South Sudan Leaders Sign Peace Deal -- The Guardian
Leaders on both sides of the political divide in South Sudan have struck a peace deal that should allow urgent humanitarian aid to reach hundreds of thousands of people displaced in the country's internal conflict.
The United States hailed the ceasefire, saying it "holds the promise of bringing the crisis to an end," but a South Sudan military spokesman said the deal was being would with wary scepticism.
The truce, signed by President Salva Kiir and former vice-president Riek Machar late on Friday in neighbouring Ethiopia, calls for an end to hostilities within 24 hours and unhindered humanitarian access.
The deal is the second attempt at a ceasefire in nearly five months of conflict, although the two leaders did not attend the talks that forged the first agreement in January. This time they met before signing the deal, following an intervention by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, who spoke to both leaders. The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, also flew to South Sudan, adding pressure to reach an agreement.
More than 1.3 million people have fled their homes and thousands have died in the violence between Kiir's ethnic Dinkas and Machar's ethnic Nuers. A UN report on the situation this week said there were gross violations of human rights "on a massive scale".
International pressure has mounted to prevent a potential famine. There are fears that mass hunger will hit the region later this year if residents are not home to plant crops before seasonal rains arrive in force in June.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has already said a third of the country's population is facing "emergency levels of food insecurity", while some areas of the country are also at risk of famine.
The US national security adviser Susan Rice urged that Kiir and Machar follow-up the cease-fire by "ending the violence and negotiating in good faith to reach a political agreement".
A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon demanded that both sides "immediately translate these commitments into action on the ground".
"This bleeding will stop," Kiir said at the signing on Friday. "Nobody will again open fire on another person."
Machar said: "I hope the other side will be serious."
The two leaders agreed to set up a "transitional government of national unity" and hold fresh elections. They also agreed to meet again in a month.
Toby Lanzer, the top UN aid official in South Sudan, said he was "calling on both parties to facilitate deliveries of emergency relief to people in need now: open roads for truck convoys and rivers for barges." He said the peace deal was "a better result than many would have expected".
John Prendergast, the co-founder of the Washington-based Enough Project, which does advocacy work in eastern and central Africa, was cautious about the deal. "We will know very quickly whether the parties are serious, as they are right now poised to attack each other in a number of volatile locations on the front lines of the war," he said.
"It is crucial to deploy the regional civilian protection force and ceasefire monitors to ensure some measure of compliance. If this falls apart, the fighting will enter an even bloodier phase as the stakes continue to increase."
South Sudan military spokesman Colonel Philip Aguer said Kiir's military would "definitely" hold up to its side of the ceasefire, adding that the agreement has a better chance of success since Machar himself signed it. But he accepted that violence could continue.
"There can still be a problem if they don't listen and don't stop attacking," he said. "Then definitely the government forces will have to defend themselves."
The UN security council has discussed ways to force a ceasefire, including sanctions, an arms embargo and a referral of the South Sudan situation to the international criminal court.
South Sudan, a largely Christian country, seceded from the Muslim-dominated Sudan after referendum in 2011. Around 8,500 UN peacekeepers are positioned in the country, but they have struggled to contain the conflict.
