South Sudan's rebel leader and now Vice
President Riek Machar, center-left, walks with President Salva Kiir,
center-right, after being sworn in at the presidential palace in the
capital Juba, South Sudan Tuesday, April 26, 2016. Machar returned to
the capital Tuesday to become vice president and to try to end the civil
war that in two and a half years has killed tens of thousands of people
and forced more than 2 million from their homes.
Jason Patinkin
AP Photo
JUBA, South Sudan's rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the
capital Juba on Tuesday afternoon, to become vice president and to try
to end the civil war that in two and a half years has killed tens of
thousands of people and forced more than 2 million from their homes. After
landing at Juba International Airport, where doves were released and a
welcoming crowd ululated, Machar briefly addressed the press before
driving to the presidential palace to be sworn in as First Vice
President to President Salva Kiir, according to a peace deal signed
eight months ago under intense international pressure.
Machar flew from Gambella, Ethiopia, just across the border from his rebel headquarters in South Sudan, on a U.N. plane. "I'm
happy to be back," Machar told reporters at the airport. "The war was
vicious. We have lost a lot of people in it and we need to bring our
people together so that they can unite, reconcile, heal the wounds, the
mental wounds that they have." "There will be challenges ahead,
there will be obstacles but as long as there is political will we can
overcome all these challenges, all these obstacles," he said. After
the swearing in ceremony, Kiir said, "Peace is the only choice for us
to relieve our people the undeserved suffering associated with armed conflict enforced upon them. I believe this is the only way to return
South Sudan to the path of peace, stability and prosperity." The
August peace deal calls for a two-year transitional government of
ministers and parliamentarians from the two sides before new elections. Machar's
return is one of the biggest steps toward realizing the peace deal
meant to end the fighting, but should not be met with "huge optimism,"
cautioned Jacob Chol, dean of Juba University's political science
department. "It doesn't mean that the implementation of the peace
deal is fully on board or fully implemented, because a lot of issues are
yet to be sorted out in the agreement," Chol told The Associated Press.
At the United Nations, the Security Council welcomed Machar's return
and swearing-in and strongly urged both leaders to quickly form the
transitional government, fully implement the peace agreement, respect
human rights and deal with the "dire humanitarian situation." Sudan's
deputy U.N. ambassador, Joseph Moum Malok, told the council the
national unity government will be formed "in a day or two" after
consultations with different parties. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power hailed Machar's return. "This
is clearly an important step for South Sudan. After months of delay and
obstructionism, both sides compromised to make this happen. It's the
best hope that South Sudan has had in a very long time," said Power, who
warned that significant problems remain and urged the international
community to maintain pressure on both sides to implement the peace
deal. Despite Machar's return, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve
Ladsous called the situation in South Sudan "very worrying," saying it's
vital to change the political and security trends in the country "if we
wish to see a possibility for the peace process to succeed." Many
in South Sudan worry that Machar's return will only return the bitterly
divided country to its pre-war status quo. The war started when
fighting began in Juba between Dinka and Nuer soldiers, before
government troops massacred Nuer citizens in the city, sparking revenge
attacks against Dinka elsewhere in the country, according to an African
Union commission of inquiry. Machar, an ethnic Nuer, was Kiir's
vice president before the war. Kiir, a Dinka, fired him in mid-2013.
Machar then vowed to run against Kiir for the presidency, sparking a
chain of events that led to the outbreak of conflict in December that
year which ripped open deeply ethnic hatred and pushed parts of the country to the edge of famine as fleeing civilians fled their fields to
hide in forests and swamps. Now the transitional government must
end the fighting, resettle millions of displaced, stabilize the country's collapsing economy, reintegrate the split army, and cooperate
with a court to be set up by the African Union to try perpetrators of
atrocities.
Both men's troops are accused of horrific human rights abuses,
including gang rape and murder of civilians along ethnic lines. A U.N.
panel of experts said Kiir and Machar themselves bear command
responsibility for troops who allegedly committed crimes. "Those
shown to be responsible for particularly outrageous atrocities should be
brought to justice, but it is also very important that truth is
established in a much broader sense," British Ambassador to South Sudan
Tim Morris told the AP. "Reconciliation is not simply an event, this is
something which will take generations." There are serious doubts
that the transitional government can do all that is asked of it due to
deep mistrust between the two sides. Machar's return was repeatedly
delayed over the last week as the two sides made last minute excuses and
accusations. Despite the peace deal, fighting has continued with
some of the worst atrocities taking place after the signing last August.
On Monday night, clashes broke out in the government-controlled town of
Bentiu. Rocket propelled grenades and bullets landed inside a UN base
where over 100,000 people are sheltering, injuring a child, according to
the U.N. and aid workers. Nearly 200,000 mostly Nuer people
shelter in overcrowded U.N. bases around the country which have
repeatedly come under deadly attack by soldiers. The residents of a camp
in Juba where 28,000 Nuer shelter will not go home until the peace deal
is fully implemented including provisions to take suspects of crimes to
court, camp leader Thod Mayei told AP. "We cannot go just randomly," he said. "We need to know the leaders of South Sudan can show us that this peace is a real peace."
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