South Sudan rebels have warned the government that it risks a “return to war” by ordering an increase in the number of regional states and undermining the power sharing clauses of a peace deal.
President Salva Kiir on Friday ordered the number of regional states to be increased by nearly three times, from the current 10 to 28, rendering the agreed power sharing formula redundant.
Rebel spokesman Mabior Garang said that the objective of the unilateral decision was to arouse tribal sentiments in the country, so that war can return.
He warned that this could effectively cause the collapse of the peace deal.
The army and the rebels have repeatedly traded blames, accusing each other of breaking the ceasefire agreement, the eighth such agreement to have been signed.
Months of negotiations led to the internationally-brokered deal, including a transitional government and a complex power-sharing formula in which the reels get a share of the seats at a national and state levels.
The government says that the expansion which will see the three key states of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei split into 10 separate states, is meant to devolve power to the people.
Both sides are accused of having perpetrated ethnic massacres, recruited and killed children and carried out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of populations to ‘cleanse’ areas of their opponents.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday it had been forced once again to pull out of its facility in Leer in southern Unity state amid “intense fighting”.
