World pressure on S. Sudan rivals to end bloody conflict
JUBA—International pressure bore down on Saturday on the two sides in South Sudan’s bloody violence to open peace talks to keep the young nation from sliding into civil war.
East African and Horn of Africa peace brokers gave until Dec. 31 for President Salva Kiir and de facto rebel leader Riek Machar, whom Kiir sacked as vice president in July, to start face-to-face talks and stop two weeks of fighting that is thought to have left thousands dead.
“We, government, are ready to meet even before that,” South Sudan’s Vice President JamesWani Igga told reporters. “It’s now up to Machar to accept the ceasefire.” The government on Saturday reiterated accusations that Machar was mobilising thousands of youths to attack its interests.
“Dr. Riek mobilises his... youths, up to 25,000... and wants to use them to attack the government” in the eastern state of Jonglei, where rebels said to support Machar briefly captured the regional capital, Bor, earlier this month, government spokesperson Michael Makuei told AFP.
“They are able to attack any time,” he added. “We are in a state of alert to protect the civilian populations.”
But Moses Ruai Lat, spokesperson for the rebels, rejected this, saying the former vice president was “not mobilising his tribe,” the Nuer, South Sudan’s second biggest ethnic group.
Those young people were regular soldiers turning their back on the government and had not been drafted byMachar, he added.
The regional grouping the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) is spearheading efforts to end the fierce battles for control over several strategic oilproducing areas notably in the north of South Sudan.
The United Nations, Washington and Beijing are also pressing for talks.
“Igad has already come out with the condition that the contending parties should negotiate within four days beginning from Friday,” Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesperson Dina Mufti said on Saturday. “So we are awaiting results.” Spokespersons for Igad said President Kiir had on Friday expressed willingness for an “immediate” ceasefire though Machar would not immediately commit to a truce.
The rebel leader said he first wanted a mechanism to monitor any ceasefire as well as the release of all his political allies arrested when trouble first broke out.
The conflict, fuelled by an old rivalry between Kiir and Machar, has fanned ethnic differences between Kiir’s Dinka group and Machar’s Nuer clan in the country, which won independence from Sudan in 2011.