The government of South Sudan insisted on Wednesday that negotiations with rebel leaders remained on track, despite a fractious start to new peace talks in Ethiopia.
South Sudan’s foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, said his government was absolutely committed to the peace process and that the new talks should have begun late on Tuesday – although he wasn’t able to confirm whether this had actually happened.
“I can assure you that the government of the Republic of South Sudan is absolutely committed to the negotiation process going ahead, because we have already signed (an agreement on) the cessation of hostilities and the status of the detainees,” he said, speaking during a visit to London.
“Definitely they should have started yesterday evening – that is, the opening of the talks.”
Benjamin denied rebel claims that government forces had violated a ceasefire that was signed last month.
He said the rebels themselves had violated the ceasefire, blaming such violations on a lack of control among rebel forces rather than on the rebel leadership.
“We have the command and control of a normal national army,” he said. “The problem has been the rebels, and we believe that when the message trickles to them, maybe they will listen to their leader.”
Benjamin ruled out a key rebel demand – that forces from neighbouring Uganda withdraw from the country.
He said the Ugandan troops were there by international agreement to track down Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and that they would stay in South Sudan until they succeeded in locating him.
Immediate withdrawal wasn’t an option, he said.
“That is not possible because the Ugandan forces are there to eliminate the LRA. As soon as the LRA leader is located and eliminated, then the Ugandan forces can go, because that’s why they are there.”
Benjamin later addressed a news conference in which he insisted that the violence between government and rebel forces in the past two months had not been an ethnic conflict.
He said any government troops who had used the “ethnic card” would be held accountable.
“We will equally hold accountable those who got engaged in targeting killing, trying to use the ethnic card will, definitely within the organised forces. And already we have arrested 100 of those people who have been identified to have engaged in that.”
More than 800-thousand people have been displaced by massive fighting that broke out between the government and rebel soldiers in December 2013.
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