power. He must be removed by force if IGAD can’t find a way out for him.”
It is the same view harbor by Gen. James Koang Chuol, the top rebel commander in Unity state and by Gen. Gathoth Gatkuoth Hothnyang, the top rebel commander in Upper Nile state. Among the other top rebel commanders with the same controversial stance on peace and war are Gen. Dau Aturjong Nyuol in charge of Bahr el Ghazal region; Gen. Gabriel Tanginya in Greater Fangak area; Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual of Greater Akobo area and Gen. Saddam Chayuot Manyang around Renk and Maban areas.
Rejecting the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) agreement on 5 February 2014, Gen. Gathoth Gatkuoth declared that “my utter rejection of the [CoH] is on moral and legal grounds—we cannot make a deal with someone who have massacred his own citizens…Conceding to or even negotiating with someone like Kiir to me is a crime by itself. Kiir must go whether he like it or not. Anything short of that is not acceptable.” On 2 September 2014, Gen. Gathoth Gatkuoth told his soldiers thus: “You are fighting a just war and thus must fight on till Salva Kiir steps down, marking a total liberation of all South Sudanese from tyranny and tribalism…Salva Kiir must go home in order for South Sudanese to live in peace.”
Like President Kiir who is calling for general elections in the midst of a deadly war, Riek Machar’s speech in Pagak did not advance the cause of peace and reconciling among South Sudanese. Riek Machar devoted the best part of his long speech at the Pagak consultative conference to how the purported failure to achieve fundamental changes in 1991, 2002 and 2004 has led to another devastating crisis in December 2013:
“The first conflict occurred in 1983 just at the inception of the SPLM. The resolution of that conflict led to reunification of the SPLM/SPLA with Anya-nya II in 1987. However, this reunification left the SPLM intact without changes to accommodate the new reality. It was just a return to the fold. This generated contradictions leading to the Nasir Declaration of August 1991 on the Right of Self Determination for the people of South Sudan and another split within the SPLM/SPLA,” Riek said.
[He said when the movement reunited in 2002 it also failed to address the root causes of 1991 division which further caused another crisis in Yei in 2004 between the incumbent president Salva Kiir Mayardit and his former boss, the SPLM founder, Dr. John Garang de Mabior. Machar further explained that efforts that later on brought back together the two leaders focused on personal differences rather than structural causes.]
“The reunification of the SPLM/SPLA in 2002 still did not address the structural reorganization of the SPLM/SPLA. It generated the Yei crisis in 2004.The Rumbek conference was called to resolve what appeared to be personal differences between Dr. Garang and Salva Kiir Mayardit but did not address the structural causes of the contradiction. President Salva Kiir has refused to learn from these experiences instead he has now instituted a security system to buttress his fascist rule,” Riek concluded.
In other words, Riek Machar is saying that President Kiir should not be left at the helm as John Garang was after the 1991 and 2004 crisis. To the government, this is an unassailable proof of Riek Machar’s historical greediness for power. He will not stop until he has toppled President Kiir. He should therefore be stopped and defeated, said Minister Makwei Lueth.
Echoing his boss, James Gatdet Dak—Riek Machar’s spokesperson—recently penned an opinion article in which he declared that “President Kiir has betrayed his people and the nation.” Gatdet Dak concluded his article with the following uncompromising words: “…president Kiir should save the nation by let-going his burning desire to remain president for life. He should not continue to hold South Sudan hostage when he failed his chance for nearly 10 years now. He should step down and allow others to put the house in order.”
IV
The rumblings of war rhetoric emanating from South Sudan has not gone down well with the IGAD mediators—it has sapped their energy, killed their passion and poisoned their optimism for attaining a long-lasting peace any time soon. Speaking at the opening of the 28th extra-ordinary summit of the IGAD heads of state and government, Haile Mariam Desalegn, the Ethiopian Prime Minister and IGAD chairperson, lamented that the “progress of the [South Sudanese] peace process has been frustrating if not gloomy.”
The head of IGAD bitterly decried the continuous violations of the CoH agreement by the warring parties, saying, “Despite agreements after agreements to end hostilities and to set in motion a transitional process that will lay the groundwork for sustainable political solution to the conflict in South Sudan, these promises have been observed more by breach.”
