South Sudan: Kerry Calls for More Peacekeepers for South Sudan

On a six-day visit to Africa US Secretary of State John Kerry has met with regional politicians to discuss the situation in South Sudan which, he says, faces the threat of genocide.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has met with the foreign ministers of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Top on the agenda was the conflict in South Sudan.

Kerry used the occasion to ask regional nations to send in sufficiently large peacekeeping forces to end the killings in South Sudan. US officials estimate that at least 5,000 peacekeepers are needed to quell the violence that has gripped the world's youngest nation. For an assessment of the importance of the Kerry visit, DW spoke to Nairobi-based political analyst Martin Oloo.

DW: Martin Oloo, what do you make of the timing of John Kerry's first ever Africa tour as Secretary of State?

Martin Oloo: I think it's a perfect opportunity for the world, through the American nation, to express its concerns about the goings on in Juba and particularly the infighting and the near genocidal activities that we have been seeing. The world has actually been standing by as this new nation burns and for the first time the world is now coming in - not to take on responsibility but rather to urge neighbors and the East African community as a whole to spearhead the provision of the military forces that could enable a solution. Kerry's visit comes a little late, I would say, but it certainly deserves some support.

This conflict [between supporters of President Salva Kiir and his rival, former deputy Riek Machar) has been going on for some four months now. Is the US genuinely concerned about what is happening in South Sudan or is it just playing diplomacy?

I think the US has lost its voice and perhaps its stature in global affairs, especially in Africa. I think if you look at what is happening in the East and what is happening in the West, then you will see that the United States has perhaps failed to exercise its leadership. And perhaps when the issue of South Sudan came up, it should have been the responsibility of the US, among others, to come in as early as December or January in order to provide leadership. If that had happened, we may have seen less of the kind of atrocities that we have seen. We do not seem to have learnt from the Rwandan genocide. The world does not seem to have a solution to internal conflicts that can easily give rise to genocidal problems.