South Sudan president in peace call as independence day marked

JUBA, Wednesday

South Sudan President Salva Kiir Wednesday urged rebel chief Riek Machar to restart talks to end a raging civil war between their forces that has driven the country to the brink of famine.

“Even if Riek Machar’s forces still continue attacking our forces, I still renew my call for him to accept the logic of peaceful resolution,” Mr Kiir told crowds at celebrations to mark three years of independence.

“Put down your guns and come home.”

South Sudan has been wracked by war since mid-December, when presidential guards loyal to President Kiir clashed with troops supporting Mr Machar, who fled to the bush and rallied a huge rebel army.

The fighting has been marked by widespread atrocities against both members of the Nuer people, to which Mr Machar belongs, and Mr Kiir’s Dinka group, the single largest tribe.

Three ceasefire deals have failed to stick, and peace talks in luxury hotels in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have made little progress.

Last month they halted indefinitely, with both sides refusing to attend the discussions, and blaming each other for the failure.

“If we don’t stop war many of our people will continue to die,” Mr Kiir said, while insisting he was “still committed” to the talks.

Aid agencies have warned that without massive funding, famine zones will be declared within weeks.
Mr Machar, speaking in the Ethiopian capital, said he was willing to resume talks.

“We are here seeking a peaceful solution to this problem... we are here ready to talk,” he told reporters.

But he also lashed out at the “tyranny” of Kiir’s government, and calling for sanctions on the leaders in Juba.

Under Kiir, “our country witnessed nothing but dictatorship, anarchy, corruption, tribalism and lack of development,” Mr Machar said. Mr Kiir also thanked Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who sent troops into South Sudan to prop up the government.

“I will not order the Uganda forces to leave South Sudan until I am sure that we are safe and our institutions are protected,” President Kiir told Mr Museveni, who attended the celebrations.

The withdrawal of Ugandan troops has previously been a key demand of Machar for talks to progress. The streets of the capital were lined with banners proclaiming “One People, One Nation”, as the government of President Kiir put on a show of force with a military parade and speeches intended to celebrate the breakaway from the repressive government in Khartoum.

Security was heavy at the events, underscoring the bitter divisions in the world’s youngest nation where a nearly seven-month-old civil war rages on.

“It’s a sad anniversary,” admitted Juba resident Gideon, 23, saying he had hoped for better three years on from the fanfare and optimism that swept the country in July 2011.

Africa’s worst crisis

Aid group Oxfam says South Sudan was “currently Africa’s worst crisis with nearly four million — a third of the country’s population — at risk of severe hunger and an aid effort that has only so far reached half of those in need”.

“The world’s attention is elsewhere as Africa’s worst humanitarian catastrophe descends into more misery.
‘‘We will be staring into the abyss and fail to avert a famine if funds do not start arriving soon to help the people of South Sudan at risk of starvation, disease and violence,” said Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam International chief.

On the eve of the anniversary, the departing UN representative in South Sudan issued a scathing attack on the country’s leaders, calling them a “self-serving elite” responsible for a looming “man-made famine”.

“Thousands and thousands have been killed,” said Ms Hilde Johnson of the UN mission in South Sudan, lashing out at both the government and rebels, warning that one of world’s least developed nations has “been set back decades”.

Leaders were sick with “the cancer of corruption” with the country’s billions of dollars worth of oil “a curse rather than a blessing”, she said. (AFP)
Campaign group Global Witness said the government had borrowed the “monumental sum” of $1 billion this year from oil companies, much to “pay off last year’s debts”, and about the same amount the United Nations is appealing for donors to fund in terms of aid.

Peace talks in luxury hotels in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have made little progress and last month they halted indefinitely, with both sides refusing to attend the discussions.

“If there are further delays... we can draw only one conclusion; that this is only about a scramble for power,” Ms Johnson added.
Aid workers say South Sudan, faces famine within weeks if aid efforts are not scaled up massively.

In Leer, a remote and rural community in the northern oil-rich Unity state, one the worst battlegrounds in nearly seven months of civil war, the population would be starving without such expensive deliveries.

People spent four months in the bush after fleeing fighting between government and rebel forces, with reports of massacres and atrocities.
Here, not far from the vast Sudd swamps of the White Nile, the trees are green and land is fertile.

But people lost everything in the war — food stores, homes and livestock — making the ICRC drops the only source of survival.