Note: This op-ed originally appeared in The Daily Beast and was written by the Enough Project’s John Prendergast and Brian Adeba.
The peace deal signed today between the government of South Sudan and armed opposition groups has significant shortcomings that could easily lead the country right back to full-scale war.
The South Sudanese have endured immense suffering in the last five years as the fighting has brought on food shortages and massive displacement. Nearly five million people have been forced out of their homes, inside and outside the country. Uncounted thousands are dead. The country’s economy is a write-off. Double-digit inflation has ensured that millions are on a knife’s edge of survival and the risk of famine still looms large.
At the root of the conflict in South Sudan is the existence of a state whose institutions have been hijacked and repurposed to benefit a few top-level politicians. Other groups, each clamoring for a bigger piece of the pie—or the whole of it—then engaged in a violent contest to capture the state, plunging the country into a deadly war…
Click here to read the full op-ed.