South Sudan warring parties should be given more time to talk: experts

JUBA, Feb. 22– South Sudan’s warring parties should be given
more time to talk rather than being pushed hard by mediators amid
international and regional pressure to reach settlement to end over four
years of conflict, experts said on Tuesday.

Augustino Ting Mayai, political analyst at the Juba-based Sudd Institute,
said the warring parties should be given more space to negotiate, instead
of being pressured by the influential troika group, the U.S., Britain and
Norway, to reach agreement on contentious issues. “The Troika and regional
mediators applying a lot of pressure on the parties to talk… will be
forcing them to commit to what they don’t like,” Mayai said.”The parties
should be left to discuss and reach agreement.” His remarks came after the
mediators sent both the government and rebels into recess with little
headway at the second round of the peace revitalization talks in Adds Ababa.

Mayai criticized the fact that the warring parties did not discuss
addressing the root causes of the conflict that broke out in December 2013,
but rather focused much more on government restructuring to accommodate
more members from the various opposition groups. “They need to move away
from creating jobs for themselves and address the root causes of the war,”
he said. South Sudan’s warring parties signed the Cessation of Hostilities
(CoH) last December, but immediately resumed fighting, prompting the U.S.
to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan to up the pressure on both
parties. Mayai said the government and the 14 opposition groups should
ditch their hard stances and reach a compromise agreement.

Jacob Chol, a political science lecturer at Juba University, said the
warring parties should be allowed to contribute more to the talks rather
than relying on draft proposals by mediators without their input. “What we
are hearing in Addis Ababa is that there are no discussions. Mediators are
just giving them (draft proposals) papers,” Chol said. “That is not the
best way for mediation. A lot of work has been done by mediators, which is
not helping.” He suggested moving the venue of the talks to Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania, and new mediators be found, given the historical failure of past
talks. South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013, after
political disputes between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek
Machar led to fighting that pitted mostly Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to
Kiir against Machar’s Nuer ethnic group. A 2015 peace agreement to end the
violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed
fighting in the capital, forcing Machar to flee into exile. The conflict
has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions of others to
seek refuge in neighboring countries. – XINHUA