South Sudan peace deal will fail

So Salva Kiir has finally committed pen to paper even though it took a draft for sanctions from the United States at the UN Security Council to nudge him into acquiescence. But acquiescence is not the same as acceptance - or insight. Kiir went into the last round of the negotiations saying that a peace deal that cannot be sustained should not be signed in the first place. His rival - and future vice president - Riek Machar also expressed reservations about how they could work together considering the difficulties they experienced in the past.

It is highly probable that this agreement - the latest in a string of at least seven ceasefires - will be violated long before its provisions are even partially implemented.

Numerous commentators say the main mistakes that were made at the birth of the young nation of South Sudan in 2011 can be traced back to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between north and south Sudan signed in 2005. Those mistakes were the cause of the conflict and have yet to be addressed.

That analysis is both right and wrong. The CPA was signed after protracted negotiations and enormous pressure from the US and other mediators. Many issues were left undecided, such as national resources and the separation of power. This is a recipe for disaster not only in South Sudan, but in other parts of Africa and the Middle East as well.

And yet with a measure of goodwill, it would have been possible to reach agreement on how power should be divided up between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar, on cabinet posts and oil revenues. But - as all who observed the arrogance of Salva Kiir and the shifting loyalties of Riek Machar are well aware - that goodwill never materialized.

In the meantime, this has become irrelevant because Kiir and Machar have lost control of their supporters. Ex-generals go on sprees killing and plundering for profit. Short-term gains are their only goal; loyalty to the population, who supported the struggle for independence from Sudan for decades, doesn't count at all.

Because South Sudan is awash with weapons, disputes over land, water and other resources quickly degenerate into orgies of violence. Militia commanders and elements of the government forces, the SPLA, vie for power and territory while inflicting misery on a traumatized population. According to a recent UN report, prisoners have been castrated and children - after being tied together - have had their throats cut. This shows that the conflict is plunging to ever deepening levels of brutality.

Public space in South Sudan is drenched in violence, and nothing remains of the tender hopes that sprang up in the first few months of independence. Women had hoped a flourishing civil society would offer them greater opportunities; these days they go in fear of being raped. Nowhere is the primacy of the patriarch enforced so brutally as in South Sudan. The media have been muzzled; attempts to integrate the militia into the regular armed forces have only half succeeded at best.

You should only sign something that you will enjoy later, Kiir said before the start of the last round of negotiations. He omitted to mention that the South Sudanese have been denied enjoyment of their independence - the growth of their young nation - largely because of his policies. On the contrary, the South Sudanese people are caught up in a vicious circle of violence and counter-violence miring them in misery.

The United Nations, the African Union, the US, the UK and Norway, who were all involved in the negotiations, would be well advised not to celebrate the signing of this agreement, but to treat it with skepticism and quietly prepare an arms embargo and draw up a draft resolution for sanctions - to be enacted in the likely event of a renewed escalation in the violence. The people of South Sudan deserve such foresight.

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