Fighting continues in South Sudan as political rivals begin talks

A South Sudan army soldier stands next to a machine gun mounted on a truck in Malakal town. Photograph: James Akena/Reuters

As South Sudanese rebels arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday for talks seeking an end to a conflict that has killed more than 1,000 people, fighting continued to rage in the city of Bor, a gateway to the capital, Juba.

A slow-burning power struggle in the governing party, which was inflamed by a fight between Dinka and Nuer soldiers in the presidential guard in mid-December^[1], has since taken on an increasingly ethnic character.

Simon Deng, a former refugee and child slave^[2] in what is now South Sudan^[3] who campaigned for its independence, said the peace negotiations could become a sideshow unless the president, Salva Kiir, backed them with action, for example by releasing 11 political prisoners accused of plotting a coup.

"The whole thing is in the hands of the president," Deng said from his home in the US. "The president has to call on all troops to stop their movements and release all the detainees. They were part of the problem and they have to be part of the solution. These are the things that need to be addressed by anyone who is mediating."

The talks should reflect the interests of the people rather than those of Kiir and his deputy turned rival, Riek Machar, Deng added. "Don't repeat what happened in Rwanda in South Sudan. Don't repeat what happened in Congo in South Sudan."

He blamed Kiir, a Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer, for tearing apart the fabric of the young country. "The leaders happen to come from the two biggest tribes in South Sudan. That's why it's being called an ethnic conflict. It is not. It is a political crisis and it's very sad. They put South Sudan in a dark situation and the road ahead will not be smooth."

Deng, who has previously taken causes to the White House and UN, expressed regret that two men who fought for the south's independence from Sudan had now turned on each other. "I don't have sympathy with either one; I condemn them both. They brought sadness to the people. They must ask themselves why they went to the bush in the first place and now they have taken South Sudan 10 years back instead of following a path of trust, forgiveness, compromise and reconciliation."

Other South Sudan analysts expressed mixed views on the prospects of the meeting between representatives of Kiir and Machar in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Eric Reeves^[4], a researcher based at Smith College in Massachusetts, said: "It appears that Riek wants to show up in Addis only after he is convinced that he brings as many military and political equities as possible to the negotiations.

"But this is an extremely high-stakes strategy at a time when South Sudan is teetering on the edge of catastrophic ethnic warfare, and many hundreds of thousands of civilians, including children, are living in extremely dire circumstances, particularly those in the Juba camps and in the hinterlands where most humanitarian organisations have been forced to withdraw their expatriate and even South Sudanese personnel."

Akshaya Kumar^[5], Sudan and South Sudan policy analyst for the Enough Project, said: "Even though reports of new offensives and clashes persist, there are reasons to be optimistic as each side sends its delegates to Addis. An agreement between both men is a necessary precondition to end the fighting. However, a quick deal between Machar and Kiir may just treat the symptoms of the problem, instead of addressing the deep malignancy within South Sudan's governance structure."

Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, continues to change hands. On Wednesday Kiir declared a state of emergency in Jonglei and in Unity state, where the capital cities are currently held by rebels loyal to Machar, despite government efforts to recapture them. The foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, described Bor as a "war zone". The fighting there has displaced about 60,000 people.

On Tuesday Machar threatened to send his forces on to Juba, 75 miles from Bor. But that was downplayed by Hilde Johnson, UN representative in South Sudan, who said: "I think we need to take quotations with pinches of salt at this point of time."

Johnson said the humanitarian situation was worsening, and called for both sides to reach a truce before it was too late. "On 1 January the country is at a fork in the road, but it can still be saved from further major escalation of violence," she said. "They can still pull the country back from the brink."

References

1. ^{^} in mid-December (www.theguardian.com)
2. ^{^} former refugee and child slave (www.iol.co.za)
3. ^{^} More from the Guardian on South Sudan (www.theguardian.com)
4. ^{^} Eric Reeves (sudanreeves.org)
5. ^{^} Akshaya Kumar (www.enoughproject.org)