President Salva Kiir and Yoweri Museveni after a consultative meeting held in Kampala August 22, 2014. PHOTO | FILE
By BARBARA AMONG Special Correspondent
In Summary
- The meeting comes at a time the Addis Ababa peace talks have stalled and the rebels say they are looking for an option to the protracted peace negotiations that have resulted in neither an enforceable ceasefire agreement nor a negotiated political settlement.
- At the end of last week’s preparatory meeting, there seems to have been a compromise on an earlier precondition that Uganda should withdraw its troops from South Sudan before any discussion between Museveni and Machar could take place.
- Questions, however remain over whether the Museveni-Machar meeting will resolve the crisis, and indeed, if the Ugandan leader will drop support for Kiir and embrace Dr Machar.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir rushed to
Uganda on Friday and met President Yoweri Museveni soon after the
Ugandan leader extended an invitation to his nemesis rebel leader Dr
Riek Machar.
Kiir’s visit came as the Uganda government was
hosting Dr Machar’s emissaries, who had four days of intensive
discussions with high-level officials in the country and were set to
meet Museveni by press time.
The meetings were chaired by Gen Caleb
Akandwanaho, brother of President Museveni and senior presidential
adviser on security and defence.
Details of the three-hour meeting between the two
presidents remain scanty, but as he left Kiir remarked to a group of
Ugandan MPs who were waiting at State House Entebbe to meet Museveni:
“The country is at war with itself and there is no other enemy fighting
but us.”
It emerged that Dr Machar’s six emissaries left
Kampala with an open invitation from President Museveni to their
commander calling for a meeting to discuss the stalemate in the peace
process.
The team, which held a four-day closed door
meeting that lasted over 10 hours each day, discussed and set an agenda
for the proposed meeting between the two leaders.
The meeting comes at a time the Addis Ababa peace
talks have stalled and the rebels say they are looking for an option to
the protracted peace negotiations that have resulted in neither an
enforceable ceasefire agreement nor a negotiated political settlement.
The discussions between Machar’s group and Ugandan
officials also ended two days to the Sunday August 24 meeting of the
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development Heads of State to be held at
the Palace in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, when Western countries
and the UN Security Council expect the regional leaders to announce
sanctions against the two warring principals.
But sources indicate that Igad heads of state are
sharply divided over the issue of sanctions, and the Sunday meeting may
not yield much.
The agenda of the meeting, seen by The EastAfrican,
indicates that there will be opening statements from China, Italy, The
Troika, Ethiopia, the Igad Executive Secretary from 11-12 noon. Then a
closed session will ensue, where a progress report on the talks will be
discussed.
Sources also pointed out that this meeting comes
at a time that Machar’s group has realised that victory in the war is
unlikely and the reality of meeting the welfare of the soldiers is
daunting.
There is also frustration and donor fatigue by
Western countries, judging from the statement of Anne Richard, the US
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, who
not only further urged the two parties to resume “stalled talks” but
also said, “As much as Americans have funds for South Sudan, there is a
limit, I think, to how much aid can be provided in a year with so many
crises around the world”.
On Friday, the US Congress Committee of Foreign
Affairs called on the Security Council to levy sanctions against the
leaders and impose an arms embargo on South Sudan.
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