Enough Projects published a report unveiling that entangled and competing regional interests in South Sudan are stumbles to ending ongoing civil war in the country.
In a statement, the report entitled “Neighborhood Watch: Mobilizing Regional Action for Peace in South Sudan”, Enough’s founding director John Prendergast explores dynamics of power and profit fueling armed conflicts in the Horn, East and Central Africa.
Enough Project Sudan and South Sudan Policy Analyst Justine Fleischner says “South Sudan’s peace process is playing out like a deadly poker game among regional elites where the stakes keep getting raised, but nobody has a particularly good hand’.
The report indicates regional players like Uganda and Sudan have placed bets on South Sudan conflict, providing support for either the government or opposition forces to maintain access to the country’s natural resource wealth.
Director Prendergast says US President Barrack Obama will travel to Africa in July and that South Sudan will be front and centre on the agenda of his meetings with regional leaders, recommending him to use his interactions with East African regional leaders to build support for much greater pressure on warring parties to end the war.
Policy Analyst Akshaya Kumar observes that Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni serving as mediators of the conflict one day met President Salva Kiir the next day to discuss joint regional infrastructure projects.
The Enough Project report recommends the US and other international partners to focus on cutting off cash flows fueling South Sudan conflict and building political will and technical capacity for regional sanctions enforcement.