Chairperson Desalegn accused both camps of willfully “using the IGAD summits as welcome intervals to prepare themselves for a contest over military pre-eminence, not as genuine forums to seek political solutions to the conflict”. He elaborated: “There appears to be little appetite for peace while the people of South Sudan continue bearing the full brunt of conflict. Apart from the tens of thousands so far killed, hundreds of thousands are rendered refugees while famine and starvation is staring millions more in the eye. The status quo is unsustainable indeed.”
Having been sufficiently frustrated by the entrenched positions of the warring parties, Chairperson Desalegn threw “African solution to African problem” dictum to the wind and warmly invited the international community to put pressure on the warring groups in South Sudan. “It should be clear that it’s time the issue be given the full attention it deserves by the AU and UNSC in order for meaningfully strong actions to be taken,” he said.
The international community took up the cue swiftly. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, mourned that “The high level of mistrust within and between communities, based on perceived support for either the Government or the opposition, means that violence is easily triggered. Inflammatory rhetoric is also on the rise and there has been sporadic fighting in which civilians have been killed and displaced and their property looted.”
An Australian diplomat at the UN, Gary Quinlan, who was head of the Security Council, has expressed deep “frustration” with the “seeming unwillingness of the parties to abandon their commitment to their own military strategies for a military solution and engage meaningfully in the peace process.”
On his part, John Prendergast, the founding director of the Enough Project, has concluded that South Sudan is embroiled in “…a meaningless war driven by insatiable greed and a thirst for power” in which “…a relatively few senior opposition and government officials have gotten rich, while the vast majority of citizens are displaced or more deeply impoverished than they were before independence.”
President Obama has said that what the country yearn for is a “leadership that recalls the promise” of South Sudan’s independence, adding that it is in the hands of both leadership “to end the cycle of violence, to set forth on a course of reform and reconciliation, and to hold to account those responsible for atrocities.”
Describing the ongoing conflict as “tragic and unacceptable”, the UN secretary general, Ban ki-Moon, has beseechingly “urged leaders from both sides to agree to an inclusive, power sharing arrangement to begin a transitional phase of governance that will address both the root causes of the conflict and ensure accountability for crimes committed over the past year.”
Even as Ban ki-Moon reiterated the UN’s continued support for the ongoing South Sudanese peace process in Addis Ababa, he also lamented the fact that “the leaders of South Sudan have allowed their personal ambitions to jeopardize the future of an entire nation,” and further warned that the leaders “must end the culture of impunity if reconciliation and a sustainable peace are to be achieved.”
In affirmative response, the US and EU have separately imposed asset freezes and travel bans on some military commanders leading the war on the ground. These are Gen. Marial Chanuong Mangok (head of the Presidential Guards unit) and Gen. Santino Deng Wol (in charge of SPLA division three in Wau) on the side of the government; and Gen. Peter Gatdet Yak (top rebel commander in Unity state) and Gen. James Koang Chuol (who led Riek Machar’s rebellion in Unity state) on the side of the rebels.
Intriguingly, the US government recently thwarted UN draft resolution for arms-embargo and a cocktail of targeted sanctions on South Sudan. It has remained in limbo ever since.
V
The strong push from the international community (AU, UN and the EU) has elicited immediate and dramatic responses from the government and their proxies. The Jieng Council of Elders, which is allied to President Kiir, has vigorously objected to an alleged “interference by the international community and regional powers to push for ‘regime change’ in the country.”
The elders viewed the sustained pressure on the government “as an interference and propaganda against the norms and values of democracy that respect and uphold the will of the majority of people that popularly elect their leaders in accordance with the principles enshrined in the transitional national constitution.”
This, the elders asserted, is “contrary to the will of the voters who consciously evaluate and freely choose capable leaders through the transparent electoral system after which power is peacefully transferred.” “On our part,” read the press statement by the elders, “it appears as a deliberate undermining of the mandate of the people of South Sudan, at the time when the end of the mandate of the legitimate Government of Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, is only less than one year.”
To the elders, the concerted efforts by the international community is nothing less than “an intended action to deprive the people of the Republic of South Sudan from giving their verdict in the forthcoming 2015 elections,” particularly when “the people of South Sudan are entitled to exercise their Constitutional right to elect from among their sons and daughters a capable person as president to lead the country.”
The uproar from Juba, alleging external conspiracy for regime change and planned occupation of the country by the UN, prompted the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, to release a public statement disputing the claim as false and void. A spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, dismissed as “false media reports” the rumors that “the world body plans to place South Sudan into a trusteeship or protectorate due to delays in ongoing peace talks.”
