Africa

September 8, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudanese government Thursday said expecting the resumption of peace talks with the opposition groups in mid-September, adding that the chief negotiator may visit Khartoum soon for discussions on this respect.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki (L) meets with Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir at the new Presidential palace in Khartoum on August 3, 2015 (Photo AFP/Ebrahim Hamid)

Information Minister and Government's Spokesperson Ahmed al-Balal has said that the international community is carrying out efforts to convince the armed groups to sign a cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access agreements before to engage in political talks involving opposition parties.

In statements to the semi-official Sudanese Media Centre, the minister said that if these efforts succeed then the chair of the African Union High level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki will pay a visit to Khartoum to discuss the resumption of the negotiations.

He further pointed to the readiness of the government's negotiating teams to respond positively to Mbeki's invitation whenever they receive it.

"This year is the year of the final negotiations, so there is a need to reach understandings that satisfy all the parties," al-Balal added.

Last month, the AUHIP suspended sine die the talks for humanitarian truce in Darfur and the Two Areas after the failure of the parties to strike a deal. from 9 to 14 August.

But one week later, Presidential Assistant Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid who heads the negotiating team for the talks with the SPLM-N said that the African Union decided the resumption of the peace talks within two weeks without further details.

Hamid further expressed his government willingness to resume talks with the armed groups for the sake of peace.

Informed sources told (Sudan Tribune) Thursday, that the opposition Sudan Call groups prefer to resume the peace talks during the last week of September as they want to hold one-week consultations meeting before.

The sources further expected that the opposition Sudan Call alliance would hold their meeting after Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice to end by the 25 September. The pointed they want to coordinate positions before the strategic meeting on the other confidence building measures before to join the national dialogue process in Khartoum.

On 8 August, Sudanese Revolutionary factions and the National Umma Party signed the Roadmap Agreement, five months after refusing to ink it.

In a statement issued after the suspension of the talks, the mediation said an agreement on the Two Areas is only impeded by the difference over the humanitarian access. However it pointed to several obstacles preventing the signing of a deal on Darfur

(ST)

September 8, 2016 (JUBA) – United Nations has revealed that hundreds of troops belonging to the South Sudan's former First Vice President, Riek Machar, have crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with “extremely bad shape.”

First Vice President, Riek Machar, accompanied by SPLA-IO officers, Juba, 27 May, 2016 (ST Photo)

The fighters were evacuated to health facilities for medical treatment, the United Nations said Wednesday.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the United Nations Secretary General, told reporters in New York that the UN was consulting with the governments of Congo and South Sudan "with a view of finding solutions for these combatants."

He said MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping body in the DRC, evacuated the soldiers days after their leader, Machar, was also airlifted into the neighbouring country due to exhaustion and swollen legs.

“MONUSCO reports that following recent events in South Sudan, a number of armed elements and civilians of SPLM-In Opposition have crossed into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On 18 August, a day after the extraction of Riek Machar, the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) delivered some basic assistance to SPLM in opposition in Garamba Park in Province Orientale at the request of the Congolese authorities,” the UN spokesperson announced.

“Between 24 August and 5 September, MONUSCO further extracted some 300 individuals, including 90 civilians from the Garamba National Park on humanitarian grounds, many of whom were assessed to be in life-threatening condition. Altogether MONUSCO handed over 117 of these individuals, including Riek Machar, to the DRC authorities,” he further explained.

He said all those SPLM in opposition elements who were armed handed over their weapons to MONUSCO before being evacuated.

The UN, he added, was engaging with the governments of DRC and South Sudan with a view to finding solutions for these combatants in line with its respective mandates.

Dujarric said the supporters of the former First Vice President, Riek Machar, were found in the area around Garamba near the South Sudan border and evacuated by the UN "so they can receive urgent medical assistance, pending their voluntary disarmament."

Machar's spokesperson, James Gatdet Dak, also confirmed that a number of their troops who accompanied their top leader to the DRC border from the South Sudanese capital, Juba, crossed into the DRC.

He said many of them, including some political and military leaders, were extremely exhausted, with many falling sick due to over five weeks of trekking through the vast Western Equatoria region and were exposed to harsh cold and rainy weather. He said the situation was coupled with continued fighting as President Salva Kiir's forces were attacking them.

He said the officers and troops that crossed into DRC will be transported into the opposition's controlled areas to join their leader.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but it was rocked by a civil war that began in December 2013 when government forces loyal to President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by Machar, his former deputy who is a Nuer.

At least 50,000 people were killed in the fighting and over 2 million people were displaced.

Again, a peace deal signed in August last year by the two rival leaders collapsed on 8 July when clashes resumed in the capital, forcing Machar out of the city and government.

