South Sudan’s enemy leaders pledged on Sunday to a key military provision of the fragile 2018 peace accord, after neighboring Sudan mediated in the country ravaged by years of civil war.
President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar have agreed to form a unified armed forces command, one of many unresolved issues blocking the implementation of the 2018 pact to end five years of deadly war , noted an AFP journalist.
“Peace is a matter of security and today we have (reached) an important milestone,” said Martin Abucha, who signed the agreement on behalf of Mr Machar’s opposition party, the SPLM/A- IO.
Presidential Affairs Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin hailed the agreement as a “necessary step (…) that paves the way for a stable government of the Republic of South Sudan”.
The deal also provides for a cessation of hostilities, a halt to ‘propaganda’ which stokes tensions, with both sides pledging to stop encouraging defections to the other, according to Mr Machar’s spokesman , Puok Both Baluang.
South Sudanese are eagerly waiting to see if these commitments will be implemented on the ground, as many agreements have failed in the past, leading to new cycles of violence.
The two strong men of the country were present on Sunday at the signing ceremony of the agreement in the capital Juba. The text provides for a distribution – 60% for the president’s camp and 40% for that of Machar – of the leadership positions in the army, the police and the national security forces.
Appointments are due within a week, and unified forces are expected to be operational within two months.
Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, currently number two in the Sudanese council in power after the October 25 coup in Khartoum, arrived in Juba on Friday to try to find solutions within the framework of the security provisions resulting from the peace agreement.
This mediation made it possible to reach a consensus, while Mr. Kiir had published a presidential decree on March 25 on the formation of the command structure, quickly rejected by Mr. Machar, denouncing a “unilateral” initiative.
– Recent escalation –
Tensions between forces loyal to Mr Kiir and former rebel leader Riek Machar had escalated further recently, raising international fears of a return to full-scale conflict in the world’s youngest nation.
At the end of March, the SPLM/A-IO withdrew from the body responsible for monitoring the application of the peace agreement, accusing the army and forces loyal to the head of state of regularly carrying out attacks against its bases. Mr Machar’s spokesman told AFP that the party had now agreed to rejoin the mechanism.
Since its independence from Sudan in 2011, the country has been plagued by politico-ethnic violence and chronic instability, which have prevented it from recovering from the bloody civil war which left nearly 400,000 dead and four million displaced between 2013 and 2018.
The 2018 peace agreement provides for the principle of power-sharing within a government of national unity, formed in February 2020 with Kiir as president, and Machar as vice-president.
But it went largely unenforced, and their rivalry persists, leaving the country in chaos.
According to a UN report published in early March, at least 440 civilians were killed between June and September 2021 in the Tambura region (southwest), during fighting between pro-Machar factions and the army loyal to Salva Kiir .
In March, the United Nations Security Council voted to extend for one year its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, which has up to 17,000 soldiers and 2,100 police, with an annual budget of more than $1 billion. dollars.
The UN envoy for South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, then issued a stern warning to the leaders to do more before the elections scheduled in less than a year.
“Elections can be a nation-building moment or a disaster,” he said.