Regional interests 'undermining' South Sudan peace talks

Nairobi (AFP) - South Sudan's floundering peace talks are being undermined by the economic interests of the regional states leading the process, an advocacy group warned Wednesday.

A report from the US-based Enough Project said neighbouring Sudan and Uganda were among those frustrating efforts to impose "targeted sanctions" to stop the civil war in the world's youngest nation.

"Willingness to take action on South Sudan has been undermined by a web of political and economic relationships linking regional elites' interests to those of South Sudanese politicians," said the report.

A lack of action at the regional level has left "funding flows for the conflict mostly untouched", the Enough Project said.

Asset freezes, travel bans and an arms embargo have not been effectively imposed either regionally or internationally, meaning the cost of continued conflict in South Sudan is not borne by the country's warring leaders but by its suffering civilians, the report argued.

Civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup.

The conflict was immediately ethnic, pitting Kiir's Dinka people against Machar's Nuer, and quickly spread. It has been characterised by ethnic massacres, rape and the use of child soldiers. A fifth of the population has been uprooted and nearly half face starvation.

Peace talks, led by regional bloc IGAD, have been going on in Ethiopia almost as long as the 18-month war, resulting in nine failed agreements and ceasefires, all broken within days or even hours.

Threats of sanctions have been repeatedly made -- both by IGAD and the UN -- but not implemented, except against a handful of battlefield commanders for whom EU and US measures such as travel bans and asset freezes are irrelevant.

The UN Security Council has adopted a sanctions framework for South Sudan but has so far failed to name anyone.

An African Union inquiry into human rights abuses was shelved in January. A leaked draft said Kiir and Machar were both responsible for "organised massacres" and ethnic killings and recommended they be barred from office.

- Stashing the cash -

According to the Enough Project, parties involved in the regional talks have interests that run counter to peace, while a complex web of political ties, alliances and friendships tests their willingness to take effective action.

Thousands of Ugandan troops backed by helicopter gunships are in South Sudan fighting for Kiir while Sudan is accused of supplying Machar's rebels with weapons. Neither wants an arms embargo.

Sudan also relies heavily on the dwindling supply of South Sudanese oil and the transit fees Juba pays to Khartoum for its transport through northern pipelines, while Kenya has strong trade ties to South Sudan, especially in banking, that could be jeopardised by economic sanctions, the group said.

"Political and economic interests linking elites across Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan have individually and collectively undermined peace talks and the region's will to enforce sanctions that would disrupt access to funds that sustain war," said the Enough Project.

Observers argue that economic sanctions targeting the top leadership of South Sudan's divided ruling party and army is the best way to force the individuals to negotiate peace in good faith.

An investigation commissioned last year by pressure group Avaaz, found that a host of South Sudan's leaders hold valuable assets in Kenya and Uganda.

At war in South Sudan, Kiir and Machar are nevertheless neighbours in Nairobi, with near-adjacent mansions on a guarded road in the upmarket Lavington neighbourhood. The investigation said South Sudan's elite were financially unsophisticated, preferring to invest in property or simply stash cash "in suitcases and buried in residences".

Responding to the report, Uganda insisted that it was militarily engaged in South Sudan in order to "give room for peace efforts".

"That report is laughable. Our efforts have been in the framework of the African Union and we have no reason to undermine the peace efforts in South Sudan," Uganda's junior foreign affairs minister, Okello Oryem, told AFP. "It's wrong for anyone to claim we are undermining efforts to bring peace."

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