Negotiating peace in South Sudan's civil conflict

Negotiations

South Sudan Warring Factions Agree on Unity Government. By Voice of America.

Situation

The conflict between two warring factions within the government of Southern Sudan started in December 2013 where the rebel leader Riek Machar has been at war with the president Salva Kiir. The situation has deteriorated with the death of more that 10,000 people and displacement of millions from their homes. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which is a regional bloc in that part of Africa has tried over the months to bring understanding and end the killings in Southern Sudan until a breakthrough was reached on November 8th 2014 where both parties agreed to cease violence and continue with the negotiation on the formation of a transitional coalition government which would ultimately see the elections being conducted.

Interests

The Salva Kiir side wanted to have a centralized government system where the president had the say over the resources allocation and also the appointing authority. Yet on the camp of Riek Machar, they wanted to have a Federal governance system where the say on the resources allocation does not rest with the government and that each region has its own governance system which would demystify the presidency and devolve powers.

Persuasion/tactics

Having seen that the negotiations ran for almost a year now, there were several negotiations approaches that have been used in the process up to the last approach that was used to set the two into the negotiation path.

Anchoring was initially used by the rebel leader Riek Machar when he sent a peace envoy to negotiations in Ethiopia in January 2014 (Daily Nation, 2014). This was soon followed by the supporters of Salva Kiir who also agreed to send their envoy for negotiations.

The IGAD also used the agenda-setting approach in their mediation in the ongoing negotiations, they outlined what was of importance to the region and how they were to be achieved. It was agreed that the violence need to stop, the two factions needed to have representatives in the negotiations, the two factions needed to present their demands and each side had to execute the promise they gave at the negotiations.

Contrast effect was also used by Riek Machar the initial times when he demanded that the entire governance system had to be dissolved and a fresh election conducted, of course this did not work to the present day of negotiations.

Intimidation; this was also an approach that was used by Salva Kiir who is the president and intimidated Riek Machar due to the control that he had over the army of Southern Sudan. Kiir also indicated several times that if Riek Machar did not want to settle for the position of the prime minister that would be created (of course with little powers) then he would have to wait till the next elections and beat him to ascend to presidency. The IGAD has at last used the intimidation and threat approach too since on November 8th 2014, they made it clear to the two parties that they had only 15 days to come to an agreement or else the sanctions, travel ban and assets freeze would take effect.