No solution in S Sudan
UNITY GOVERNMENT: MAY 12 DEADLINE FOR REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE MET
Delay expected to cause unease among population of 12 million.
T he May 12 deadline for South Sudan to form a unity government will not take place because the requisite requirements for forming this authority have not been met, says former rebel leader and nominated vice-president Dr Riek Machar.
Machar said the government and the rebels needed another six months before it would be possible to form a unity government, the East African reported.
While diplomats were not expecting the May 12 deadline to be reached under the current circumstances, this further delay is expected to cause unease among South Sudan’s population of 12 million.
The civil war, which broke out in 2013, has left 400 000 dead and millions displaced. Ethnic cleansing and sexual violence have predominated in the ongoing conflict, with the UN warning in 2017 of a possible genocide.
According to Machar – who fled the country in 2013 and briefly returned in 2016 when the unity government was initially meant to be implemented, before fleeing again when fighting broke out – the six-month extension was needed to unify and deploy defence forces, demilitarise the capital Juba and other cities, and agree on devolution of power and the release of political prisoners.
“We have refugees who will not return if they don’t feel secure, we have internally displaced people in the capital and in other major cities who will not go back to their homes, which they have left five and a half years ago because of security problems,” said Machar.
The rebel leader recently met President Salva Kiir during a peace retreat at the Vatican, sponsored by the Pope.
During their two days of peace talks, the two men discussed the forthcoming unity government in a bid to resolve their differences.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Norway (the Troika countries) have urged Sudan’s transitional military council to hand over power to civilian rule.
In a joint Sunday statement, they warned that the legitimate change Sudanese protesters were demanding had not been achieved, despite the pledge by the new head of the military council to transfer power to civilians, the Sudan
Tribune reported. “It is vital that the authorities listen to the calls from the Sudanese people. Most pressingly, the continuing peaceful protests must not be met with violence from any quarter,” said the Troika.
“Sudan needs an orderly transition to civilian rule leading to elections in a reasonable time frame,” the statement added.
The Troika has also condemned “the acts of violence by legacy forces of the former regime, such as the Popular Defence Forces, the Popular Police Forces and other militias”.
On Saturday, armed elements believed to be members of the National Congress Party’s militia, Popular Security, attacked Sudanese army troops deployed near the University of Khartoum. On Sunday, Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the deputy head of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) met the US Charge d’Affaires, Steven Koutsis, to discuss the contents of the statement.
Daglo originally resigned from the military council after accusing Awad Ibn Ouf, the defence minister who recently stepped down from leading the TMC, of planning to implement an Islamist agenda.
Ouf was replaced by Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan.
Daglo further called for a power transfer to civilians in a threeto six-month period after the TMC originally wanted to maintain power for two years.
Meanwhile, Sudanese protesters are still entrenched outside army headquarters, where they have continued to hold daily protests before and after the military coup last week, and have held discussions in small groups and called for opposition groups not to accept further talks with the military council except on the power handover.