South Sudan's President Salva Kiir. The president says the six-month
delay agreed with his rivals for the formation of a unity government is
not enough time to resolve sticking issues. PHOTO | AKUOT CHOL | AFP
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir said Wednesday that a
six-month delay agreed with his rivals for the formation of a unity
government was not enough time to resolve outstanding issues.
Warring
parties in a civil conflict that is now in its sixth year, agreed
Friday to delay the formation of a power-sharing government from May 12
for six months, after implementation of a peace deal ran aground.
Kiir's
main rival, his former vice president Riek Machar, had pushed for the
delay, while Kiir wanted to move forward with the unity government and
deal with outstanding issues later.
However the
president said even the extension would not be enough to resolve sticky
issues such as creating a unified army and agreeing on state boundaries.
"If
we cannot do them in the last eight months, what will make this succeed
this time around in six months?" Kiir told officials while launching
the country's new civil registry.
"I told my team (in
Addis Ababa)... that instead of six months, let us call for a one-year
delay," due to seasonal rains from May to November which make the
country's largely dirt roads impassable.
Recruitment
Kiir accused
Machar of continuing to recruit fighters during a ceasefire which has
largely held since a peace deal was signed in September.
"He
is now recruiting and this recruitment is prohibited in the agreement
and if it is a matter of recruitment, it does not cost me much to also
recruit," he said.
The United Nations has accused all sides of continuing to recruit fighters.
South
Sudan's war broke out in 2013, two years after it gained independence,
after Kiir accused his Machar of plotting a coup against him.
The
fighting has left 380,000 people dead and forced more than four million
South Sudanese—almost a third of the population—to flee their homes.
Numerous attempts to restore peace have failed.
Questions have mounted over Kiir's political will to implement the peace deal.
Hybrid court
It
emerged last week he had hired an American lobby firm to block the
formation of a hybrid African Union-South Sudan court to try war crimes,
stipulated in the peace agreement.
A statement by the International Crisis Group on Wednesday said the status quo was convenient for both sides.
"The
government has little incentive to execute a power-sharing arrangement
that, by definition, will dilute its authority," said the statement.
Meanwhile
Machar appears to want to use the planned cantonment process—under
which both sides' armed groups are to be assembled and later integrated
in a new, unified army—"as an opportunity to regroup and bankroll his
fighting force".
The Crisis Group said that for the
next six months to be more productive than the last eight, rival sides
would have to agree on what needs to be implemented before the formation
of the new government.
Machar is insisting he will only return from exile once the cantonment process has been completed.
"A
unity government preconditioned on a broader reform of the army and the
integration of Machar's disparate armed groups - many of which are
likely to resist such a move - might never be formed," said the
statement.
The Crisis Group also called for better
co-ordination among outside actors after the ouster of the accord's main
broker Omar al-Bashir, which has left a "diplomatic vacuum".
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