S. Sudan rebels want Ethiopian troops jointing UN peacekeepers
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
February 7, 2015 (ADDIS ABABA) – South Sudan rebels led by former vice-president, Riek Machar, on Saturday welcomed Ethiopia’s plan to deploy troops in South Sudan indicating they prefer to see them under the banner of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
According to the Ethiopian International Peace-keeping Training Centre, three helicopter gunships would be sent to South Sudan on top of the unspecified number of a regional peacekeeping force to be deployed next March in the youngest nation.
The leaders of the SPLM-in – Opposition, former vice-president Riek Machar, Saturday told Sudan Tribune that the rebel group has no objection on the deployment of the Ethiopian troops to South Sudan as peacekeepers.
However Machar pointed that the deployment of the Ethiopian forces would only be accepted if the troops would be under the United Nations Mandate.
Otherwise “it would be another issue,” he said.
Ethiopian military officials were not available for comments Saturday.
Since last year Machar rejected the IGAD decision to deploy troops in the new nation pointing it would regionalise the internal conflict.
“If IGAD member states who mediate the peace talks want to interfere militarily in the conflict, we may rethink our participation in the talks,” he warned in a statement to Sudan Tribune in March 2014.
Instead the former vice president, who calls for the withdrawal of Ugandan troops supporting president Kiir; welcomed IGAD contribution to the UN peacekeepers saying UNMISS has the full mandate to protect civilians in crisis of such kind.
Currently there are over 12,000 Ethiopian peacekeepers serving in Somalia, South Sudan, Darfur (in western Sudan) and in the disputed Abyei region.
(ST)