Ethiopia’s Premier urges Museveni to pull troops out of South Sudan

Ethiopia Tuesday called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces, notably Ugandans, from South Sudan, warning of a threat of regional conflict.

“Because of this intervention, the conflict might end up as a regional conflict because there are other interests also from other sides,” Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told reporters.

South Sudan has been embroiled in deadly fighting since mid-December when clashes between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar erupted in the young nation.

President Kiir asked Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to send forces to protect key infrastructure in Juba, including the airport and the presidential palace, but the presence of Ugandan troops has been fiercely condemned by Mr Machar and his allies.

The warring parties signed a shaky ceasefire on January 23 that included a call for the incremental exit of all foreign forces, a major sticking point in the peace talks that kicked off in the Ethiopian capital early last month.

Mr Hailemariam called for the withdrawal of alien forces in order to end the conflict that has killed thousands and displaced 900,000 people.

“I hope for the cessation of hostilities..., Ugandan forces and all other external forces must withdraw from that area phase by phase,” he said.

Despite the agreement signed last month, sporadic fighting has continued in South Sudan, where aid agencies have warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis.

A new round of peace talks was set to begin on Monday between government and opposition parties but was delayed until Tuesday for logistical reasons, mediators said.

Rebels threatened to block the talks, demanding the withdrawal of Ugandan troops along with the release of four political detainees arrested after fighting erupted on December 15. The latest round of talks, mediated by regional bloc IGAD, is aimed at addressing the roots of the crisis in order to forge long-term political solutions.

South Sudan rebels are demanding the release of detainees and the withdrawal of foreign troops.

“We are abstaining from participating in the next round of peace talks,” Mr Taban Deng, head of the opposition delegation, said in a statement. Mr Deng demanded the release of four detainees who remain in prison following the release of seven of their colleagues in late January.

He also called for the immediate withdrawal of Ugandan troops. The conflict, which started in the capital Juba and spread rapidly to different parts of South Sudan, has left thousands dead since mid-December and has caused nearly 900,000 to flee their homes.

It has also had a tribal dimension, with the two largest ethnic communities, the Dinka, to which Kiir belongs, and Machar’s group the Nuer both carrying out ethnic massacres.

Eleven South Sudanese political figures were arrested in Juba when the fighting broke out. Seven of them were freed at the end of January and are set to take part in the new negotiations, according to IGAD, the regional grouping that is helping mediate the talks.

The government side wants to try the four who are still detained, along with two other political figures — including Machar himself — who are on the run.

During the two-week break in talks IGAD said its mediators briefed the heads of state of member countries, and that the first IGAD officials tasked with monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire were also deployed.

“The negotiations are a stopgap measure at best: the institutional deficiencies that have brought about the violence remain,” wrote Peter Biar Ajak, director of the Center for Strategic Analysis and Research in Juba. “For its (own) sake and the sake of this young country, the political leadership of South Sudan must complete the task it aborted of building basic institutions of governance,” Mr Ajak said in an op-ed in the International New York Times last week.