U.S. is seriously questioning “suitability” of South Sudanese leaders: Nagy
November 15, 2019 (WASHINGTON) – Tibor Nagy, U.S. top diplomat for Africa reiterated that Washington is seriously reassessing its relationship with the South Sudanese government and questioning their aptness of its leaders to conduct the country after their failure to form the unity government for the second time.
Several US official including a tweet by the Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on 13 November, slammed Entebbe agreement saying this second extension ” calls into question their suitability to continue to lead the nation”.
In a joint press conference with Smail Chergui the head of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on Friday, Nagy was asked about what measures that can be taken to bring the South Sudanese leaders to move with the peace implementation process.
“We saw no reason why it could not happen,” said Nagy speaking about the national unity government. Before to add that the South Sudanese leaders are content with the status quo and not conducting the responsibilities that governments have towards their own people.
“The international community is providing the food, the medicines, basically all of the human needs that are the responsibilities of governments to do. They’re basically sitting back,” he stressed.
For his part, Chergui stressed that the formation of the unity government is “key” to address the challenges that the parties are facing in the implementation process of the revitalized peace pact.
Measures that can be taken
During the press conference, journalists several times asked the US and African Union officials about the sanctions or mechanism that can be taken against the recalcitrant leaders.
There are available mechanisms and tool, also the whole international community is “hyper-mobilized”, said Nagy.
“I had, for example, a very productive telephone call this morning with His Grace The Archbishop of Canterbury, to show you just the level of interest around the world in this issue,” he added.
The US diplomat to better explain his thoughts went to read again, a statement issued by the State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus stressing that it speaks about Kiir and Machar alike.
“Their inability to achieve this basic demonstration of political will for the people of South Sudan calls into question their suitability to continue to lead the nation’s peace process,” he read.
(ST)