HLRF: A Peace Quest Like No Other
By Malith Alier, Perth, Australia
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 (PW) — The tortuous revitalisation of the 2015 peace has seen the belligerents moved from one capital city to another in the span of the war. The three prong approach involving reunification of the SPLM, revitalisation of 2015 peace agreement and the so-called home grown initiative of national dialogue took the tortoise pace while people of South Sudan continue to perish in greater numbers.
Much of the talk under the mediation of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional organisation that attempted to bring the warmongers to the table at the initial stages came to the same fate, no peace.
This is simply because of the same perennial matters of if not my way then there is no way. After all is said and done, IGAD and without acknowledging its short comings and failure to bridge the ever widening gap moved the whole thing unceremoniously to the cradle where the two countries, Sudan and South Sudan disengaged.
In Khartoum we have witnessed unprecedented cacophony of political and economic shenanigans to expeditiously bring peace so that oil starts to follow northwards to the port.
There were many reasons to make people of South Sudan skeptical about the belated relocation of peace venue from Addis Ababa to Khartoum. Chief among them, is the IGAD unannounced failure to formally and adequately informed the country’s population whose peace was being negotiated of the need to move venue.
The other reasons are the competing regional interests where every country neighbouring the war-torn state would want the peace to be negotiated to reflect its future interests. Sudan is one of those countries.
The third is the exclusion of certain groups from the peace process such as the civil society and faith based groups who shall directly be impacted by whatever will come out of the peace process.
One does not need to study and have a degree in political science to realise that South Sudanese are being short changed in Khartoum and Entebbe by the many confusing proposals particularly in the governance enclave.
One proposal after another ends up inflating the the expanded organisation charts circulated in the media several months earlier. The jabberwocky nature of the Khartoum and Entebbe charts leaves some of us scratching heads of what became of this nation, South Sudan.
If 2015 peace agreement which was simpler became difficult to implement what of this phase of peace agreement that has become more complex on paper?
One notably worrying outcome of Khartoum bound peace venue change were the sub-agreements to settled old unsettled scores of oil, border and the infamous Higlig/Panthou war. Sudan is rumoured to have secured compensation for the war which nobody else but Sudan caused.
Sudan to protect or not to protect oil facilities also came out on top. For the Sudan, the number one purposes of taking peace negotiation to its territory was oil. The number two and three is oil. Number four maybe peace.
And ironically, who hosts the various instruments of South Sudan instability? Well, if you allow anything to miss your eye be prepared for the consequences.
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