The international and regional community fear war will erupt again in South Sudan, following escalations between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Vice President Riek Machar who disagreed on how to share regional states between them, despite the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2018, South Sudan ended five years of civil war over Mayardit - Machar power sharing struggle, which later became an ethnic war between both their tribes that killed and displaced thousands.
The president’s office announced that a meeting concluded the leadership of six of the 10 states would go to Kiir’s side, three would go to Machar’s side and one would go to an alliance aligned with neither Kiir nor Machar.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO), led by Machar, rejected the presidency’s decision to allocate states, indicating it was not taken by consensus.
“It does not take into consideration the relative prominence each party has in each of the respective states or counties.”
Machar issued a statement, of which Asharq Al-Awsat received a copy, indicating that the decision issued by the President’s office did not take into account “parties’ domination in every state or province.”
Machar explained that SPLM-IO is very popular in Upper Nile State, and the government or the coalition of parties known as ‘Sawa’ do not have the right to control the state, referring to an article in the peace agreement calling for taking into account the popularity of the parties when sharing power in the states.
Machar asked the heads of state group of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and its envoy in Juba to intervene to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
For its part, the group of other political parties strongly rejected the presidential decision regarding power-sharing in the states and considered it a clear violation of the peace agreement.
They threatened to withdraw from the transitional government and said, in a statement, that they were given 8 percent of the states which means they are trying to exclude them
A senior analyst with Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group, Alan Boswell, said the disagreement between Kiir and Machar endangered the gains made so far toward a lasting peace.
“South Sudan’s new unity government is facing its biggest crisis yet, as negotiations broke down on how to share power in state and local governments across the country,” he said in a statement.
Boswell stressed that despite the attention of South Sudan’s international partners on the COVID-19 pandemic, quick action from regional leaders will be key so that this latest power squabbling doesn’t escalate.
South Sudan’s civil war claimed the lives of 400,000, triggered a famine and created Africa’s biggest refugee crisis since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Panel of Experts on South Sudan warned that the country’s revitalized peace deal is in jeopardy because the unity government’s partners are bickering over security control and resources.
The panel accused former government and opposition military leaders of forcefully recruiting children to boost the size of their forces.
The power of National Security Service agents remains unchecked and has been expanded to silence political and civic dissent, according to the panel.
It said security operatives continue to arbitrarily arrest, detain, and torture civilians in a prison near the Nile.
The report also accused both the government and the opposition of committing violations against human rights in central equatorial regions.
It also reported several incidents of looting and burning of civilian properties on an ethnic basis, and continued saying: “There are hotbeds of corruption and misuse of state funds, and that undermines political and security reforms.”
