Subsequent to a message that circulated around the diplomatic community and media circle on Thursday afternoon, those who closely followed the ongoing South Sudan crisis rushed to the Sheraton Addis. Eager to witness the first breakthrough in the three week-long intense negotiations between the warring factions, they flocked to Dashen Hall an hour before the scheduled time.
Due to the high demand for the event, the small hall, which has the capacity to accommodate just 30 people on normal days, doubled its number of chairs, but still could not contain the whole crowd. Let alone being able to facilitate the protocol of Ambassadors and other dignitaries, the space was not even big enough to fully entertain all members of the government and rebel negotiation teams.
Staff of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) – the East African regional block that spearheaded the mediation effort – moved the most anticipated event to a larger hall nearby. Once the venue shifted, the disagreement over the seating arrangement of the negotiation teams took around 30 minutes to settle.
The teams, who settled their differences on the cessation of hostilities and question of detainees and came to sign the agreement, aggressively argued with IGAD staff. They debated over which faction would enter first, and sit on the first and second rows. Finally, they agreed to equally share the chairs across the rows.
Anxiety and restlessness was high in the crowd, who were made to wait for almost two hours before the beginning of the event. Many had observed high hopes of a ceasefire signing ceremony dashed out on several occasions over the last two weeks. When Seyoum Mesfin, Chairperson of the IGAD mediation team, entered the Simien Salon with Nhial Deng Nhial and Taban Deng, leaders of the government and rebel negotiation teams, respectively, that skepticism soon disappeared.
After welcoming speeches, remarks and a keynote address, Nhial Deng and Taban Deng signed the agreements of cessation of hostilities and status of detainees. When the two chief negotiators exchanged the signed documents, the South Sudanese gathered to observe the signing ceremony ululated and cheered.
Rose Lisok, 46, a mother of three, who came from Juba to attend the signing ceremony, was among the cheering crowd. She lost three of her relatives during the fighting in the capital Juba. She claimed that due to the violence her other relatives in the Central Equatoria state were left without any shelter.
“We just want to cease the killing of our innocent people, as well as the massive displacement and distraction that is going on,” Rose told Fortune. “We appreciate this.”
The African Union (AU); the European Union (EU); the Troika group, which embraced US, UK and Norway, and the Ethiopian government all agreed that the signing of the agreements is a “first step forward” to bringing about a long lasting solution to South Sudan. This opinion was further progressed by the chief mediator, Seyoum.
“This is more than one step,” Seyoum said during the signing ceremony. “It is truly a milestone.”
The signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement is a key step in salvaging and reversing the situation, according to Seyoum. Despite his mediation efforts, the situation has only got worse since fighting broke out in Juba in mid-December 2013. Due to the violence, 10,000 people have been killed, half a million people internally displaced and around 112,000 forced to flee to neighbouring countries, including Ethiopia, according to the United Nations (UN).
Despite UN data, the mediators believe that the full magnitude of the human suffering and the economic social and political consequences of the conflict are yet to be known. Such understanding also reflected on the preamble of the seven pages long Cessation of Hostilities agreement. The agreement considered the results of the conflict as a “great loss of human life, destruction of property and massive displacement”.
To seek a peaceful solution for the crisis, the two rival parties agreed on 11 points stipulated in the agreement. The main part is the truce that abides the two rival parties to a ceasefire after 24 hours from the signing of the agreement.
The two parties obliged to freeze their forces at the place they are in and refrain from any action that could lead to military confrontations. The accord also includes the cessation of hostile propaganda, protection of civilians and opening of a humanitarian corridor.
The warring factions accepted the formation of a team and technical committee to monitor and verify whether they are biding by the agreement or not. The committee and team are expected to be set up during a two week break of negotiation, starting from January 24.
The composition of the Monitoring and Verification Team (MVT), which observes the implementation of the cessation hostilities, was one of the debatable issues during the negotiation, according to sources. The agreement stated that the team will be composed of representatives drawn from IGAD member states, the two rival parties and partners.
In its second draft agreement tabled for negotiation, the IGAD proposed that representatives, who are drawn from member states, should be non-partisan to the current conflict. In its amendment of the agreement, the South Sudan government rejected this assertion.
Since the beginning of the conflict, rebels allied to the ousted Vice President Reik Machar (PhD) accused the neighbouring Uganda of fighting along with government soldiers. Uganda previously denied the allegation and said that its forces went to South Sudan to protect and evacuate its citizens. The country also claimed that it went to South Sudan on the invitation of the South Sudan government.
Uganda later admitted that its forces helped government forces to recapture Bor, the capital of Jongeli state, from the rebels. The withdrawal of Ugandan forces from South Sudan was another sticky issue during the negotiations.
Though the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement did not refer to a specific country, it proposed the “redeployment or progressive withdrawal of forces, armed groups and allied forces invited by either side of the parties from the theatre of operations”. The rebel side seemed satisfied on this expression.
“If the government is committed to peace, there is no need for the Ugandan troops to be there,” Mabior Garang, a member of a negotiation team of the opposition and oldest son of the late John Garang (PhD), told Fortune. “By Ugandan troops withdrawing, it showed good faith on the side of the government that they do not want to continue the war.”
The ink was barely dry on the peace agreement when rebels accused the Uganda troops of moving from Juba to Wow, a town located in Northwestern South Sudan in the Western Bahr el Ghazal state. The plan was for the Ugandan troops to withdraw from the “theatre of operations” and moved to the oil fields in Unity state, according to Yohannis Musa Pouk, assistant spokesperson for the rebel negotiation team.
“This is a clear violation of the agreement,” Yohannis told media, before departing to South Sudan for a two week break in the negotiations.
He also claimed that the government forces attacked their positions in the Unity and Jongeli states. He said the opposition forces responded in self-defense. The blame game and the continued fighting witnessed within the 24-hour window makes Seyoum’s fear real.
“Agreements and peace deals, apparently signed in good faith are many, but those successfully implemented are far fewer,” Seyoum said. “Equally, such settlements may only provide a temporary reprieve before violence escalates again.”
If the two parties could not hold the peace deal, it will definitely have an impact on the second phase of the negotiations, which will cover political issues and the release of 11 political figures and former ministers detained during an alleged coup attempt.
Though one of the agreements signed on Thursday evening is about the “status of detainees”, the two parties have not yet reached an agreement on the timetable of their release. The three page agreement acknowledges the role the detainees can play in the ongoing dialogue of South Sudan. It also considered them as a part of the all-inclusive reconciliation process, which is believed to resolve the current crisis.
“If it is up to us, what we wanted was for them to be released immediately upon signing, but you do not always get what you want in any negotiation,” Mabior Garang told Fortune.
The European Union proposed that the detainees should be released to the custody of the IGAD, before the political discussion restarted on February 7. But the chance of them being released within two weeks time seems small.
President Salva Kiir announced hours before the signing ceremony that there is a “room for him to issue an amnesty” for the detainees, but it cannot happen before they went through the judicial process.
‘There will be an amnesty for the political detainees, but it will be after investigations,” President Salva Kiir stated on the official Twitter account of the Government of South Sudan. “When the investigations are done, they will know which article they are being charged with because they will be taken to court.”
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