How serious is IGAD Mini Summit On South Sudan Warring Parties

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Big Question!!!

This is a briefing prior to the forthcoming IGAD Mini Summit on South Sudan. This briefing focuses on critical issues that CEPO thinks to be considered in the Mini Summit. 

1. Competition over the post of the head of government

The two warring parties are competing for the post of the head of the government   is an issue that request urgent intervention. This competition is preventing any meaningful progress in the negotiations. The rigidity that we are witnessing throughout the mediation was because each warring party wants to secure the position of the head of the government. Here the option of the power sharing approach cannot work because both warring parties is not willing to accommodate or compromise with each other. The warring parties have reached at the stage of demand for regime change and protection of regime influence. This is justified by the ongoing debate among the warring parties on executive and non-executive powers for the head of the government.  

Recommendation:

In absence or delay in reaching an agreement on sharing power modality that bring peace then we recommend formation of government of technocrats else South Sudan should be placed under UN trusteeship for period of five years.      

2. Believing in military resolution of the political difference

The leadership of both warring parties are politicians who belief in military solution for political disputes. The demand placed by the SPLM-IO for having two armies during transitional period verse the government demand for reintegration of the SPLM-IO forces into the existing government forces both demands were influenced by this belief. . This mindset during peace mediation normally entrain the mediation philosophy of “Negotiate and keep the military frontline active for influencing the negotiation for winning the political arrangements.

Recommendations

1. Obligate the warring parties to uphold the cessation of the hostilities agreement or else they parties face sanctions.
2. Impose arms embargo as regional block on the warring parties if the parties fail to reach peaceful agreement in the next round of the peace mediation.  

3. The genuine stand of IGAD for pressuring the warring parties for peace

For the IGAD to have standing ground for pressuring the warring parties is when the warring parties are feeling that IGAD is placing their leadership to the blacklist of the unwarned leaders or leaders that embrace violent  approach for resolving their political difference. This was the strength of IGAD during the comprehensive peace agreement. This tactic as to be repeated for the two leaders of the warring parties. This approach has to be accepted by all actors such as facilitators of Intra-SPLM dialogue and AU peace and Security Council. The leadership of the warring parties felling single out as the obstacles for peace easier they will move faster to think of compromise and accommodation strategy for negotiating the peace deal.

Recommendation

IGAD summit has to demonstrate to both warring parties that it is united and ready to impose individualistic sanctions that will mainly focus on travel band and financial penalties in collaboration with facilitators of Intra-SPLM dialogue, AU Peace and Security Council and United Nation Security Council    

4. Addressing the root cause of the conflict

Lots of emphasis was put on power sharing agreement during the interim period with assumption that the interim government will be capable to address to root causes of the conflict in the country. Such assumption can derail the entire effort of peace in the country if it did not work well.

Recommendations

1. The warring parties and other stakeholders in the peace process should be allowed to discuss the root causes of conflict in the country and agreed on principles that will ensure sustainable peace in the country.
2. IGAD should conduct consultation with citizens directly over the root cause for the conflict 

Conclusion

For the Mini Summit to have proper and productive deliberations on South Sudan is better to set the rational of the discussion around this narrative. The background to the violence was a power struggle at the top of the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM), the ruling party that controlled 90% power of the government. A driver of the increased political competition was the national elections that were expected to take place in early June 2015.  The leaders’ preparations for the elections involved jockeying for position within the party organs. The SPLM leadership’s strategy of trying control political power using any means possible is important to understanding the parties’ actions during the peace process. The SPLM is a militarized political movement that will take time to exclude the influence of security actors in the political arena – a problem confronted by other African liberation movements turned governments. The SPLM is political movement with a military mindset – an outlook that also applies to its internal political disputes. This means that the warring parties are most sensitive to security and leadership issues in the negotiation. Since they are not easy to trust each other they never break through on these interests till they have confidence and trust that they can work together and take the country back to peace and stability.  All the rounds of the talks the deadlock is around security arrangement and power sharing. This is so because the negotiators of both warring parties are militarized-politicized minded individuals that beliefs without gaining equally military and political strengthen at same time no chance for sustaining involvement in the national political governance and leadership arena. Finally in the government control area the flash back point to new violence will the declared national elections on 30^th June, 2015. IGAD Mini summit must take this serious.