The national interests of some member-states of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) are preventing the East African bloc from imposing sanctions on leading belligerents in South Sudan, a Washington-based advocacy group said in a report last week.

Co-ordinated punitive measures by Igad’s seven members could help push the warring forces to end the conflict, the report suggests.

Igad has repeatedly threatened to levy sanctions against South Sudanese deemed responsible for impeding a peace settlement, but it has not made good on any of those threats.

The United Nations Security Council has likewise refrained from sanctioning any South Sudanese, despite having put in place a framework for barring international travel and freezing foreign-held assets of war-makers.

Uganda has also lobbied at the UN against such actions, according to the new report by the Enough Project, which campaigns to halt and prevent atrocities in Africa.

Uganda’s military intervention on the side of the South Sudan government has served as a key factor in Igad’s inability to impose sanctions, the report finds.

Kampala acknowledges that it has deployed about 3,000 troops in South Sudan. But “other sources suggest the number is likely much higher,” the Enough Project notes. The Ugandan forces’ mission, which includes defending foreign economic interests in the country, “appears to have garnered the support of the US and regional states,” the report says.

The US has imposed its own sanctions on four South Sudanese military figures — two on the government side, two on the rebel side — but may be reluctant to try to force the removal of Uganda’s apparent veto over co-ordinated Igad sanctions.

“Interviews with regional diplomats and analysts revealed a perception that the US has not exerted the necessary pressure on President [Yoweri] Museveni to limit his military and diplomatic intervention in the conflict,” the report states.

The Obama administration has also explicitly stated its opposition to the overthrow of the government headed by President Salva Kiir.

Rebel leader Riek Machar’s alleged support for the Lord’s Resistance Army helps explain Uganda’s military backing of the South Sudan government, the report says. Machar’s close ties to Sudan President Omar Al Bashir is also seen as a significant factor, given the regional jockeying for influence between Kampala and Khartoum.

Igad member Sudan is itself a target of international sanctions, and would be unlikely to enforce a set of similar punishments against South Sudan, especially if they are applied equally to the rebel forces.

“Sudan’s primary economic interest is in maintaining access to South Sudan’s oil and oil transit fees and protecting Chinese investments in the oil installations and pipelines that exit at Port Sudan,” the Enough report says.

“Some Sudanese experts also suggest Khartoum has leveraged its relationship with SPLA-IO [the Machar forces] to ‘break the backs’ of the Sudanese armed opposition in South Kordofan and Blue Nile by cutting off their access to critical supply routes.”

As for Kenya, its banking interests in South Sudan have undermined domestic support for targeted sanctions against South Sudanese elites, the report observes.

KCB has more than 20 branches in South Sudan, and that the country accounted for about 9 per cent of KCB Group’s total pre-tax profit in the first nine months of 2013. Kenya’s Equity Bank, on the other hand, has five branches in South Sudan.

Long standing ties between business and political elites in Kenya and South Sudan also contribute to Nairobi’s apparent unwillingness to support Igad-initiated sanctions, Enough suggests.

“Many South Sudanese officials maintain their homes, families and assets in Nairobi.”

Enough Project analyst Akshaya Kumar said, “entangled interests have obstructed forward momentum on peace.”

“Presidents [Uhuru] Kenyatta and Museveni serve as mediators of the conflict on one day, and then meet with President Kiir the next day to discuss joint regional infrastructure projects,” said Ms Kumar. “But if external donors make it clear that peace is a prerequisite for development, those same dynamics can be leveraged to end the conflict.”

It may be as much in Uganda’s national interests to help bring about a settlement of the 18-month-long conflict as it is to ensure the survival of Kiir’s government, the report suggests.

Uganda is losing substantial amounts of money not only in terms of the costs of its troop deployment in South Sudan, but also in the form of lost export earnings.

READ: Region counts the cost as S.Sudan crisis goes into second year

South Sudan is Uganda’s biggest export market, the report notes. And as a direct result of the civil war, Uganda’s annual exports to South Sudan have fallen by about 60 per cent, the report says, citing The EastAfrican as its source.

The US might be able to help persuade Kenya to shift its position on South Sudan sanctions, the Enough Project adds. The report urges the dispatch of a high-level US delegation to Nairobi to offer technical support on sanctions enforcement and to assure Kenyan authorities that “legitimate Kenyan interests will not be targeted by the sanctions regime.”

Kenya has other financial reasons to facilitate a peace settlement. An influx of more than 45,000 refugees from South Sudan has added to the burden Kenya shoulders in hosting half a million Somali refugees.

Remittances from an estimated 13,000 Kenyans working in South Sudan can also be seen as potentially encouraging Nairobi to take stronger action in support of peace, the report says.

“Other significant economic losses include Kenya’s diminished trade with and investment in South Sudan,” the report adds.