(ST)

September 6, 2016

By Pa'gan Amum Okiech for South Sudan Reborn

The United Nations Security Council, with all of its strength and power, is now being challenged by a diplomatic rope-a-dope, directed to evil ends by a scheming practitioner. An African American boxer, Muhammad Ali, invented the rope-a-dope style in an African boxing ring in Kinshasa almost 42 years ago. For those old enough to recall, the entire African continent and African descendants across the globe relished the popular Ali's use of rope-a-dope to defeat the much more powerful George Foreman, in the “Rumble in the Jungle”, a boxing match recalled and much discussed even in South Sudan when Ali died on June 3 of this year.

The rope-a-dope strategy, of course, is one of fakery and delay, where the weaker of the boxers huddles against the ropes, covering up, pretending injury, and hoping his stronger opponent will “punch himself out”. The attacker uses all of his energy trying to hit an elusive target who refuses to directly engage, and lets the ropes absorb the bulk of the force used against him. The ultimate goal is to allow the rope-a-dope practitioner to fight more aggressively in the later rounds against a tired and distracted adversary, and eventually win. In Ali's case, the world, particularly the African world, loved Ali for his brilliant strategy, and many still do.

What an abomination and a disgrace to Ali's memory and to all of Africa, that Salva Kiir would seize upon exactly the same rope-a-dope strategy to prevent our regional neighbors, the African Union and the United Nations from creating conditions for peace, stability and transition to a true democracy, which will benefit every deserving citizen in Africa's newest country, South Sudan. The wheels were hardly up on the UNSC flight leaving Juba before the Kiir rope-a-dope and flip-flopping began. Kiir operatives claimed the right to dispute almost every element of the joint communiqué, read to the world in the presence of President Kiir.

The Regime's spokesperson engaged in obscure semantics, claiming the government “consented” to the deployment of the Regional Protection Force, but did not “accept” its deployment. In a classic rope-a-dope the government embarrassed itself by stating the long accepted number of troops, 4,000, was only a “ceiling” and that the number could be as low as 10. The Kiir spokesperson also said his government had to approve the type of arms the troops were carrying, the countries they would come from and a range of other issues already long settled. To the Kiir Conspiracy, the hard and fast September 15 deadline for agreement set by the Secretary General of the United Nations, will be nothing but a routine bell ringing, signaling the end of an early round in a lengthy and indecisive match.
Meanwhile, Kiir and his palace guard continue to systematically loot South Sudan. These same people are causing the armed conflict in the country to continue and then sending ill prepared and poorly led troops out to kill or be killed for no defendable cause.

The Security Council's Plan A appeared seriously threatened even before the delegation's plane had cleared South Sudanese air space. They cannot be blamed for trying. However, trying too long plays into the hands of Kiir's rope-a-dope strategy. September 15 must be the deadline for the Government of South Sudan's unconditional acceptance of the 4,000 troops. Otherwise, for the sake of the people of South Sudan, IGAD-Plus, AU and the UNSC will have to prepare quickly for Plan B.

September 8, 2016 (JUBA) – The United States Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan says it is “not wise” to re-install South Sudan's ex-first vice president, Riek Machar to his post, but warned President Salva Kiir against what he called "power monopoly".

U.S. Special Envoy Donald Booth, speaks at the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa, on April 28, 2016 (ST Photo)

Ambassador Donald Booth told a U.S. House of Representative during a hearing held on Wednesday that South Sudan's peace agreement has to be implemented.

"Given all that has happened, we do not believe it would be wise for Machar to return to his previous position in Juba," said Booth.

"But this cannot become a justification for President Kiir to monopolize power and stifle dissenting political voices," he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Africa Subcommittee.

Machar returned to Juba in April to take up position in the transitional government of national unity (TGoNU) as first vice president in accordance to the August 2015 peace agreement that ended 21 months of conflict. He fled Juba for his in July after his 1,300 bodyguards clashed with thousands of President Kiir's forces. Machar's former peace negotiator, Taban Deng Gai, was selected in controversial circumstances in Juba as his replacement.

But regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which mediated the peace agreement demanded Gai's resignation for Machar to return, a position supported by the international community including the United States.

Booth's comments followed Secretary of State John Kerry's assertion last month that Gai's nomination to replace Machar was “legal.” The SPLM In Opposition (IO) under Machar has decried the comment.

The United States also support establishment of Hybrid Court to try war crimes suspects as provided for in chapter five of the peace agreement.

"There must be consequences for those who are found guilty," New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith, also the subcommittee's chairman told Voice of America (VOA).