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The warring parties of Southern Sudan will hold talks in Addis Ababa on Thursday, with the aim of rescuing a paralyzed peace agreement, in a few days before the formation of a unity government.
President Salva Kiir, rebel leader Riek Machar and a handful of other groups signed the peace agreement of September 2018, the latest in a long series of efforts to end the a devastating conflict for six years now.
However, the parties failed to resolve several crucial issues before the establishment of a power-sharing government on May 12, and do not know how to proceed.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc for East Africa, said in a statement that it had convened the two-day meeting to "develop a clear roadmap "for the formation of the government, and tackle the" outstanding tasks of the agreement ".
The government insisted that the meeting should focus on how to advance the formation of the union government, while the Machar camp calls for a six-month deadline to resolve issues such as security for his return.
Machar lives in exile in Khartoum, after being chased out of Juba under a barrage of gunfire in 2016, when a previous deal collapsed.
He is about to return to the position of Senior Vice President under the new contract.
Observers say that crucial steps envisaged in the agreement, such as the establishment of a unified army and the discussion on the security control of the capital, still have to take place.
"We would like to see an extension agreed between the parties, but we would also like to see the government engaged politically and economically in resources, so that we can implement the activities provided for in the agreement," said Kang Pal, a member of the SPLM-IO. Chol told AFP.
"At the moment, we think we will reach a consensus," he said, adding that Machar would attend the meeting in Addis Ababa.
Kiir spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said the president would be represented by members of his negotiating team.
Lack of political will
The South Sudan war broke out two years after Sudan's independence, after Kiir accused his former vice president Machar of planning a coup against him.
Battles between members of the Nuer community of Machar and the Dinka people of Kiir have been characterized by brutal violence on both sides, rapes and warnings of the UN on "ethnic cleansing" .
A peace agreement signed in August 2015 collapsed nearly a year after its signing and the conflict has spread, attracting more groups to the country.
The fighting killed around 380,000 people and forced more than four million South Sudanese – almost a third of the population – to flee their homes.
While the last peace agreement largely halted the fighting, violence continued in some areas with rebel groups that did not sign it.
A group of UN experts, released Tuesday, said that patience was exhausted, the inability to advance on an agreement described as "an agreement between elites facing a reduced number of". options. "
The report highlighted the government's resistance to the provisions of the agreement that warring parties quarantine their troops, demilitarize civilian areas, collect certain heavy weapons and reveal the size and location of their forces.
The latest peace agreement was also widely supported by long-time Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, whose ouster has raised fears that there will be no one who has the will or the will the necessary influence to bring the South Sudanese to implement it.
Another development raised questions about the government's willingness to move the agreement forward.
The Addis meeting comes just days after it was learned that Kiir had hired a US lobby firm to prevent the formation of a hybrid African Union-South Sudan court to try the war crimes, stipulated in the peace agreement.
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