South Sudan warring rivals in Tanzania for talks

ARUSHA — Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was in Tanzania yesterday to witness the signing of a truce between warring South Sudanese factions. In the latest peace effort Ramaphosa, as special envoy to Sudan, will oversee the signing of a reconciliation accord between 11 influential members of factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) yesterday. The aim was to unify the ruling SPLM party ahead of elections in June.

Ramaphosa joined Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta to oversee the process aimed at ending a civil war which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

With the reunification deal signed, rebel leader and former vice-president Riek Machar met rival South Sudan President Salva Kiir yesterday, to ink the latest in a string of agreements, said Salvatory Rweyemamu, Kikwete spokesman.

Machar has called for Kiir to leave office, calling him a stumbling block to party and country.

Fighting erupted in South Sudan in December 2013 following a dispute in the ruling party. Army commanders rebelled in three states when Kiir arrested rivals for allegedly plotting a coup and former vice-president Machar became the leader of the rebels. Dinka soldiers loyal to the president targeted ethnic Nuer in the capital, according to the United Nations. The war has left tens of thousands of people dead and forced almost 2-million others to flee their homes.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, the National Resistance Movement led by Museveni and Tanzania’s CCM party have helped forge the latest SPLM unity deal, said Ramaphosa.

Another round of talks mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, a bloc of East African nations, is due on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the end of January.

South Sudan’s election commission announced this month it was going ahead with national polls set for June 30 even as fighting continues.

This week, military spokesman Philip Aguer said the army and rebels had fought heavy battles in the central Lakes state, and accused Machar’s forces of blowing up an oil well in Unity state. — AFP- Bloomberg.