US official says power sharing alone not enough to achieve healing in S. Sudan
October 9, 2014 (JUBA) – A top US diplomat said on Thursday that South Sudanese people need accountability for crimes committed during the last 10 months of conflict if the country is to realise meaningful peace and national healing.
“We know that there are domestics efforts established under the laws of South Sudan to ensure that there is accountability,” said Rapp while addressing reporters at the US embassy on Thursday.
“Moreover, we all know that in the process of peace, is a difficult thing to deal with; quite often people say when you bring up this kind of thing (accountability); who wants to discuss it, who wants to talk about their friends, allies and their supporters potentially facing judicial processes.
“But the point is if this conflict will end just with some kind of deal between elites, or some kind of power sharing, that will not bring peace to this country. It will indicate that in the future, acts of violence could be rewarded. And so genuine peace requires that accountability element,” he added.
Rapp’s comments came after meetings with South Sudan’s minister of justice and legal advisor to the president, during which he said the government revealed plans for a peace agreement attached to justice for the victims.
At least ten thousand people have been killed and nearly two million others forced from their homes since fighting erupted in mid- December last year, triggered by an internal conflict within the country’s ruling party (SPLM).
Human Rights groups and the UN have documented cases of ethnically motivated killings, rape and forced detention, which in some cases could amount to crimes against humanity.
Rapp said the US government fully “agrees with those conclusions” contained in human rights reports compiled since the conflict began.
He said an independent judiciary is necessary to convince relatives of the victims that the government is serious about delivering justice.
(ST)