South Sudan’s Kiir Signs Peace Deal

Juba: South Sudan’s president signed a peace deal on Wednesday to end a 20-month conflict with rebels, but he told regional African leaders at the ceremony that he had “serious reservations”.

His long-time rival and rebel leader Riek Machar, who is expected to become the First Vice President under the deal, put his pen to the document last week in the Ethiopian capital.

Fighting erupted in December 2013 when Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of planning a coup, unleashing a wave of killings that has split the country along ethnic lines.

It soon spread beyond the capital and has so far cost thousands of lives, and displaced 2.2 million people.

At least seven ceasefires have already been agreed and then shattered within days or even hours in South Sudan, which broke away from Sudan in 2011.

The UN and the United States had threatened sanctions against Mr Kiir and his administration if yesterday’s signing did not go ahead.

The UN’s humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien warned conditions in Africa’s newest state were deteriorating with widespread reports of atrocities against civilians being committed by both sides.

South Sudanese soldiers raped children, burned people alive in their homes and hunted others for days in swamps in an increasingly brutal war the government had hoped to win with an emergency $850 million military budget, United Nations experts said.

Emma Vickers, South Sudan campaigner for the watchdog group Global Witness, urged vigilance to uphold the agreement: “Unless its worldwide guarantors keep up the pressure on the South Sudanese leadership in the months and years after it is signed, the necessary reforms may never materialize, and the country risks sliding back into a new cycle of corruption and violence”.

But China, which has oil interests in South Sudan, said the government should be allowed more time to come onboard.

“President Kiir made the right decision to sign the peace agreement today”, said spokesperson Josh Earnest. Machar signed the deal last week.

“We will take immediate action if he does not sign, or if he signs with reservations”, said Nigerian Ambassador Joy Ogwu, whose country now chairs the council.

In a statement, the US National Security Advisor Susan Rice said that reaching a lasting peace would “require commitment and resolve from all parties to the conflict”.

“All the stakeholders reviewed and reiterated the position they have already sent to the IGAD mediation, including the proposed positions that were provided in the Compromised Peace Agreement for South Sudan“, he said.