US To South Sudan: Sign Peace Deal Or face UN Sanctions

Rebel spokesman Stephen Par Kuol told VOA this earlier this week that Kiir refused to sign Monday’s peace deal because he is afraid of power sharing.

On a recent visit to East Africa, US President Barack Obama threw his personal weight behind efforts to foster peace in a country midwifed into existence by Washington, but then, critics say, abandoned at birth.

The country fell to chaos from December 2013 due to political wrangling between Kiir and Riek Machar, his deputy. “The people of South Sudan bear the bad consequences of any further delays, and are watching carefully to see what the U.S. will do to ensure that President Obama lives up to his words and this conflict is finally brought to an end”.

New Zealand’s ambassador to the UN, Gerard van Bohemen, said the resolution would impose an arms embargo and additional sanctions.

A draft resolution was circulated to all 15 members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday and the text may be adopted within the next two weeks, a U.S. official told reporters in New York. Uganda is fighting alongside the South Sudanese government, while Sudan has been accused of supporting the rebels.

Kiir – who watched the signing and briefly shook hands with Machar – had warned from the start of talks it would not be possible to sign a credible peace deal because rebel forces have split.

The journalist was killed four days after President Salva Kiir dismissed journalists’ complaints about lack of press freedom and threatened to kill those reporting “against the country”.

Wilson added that the move was an important attempt to urge the Council to seek an agreement that would enhance peace in South Sudan.

“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.

Almost 70 percent of the country’s population facing food shortages and some 200,000 terrified civilians are sheltering in UN bases.

The agreement was fully signed by the leader of the warring faction of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM), former South Sudan Vice President Riek Machar. A ceasefire must also be implemented at once by all the parties.

The government has “certain reservations” and will return after consultations, Mesfin said.

The latest round of talks opened on August 6, mediated by the regional eight-nation bloc IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, as well as the United Nations, African Union, China and the “troika” of Britain, Norway and the United States.