He emphasized: “I can tell you that these reports are completely false nor true…The secretary-general wishes to make it categorically clear that neither he nor the UN Mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, is aware of any plans or discussions within the United Nations to take such course of action.”
VI
Banking on the explicit assurance from the international community that there have never been plans or discussions to place South Sudan into a trusteeship, President Kiir moved quickly to calm flaring tempers within his camp.
“We are trying our best to end the conflict,” President Kiir told the gathering of Dinka elders on 30 November 2014 in Juba. “We do not want this senseless war to continue to claim the lives of our people. Those who are dying – whether in defence of the constitution and the government or whether they are on the side of Riek [Machar] and his group – are South Sudanese people and we do not want them to continue to die.”
His lieutenants, however, were not so forgiving of the international community. “Rather than talking about sanctions,” said foreign affairs minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, “the international community should start working with IGAD to support the two sides to resume negotiations. We need help to move to the next level, not punishment.”
Hon. Marial Benjamin further argued that “what is remaining is the structure of the transitional government, which is one of the few issues to be resolved when talks resumed” early this year. Nonetheless, Marial Benjamin’s explanation was more than meet the eye. After the resumption of the peace talks in late December 2014, for example, it was reported that the government and the rebels have made some important progress on the ratio of the power-sharing deal.
Hon. Michael Makuei Lueth, minister for information and government’s spokesperson in Addis Ababa, had announced that the two parties had settled for 27 ministries for the provisional government. “So far we have agreed to create 27 ministries with their deputies but had outstanding issues,” said Makwei Lueth. The two parties further agreed to give 10% of the interim government to G-10 and other political parties, while the remaining 90% was to be shared between the rebels and the government.
Meanwhile, rebels appear to have reneged on some of their former positions, mutually agreed with the government in the past rounds of peace talks in Addis Ababa. Previously, the government had given in to a proposed prime ministerial position, nominatable by the rebels. On their parts, the rebels appeared to have abandoned their earlier battle cry of “Salva Kiir Must Go Now” in exchange for the position of the prime minister. After the conclusion of the Pagak consultative conference, however, rebels have come out, fire breathing, claiming to have never accepted President Kiir to lead the transitional government.
This is well captured in the opinion piece article authored by James Gatdet Dak, the closest you can get to Riek Machar’s inner thoughts and plans. “We however made a compromise by relaxing this demand [Kiir Must Go Now] during the peace process,” revealed Gatdet Dak. “We have continued to negotiate with president Salva Kiir and his regime. Our leadership has been working with him as a counter-part in order to bring peace but not for him to lead the would-be transitional period.”
In fact, the rebels have dramatically expanded their list of demands in the last round of the peace talks. Among the most controversial outstanding issues engendered by the Pagak consultative conference are:
(1) Renaming of the country into the Federal Republic of South Sudan;
(2) Having two separate armies during the transitional period;
(3) Increasing the number of states from 10 to 21 based on the former colonial districts of the British;
(4) 70% of the remaining 90% of the interim government to be given to the rebels while the government receive 30% of the remaining 90%;
(5) A transitional government headed by an executive prime minister without deputies and a ceremonial president without a vice president;
(6) Changing the national currency and the name of the central bank of South Sudan;
(7) Taking the capital city from Juba to Ramciel;
(8) Equal debt repayments for both parties (rebels claim to have incurred debts that need to be repaid by the central government);
(9) Having joint defence committee, joint police forces, joint prison services, joint fire brigade forces, joint internal security forces and joint military intelligence command center, all of which are shared 50-50.
VII
With about 50,000 fear dead, 1.9 million displaced and around 2.5 million more at the mercy of diseases and famine, stopping the violence and working towards achieving a workable political and military compromise between the two parties is the present pressing issue in the republic of South Sudan.
It is already very clear that this dry season would lead to drastic increases in violence as the two warring parties are tightly locked in a deadly contest for military pre-eminence across South Sudan.
But as the warring factions resume their next round of the peace talks in Addis Ababa, they must appreciate the fact that negotiations are now at the critical juncture. Their consciences should therefore be guided by Dr. John Garang’s poignant statement on the road to the CPA:
“I must at this point tell you, that nobody abhors war more than those who lived through its horrors, ordeals, pains and tribulations…Indeed, what makes this peace [the CPA] welcome is that it came as a result of a hurting stalemate, which made both sides realize that a win-win peace is attainable and that the cost of the alternative of peace is far less than that of continuation of the war.”
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