South Sudan: Why ‘NO’ for peace and ‘YES’ for war
By Tor Madira Machier
The region and the International community has been on a campaign in a bid to end the civil war in South Sudan right after its inception in December 2013, yet the very region and the International community fall short of strategy to compel the two warring sides life up to the eventual August 2015 peace agreement which was signed after many attempts since January 23 2014.
Peace efforts in the young African country has been the victim of intransigence by either parties especially the government of General Salva Kiir Mayardiit. The international community’s effort is being undermined by vesting interests some countries of the very international community, mediating between the two warring parties, enjoys in South Sudan.
Since the signing of the Peace Agreement in August 2015, president Salva Kiir and his government, influenced by the Jieng Council of Elders (JCE), has shown no commitment to the Agreement that many, with doubts, thought would eventually bring peace and stability to the country.
There was no guarantee from the beginning that the peace agreement, a road map first rejected by Kiir only to sign nine days later with reservations, will hold water. Kiir himself, upon arrival from Juba, said that he was under duress to sign the previous agreement, and that he signed the Agreement signed by Machar on the 17 August on 26 August 2015 expressing reservations for it.
The peace talks which has been in force in Addis Ababa Ethiopia since 2nd of January 2014 has been nothing but a mechanism, for the government, for buying time to prepare for a full-scale civil war in the young nation. Since the January 23 agreement, the government of South Sudan has been on offensives against the armed opposition faction of the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army In Opposition in a bid to crush the rebellion using the power of the gun, yet the international community employed a strategy of bullying both sides to the conflict for violating the many agreements signed one after another.
Again, to make every matter worse in regards to the peace efforts, the international community forced Machar to return to Juba on the basis of implementing a Peace Agreement the other partner to the agreement questioned and referred to as “the White Man’s” peace.
After Machar made it to Juba, Kiir conspired to murder him so that he and his government evade the question of accountability and the peace implementation.
Now, Machar has survived, Kiir is not willing t resuscitated the agreement nor he is willing to step up a new peace effort with his counterparts in the SPLM-IO, Dr Machar, yet the international community is watching and not willing to force Salva Kiir who violated the agreement to lives up to a pledge he did one and half year ago.
The region and the International community, which seems to be frustrated by mediating between a peace-loyal party, the SPLM/SPLA IO, and a government whose perspective is war as the solution, Salva Kiir’s government, already conspired against the SPLM-IO and that their belief is that peace may be achieved through the government’s bullets rather than through mediation they have been standing for during the three years of the conflict.
Recent events by the region including denying Machar a safe passage to his base in Pagak and also arrests against many SPLM-IO cadres including the personal spokesman of Dr Machar signals how the world and the International community’s effort for peace has failed. To this fact, Kiir seems to be assuming victory because of the silence the international community do. And that is one of the many reasons President Salva Kiir do not want peace to come to the young nation. What I have also understood from my own personal point of view is that Salva Kiir is not for peace and will never be so. That is why I am so skeptical about a peaceful solution to the conflict with Kiir as a party. And so…..’NO’ for peace and YES for war.
Salva Kiir Mayardiit and his Jieng Council of Elders must go!
Tor Madira Machier is a South Sudanese columnist living in Egypt, he can be reached via: [email protected] or via his blog: tormachier.blogspot.com