Women slam lack of urgency of S. Sudan talks

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - Despite an urgency of action called for by the international community for South Sudanese warring parties to resolve their differences peacefully, little, if anything, has been achieved in the peace process led by the East African security and trading bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

The latest round of peace talks, which aim to revive the August 2015 peace deal and ended in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa with a proposal put forth by IGAD, failed to bring about a consensus.

Thorny power-sharing and security arrangement issues necessary for the implementation of a transitional government and popular election remain an elusive goal.

Three women who took part in the latest round of talks called Second Phase of the High Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) say what appears to be sticking points are only a subterfuge by the negotiating parties to delay the process leaving the people of South Sudan forced to continue to suffer.

Failure to implement the cessation of hostilities agreement that the warring parties as part of the IGAD-led Addis Ababa peace process, “[…] is a big problem because we are losing human beings every day; women and children suffer every day. The economic crisis is really deteriorating in the country. So it is a big challenge,” said Amer Manyok Deng, a representative of the Women Bloc of South Sudan

“The hostilities of the parties involved are the problem; they are very hostile," she told Anadolu Agency. "They are killing people, but there would be accountability at the end of the day."

Two other women who took part in the latest round of stalled peace talks under the Women Bloc, Regina Joseph Kapa and Norah Edward are of the same opinion.

- 'Waiting for peace'

Kapa, who came from Khartoum where she took shelter as a refugee, said: “We are waiting for peace. But two days were wasted. Nothing came out from what they did. We did not see a common ground in the proposal put forth by IGAD.”

Civil war in South Sudan broke out in December 2013, after President Salva Kiir Mayardit accused his former vice-president Riek Machar of planning a failed coup.

In August 2015, the two sides -- respectively South Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the South Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in-opposition (SPLM/A-IO) -- signed a peace agreement to end the civil war, to form a transitional government of national unity and to hold a democratic election.

But violence broke out again in 2016.

At least 50,000 people have been killed, more than 2 million have become refugees in other countries -- mainly to Ethiopia, Uganda and Sudan -- and around 5 million South Sudanese have suffered due to severe food shortages in the war, according to the UN.

Last January during the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he has never known any country in the world where its political elites do not care for their own people like the case in South Sudan.

This time around religious leaders of South Sudan mediated the talks launched on May 17.

- 'Why can't we agree?'

With the talks dragging to its one-week deadline, IGAD introduced a proposal that mainly contains power-sharing and security arrangement of the transitional period.

In the proposal, IGAD suggested that the South Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in-opposition (SPLM/A-IO) be given 25 percent of government power, which the IO did not accept.

IO spokesman Mabior Garang told journalists that the proposal was tilted to favor the government because it diminishes the proportion of power reserved to IO in the August 2015 peace agreement by five percentage points.

Another issue that widened the chasm between the government and the IO was the suggestion by IGAD that former Vice President Riek Machar be brought back to the negotiation table from South Africa where he has been held under house arrest since 2016 -- a proposal the government rejected.

“We the women demand that the two principals [President Salva Kiir and former first vice president Riek Machar] are brought together and [that they] discuss,” Kapa said.

“Why can’t we agree?” asks Norah Edwards, another South Sudanese woman of the Women Bloc, struggling to hold back her tears. “Is it good for our people to suffer in exile? Is it good for our children to carry guns? Is it good for thousands dying just because of misunderstanding between the same people who are going to live there forever?”

“We need men with a heart for their country and for their people,” she said.