NAIROBI: In the beginning, South Sudan held so much promise. Africa's newest country had broken off the Sudan after a bloody civil war that lasted nearly two decades and cost 2 million lives.
After secession, all was looking up for the sprawling oil and mineral-rich world's number 193rd country and Africa's 54th, with its vast agricultural land and a people weary of war. Yet, alas, it faced great peril as well. Four years later, a raging civil war has devoured South Sudan. A political power struggle pitting President Salva Kiir against his estranged deputy, whom he sacked months before an attempted coup, Riek Machar, has cost nearly half a million lives and displaced up to a million people, according to the UN.
The implosion was never a matter of if, but when. Its leadership, seemingly a patchwork of former warlords, was brought together by the convenience to share the spoils of war. Predictably, South Sudan fell victim to these competing interests, sliding inexorably into the abyss imperilling the lives of 13 million people.
Yet this was avoidable. "The real test of leadership," wrote Tony Blair in his biography, A Journey, "is whether, in the final analysis, you put the country first." None of the leaders is backing down. It is disheartening to see what has become of the promise South Sudan held. What started as a tribal conflict between Mr Kiir's Dinka tribe, which forms 30 per cent of South Sudan's population, and Mr Machar's Nuer tribe, has metastasised into a full-blown civil war. Humanitarian agencies are battling to stop a crisis. With two years of poor or nil crop harvests, there is real danger of starvation and the onset of the long rains could make a bad situation worse.
"It breaks my heart to see what South Sudan has become today," said Susan Rice, who represented US President Obama at independence celebrations in Juba four years ago. That is understandable. Talks to negotiate a way out of the quagmire have borne no fruit as deadline after deadline to cease hostilities passed. None of the two will give an inch.
At some point, it was as if the world had washed its hands of South Sudan when talks in Ethiopia seemed to make no headway. The world's attention was deflected to other "more" serious conflicts on the globe. South Sudan was the quintessential African coup, where impatient tribal chiefs couldn't wait for their turn at the till.
In South Sudan's case, were millions of lives not involved, it would be okay to look the other way. The price of inaction is simply too high. It was therefore comforting to see President Obama get engaged in discussions to try and find peace in South Sudan. There is simply too much at stake not to seek a solution for the crisis. As such, more energy is needed to secure and reinforce the peace negotiations.
It begins with Kenya. A regional power, Kenya can and should pull its weight after the expiry of the August 17 ultimatum issued by the African Union. It can start by imposing sanctions on South Sudanese leaders whose families, in any case, reside in Nairobi. Commendably, President Uhuru Kenyatta has been at the forefront of peace initiatives.
Another viable option is to convince the warring parties to sit down and hammer out a deal that ensures there is a government of national unity as the factions figure out how to craft a new constitutional order that spells out a new order in which the military is first weaned off the past where they fought for separation from the North. In the end, a chaotic South Sudan is not good for Kenya. Financial institutions and Kenyan entrepreneurs have set up shop in Juba. Though it is up to the people of South Sudan to fix their problems, country 193 should not be left to sink.
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