Kiir, Machar struggling to implement revitalized peace deal – UN experts

UNITED NATIONS, MAY 5, 2023 (AP) – South Sudan is facing violent clashes and increasing disillusionment and frustration as it struggles to implement the most challenging provisions of a fragile 2018 power-sharing agreement, U.N. experts say in a new report.

The world’s newest nation is struggling to integrate rival military forces, draft a new constitution and prepare for its first election as an independent country in December 2024, the experts monitoring sanctions against the world´s newest nation said in a report to the U.N. Security Council obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The country’s stability “will likely turn on the government´s ability to reward the patience of those who remain committed to peace, rather than those who have sought to reshape it through violence,” the report says.

There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict. But the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions when forces loyal to the current president, Salva Kiir, battled those loyal to the current vice president, Riek Machar.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement, bringing Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity. Under the agreement, elections were supposed to be held in February 2023, but last August they were postponed until December 2024.

Kiir said he wanted to avoid creating conditions for more bloodshed. He issued a statement outlining the government´s achievements and stressing that it would be “business as usual” before the elections.

The U.N. experts said the message was aimed at allaying two concerns – that the extension would be used to undermine the fragile power-sharing structures and would mean further delays, “not the progress that peace once promised.”

On the plus side, the panel said in the 37-page report that the unity government has survived, a series of laws have started to pave the way for the drafting of a new constitution, and a first batch of approximately 55,000 unified troops has graduated, even though most haven´t been deployed.

On the negative side, the experts said, most troops that graduated remain around their training centers, “though poor conditions have led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of desertions.” Many graduates don´t receive regular salaries, and most work in local communities to make money, the experts said.

Those that have been deployed appear to have joined pre-existing military units rather than becoming part of a new national force, they said. While the parties agreed last year to unify the top command structure, they have not been able to reach a similar agreement for the lower ranks.

South Sudan is also facing its highest level of displacement since the peace agreement, and more than two-thirds of the population needs humanitarian assistance, the panel said.