Negotiations in Addis Ababa between the government of President Salva Kiir and rebel groups led by former vice president Riek Machar have come to an impasse. The rebel delegation walked out of the talks as fighting continued in various parts of Africa's newest nation last week. Hostilities between Salva Kiir, who is from the Dinka tribe, and Machar, who is from the Nuer tribe, broke out mid December, following what the government described as an attempted coup. Fighting has since spread to the oil rich areas of the Unity and Abyei states, causing hundreds of thousands to leave their homes. Negotiators from the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) invited both sides for talks in Addis Ababa to resolve the crisis, which claimed so far the lives of thousands. Despite a ceasefire announced earlier by both sides, clashes continued unabated between the government and rebels in various parts of South Sudan. IGAD officials say that despite efforts to reconcile the two sides, the gap in views remains wide. Conditions made by the rebel delegation were rejected outright by the Juba delegation. One condition was to allow former minister Deng Alor and six of his colleagues, now held in Kenya, to leave the country to attend the talks. Another was for Juba to release 11 detainees accused of staging an attempted coup, including former Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) Secretary General Pagan Amum. A third condition was that Ugandan forces, which sided with Juba in recent fighting, leave the country. The prospects of peace in South Sudan are diminishing by the day, as African negotiators have little leverage over either side of the conflict. Adding to the current turmoil, the White Army militia, mostly Nuer fighters, threatened to invade Juba if a peace agreement was reached before Salva Kiir stepped down. Observers following the course of the fighting say that neither side has the ability to achieve a decisive victory in the battlefield. Juba sees the Ugandan military intervention in South Sudan as legitimate, and reminds African negotiators that these forces came to the country with the approval of IGAD. The Kenyan authorities, meanwhile, refused to release Deng Alor and his associates, who represented the South Sudanese rebels in the talks. Rebel spokesman Yoanis Musa Pauk, speaking to reporters in Addis Ababa, said: “You cannot negotiate while people are detained. They must be released so they may play a positive role in the negotiations.” Pauk added that the rebel negotiating team was going to stay out of the talks scheduled for Monday because the Kenyan authorities refused to allow the rest of the negotiating team to come to Ethiopia to join the talks. As the impasse in Addis Ababa continues, African negotiators may turn the conflict over the UN, in view of the extensive humanitarian suffering it has caused. The information minister in South Sudan, who is also the official spokesman for the government, Michael Makuei, said that Juba was willing to discuss anything, except the division of wealth and power in the country. Makuei added that IGAD failed in formulating a mechanism to stop the hostilities in keeping with the agreement signed in Ethiopia on 23 January. Juba-based political analyst Arthur Gabriel said that unless an agreement is reached in Addis Ababa, the country might fall apart along ethnic lines. The humanitarian crisis in South Sudan is already getting out of hand, with thousands dead since the conflict erupted mid December 2013. On Monday, Ethiopia called for Ugandan troops to pull out of South Sudan, warning that the current bout of fighting may evolve into a regional war. The US called on Salva Kiir to release four opposition officials that Juba is accusing of corruption and involvement in an attempted coup. Washington also called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from South Sudan in order to pave the way for a peace settlement in the war torn country.
