Fwd: [sudans-john-ashworth] Splintering of South Sudan war makes peace more elusive

[Elisabeth Janaina]

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From: "John Ashworth" <ashwor...@gmail.com>
Date: 21 Jun 2017 07:35
Subject: [sudans-john-ashworth] Splintering of South Sudan war makes peace more elusive
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Splintering of South Sudan war makes peace more elusive: United Nations

Reuters | Tue Jun 20, 2017 | 6:32am EDT
By David Lewis | JUBA

South Sudan’s civil war has mutated from a two-way fight between the
president and his ousted former deputy to a fragmented conflict,
making it harder to put it back together and peace more elusive, the
top U.N. peacekeeper in the country said.

David Shearer, head of the 13,000-strong United Nations mission,
welcomed signs that regional leaders were rejuvenating the peace
process but said any initiative must include all factions, including
that of former Vice President Riek Machar, and discourage the
multiplication of armed groups.

South Sudan slipped into civil war in 2013, just two years after
becoming independent from Khartoum, and some 4 million people – around
one third of the population – have fled to neighboring countries or to
pockets of relative safety.

The conflict, ignited by a feud between President Salva Kiir and
Machar, has resulted in ethnic cleansing between the leaders’
respective Dinka and Nuer communities.

However, an escalation of fighting since last July that forced Machar
to flee the country a month later has seen clashes spread to
previously unaffected areas.

"The situation now is somewhat different to what it was a year ago,
when it was largely bipolar," Shearer told Reuters in an interview
late on Monday.

"We are seeing a lot more of the conflict being played out at a very
local level and that is worrying because as it fractures it becomes
more difficult to try to put the pieces back together again."

Fighting has in particular affected the southern Equatoria regions,
previously largely spared violence. The spike in fighting resulted in
South Sudan having the fastest growing refugee population in the world
as civilians poured into Uganda.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled to camps within South Sudan
that are ringed by U.N. troops.

Peacekeepers have frequently been criticized for failing to do enough
to protect civilians but the U.N. leadership says troops are
obstructed and restricted by the army.

A combination of red tape and unwillingness meant it took eight months
for the first of 4,000 U.N. reinforcements approved to start deploying
after last year's fighting.

PLACES AT THE TABLE

Analysts and diplomats say regional peace efforts have stumbled for
much of the last year as Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya adopted a more
bilateral approach to the conflict.

But Shearer was optimistic that a recent meeting of regional leaders
in Ethiopia would result in a more collective approach to the crisis.

"There was a sense that they want to rejuvenate the peace agreement
and start moving that forward. That collective effort hasn’t been
apparent for the last year," he said.

Machar remains in exile in South Africa, excluded from the process.

Shearer said while regional leaders were reluctant to return to the
"old formula" of insisting on a potentially explosive face-to-face
between Kiir and Machar, there was recognition that Machar’s camp
needed to be represented in talks and he could too, further down the
line.

The U.N. chief said there was a delicate balance between a rejuvenated
and broadened push for peace and creating incentives to add to the
plethora of armed groups.

"What we don’t want to do is to encourage a greater degree of conflict
or arming of groups in order to be relevant and have a place at the
table," he warned.

(Editing by Michael Perry)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southsudan-unrest-idUSKBN19B0AB

END
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John Ashworth

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