The European Union has been pushing warring sides in South Sudan to agree to an ‘absolute cessation of hostilities,’ saying the ‘serial violations’ of a previous truce was no longer acceptable.

In an interview from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he is attending the South Sudan peace talks, Alex Rondos the EU special envoy for the Horn of Africa spoke to The EastAfrican’s Rashid Abdi.

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Is there a political outcome that the European Union favours?

It is unlikely we will get a permanent political settlement at this stage.

What is required is an interim arrangement which will allow the country to be at peace and to be governed in the interim — the next one year or two — while intensive consultations continue on what seems to be unfinished business that which triggered the conflict originally.

This needs years of honest and intense discussions among a wide group of people in that country. I think that is absolutely imperative. I want to emphasise that it is impossible to think of a solution in South Sudan without the region.

South Sudan is part and parcel of the region. The conflict has a direct impact on the process of regional integration. The politicians of South Sudan need to stop gazing at their navel and to understand that the fate of their nation is intimately linked to that of the region.

It is not enough to hide behind the flag and sovereignty. They cannot let their errors bleed into other countries. South Sudan needs to be a legitimate exporter of wealth rather than illicit finance. This is the glue to wider regional economic integration.

We are confronted with a moral and philosophical question: Why was the international community unable to pick up the conflict signals in good time and engage in preventative diplomacy before the outbreak of violence? Why was the situation allowed to degenerate to this level?

I only took over responsibility for South Sudan in the beginning of November. So I have not been involved in many of the antecedents to this. But my impression is that actually people were aware, from what I understand, earlier on in the year, that some serious disputes had emerged within the SPLM.

There were a variety of efforts, from my understanding, among different people from the international community and the neighbours to try to get the leadership within the SPLM to find some form of accommodation, and apparently a lot of this had to do with the eventual transfer of power, what form it would take and how.

To answer your question more specifically — and I think this happens quite often — people were still sensitive to the idea that this was a sovereign nation; an independent nation, which had its own internal problems.

It was therefore difficult under those circumstances to be able to detect how rapidly the situation could deteriorate and eventually collapse into conflict. And that happens very often in different places.

It is not true that people were sitting on their hands for eight months. It is clear there were all sorts of efforts, both from the neighbours and from the wider international community.

You visited South Sudan and had a meeting with Riek Machar, the rebel leader, and you are now in Addis Ababa for the peace talks. What kind of discussions did you have?

My role and that of the other envoys is to find a peaceful settlement. What outcome are we looking for? I think this is the important issue. The answer is that, somehow, one has to find a way to get the violence to stop.

It is not good enough anymore to tolerate the accumulation of serial violation of the cessation of hostilities, because every time it is violated, another layer of mistrust, of vengeance, is created. So that has become an overarching priority at the moment.

What are involved there at the end of the day are two specific things: One, that the two parties and, in my view, the two leaders, have to commit themselves publicly to telling their forces to desist (from initiating hostilities). I assume they still have command and control of their forces.

Second: it is to expedite the deployment of a force in the country that has enough mandate to keep people separated and to deter either party from launching an offensive.

This deployment could occur in the next few weeks. So I am worried about the gap between now and that deployment and I am keen, therefore, to see that deployment occurs as quickly as possible.

What offers are now on the table to persuade the warring parties to end hostilities and agree to a peaceful settlement?

At the moment, the parties are discussing — under the auspices of Igad — so I do not have the latest. However, in effect, they are being urged to commit themselves to an absolute cessation of hostilities. In fact, it is not so much an offer as a demand.

To be quite frank, what this requires, in my view, is a United Nations mission with a much more robust mandate that would guarantee effective deterrence. But in the meantime, one relies on the goodwill of the respective political leaderships.

Would the EU be willing to commit troops to that mission?

No. That is absolutely not in consideration. We have the region prepared to commit troops who are battle-ready; who know the terrain much better than distant foreigners; and are much closer.

You have regional troops who have demonstrated they can be engaged elsewhere in the region. I think it is a step backward to send European troops. We have possibilities now and we must make use of them as quickly as we can.

Reports suggest South Sudan is on the cusp of a major humanitarian disaster and aid agencies are warning of a famine that could potentially be on the same scale as the Ethiopian one of the early 1980s. Is this an assessment the EU shares?

Yes. But it is linked to the conflict. This famine is utterly preventable. It is the consequence of a political mismanagement and the conflict. It is therefore a man-made famine that could have been avoided. It is the political leadership in South Sudan that is responsible for this.

A country which was always susceptible to food shortages was at the very moment when the planting season was supposed to occur thrown into conflict. We got a million people displaced. It is estimated that half of the cattle are not accounted for.

So we have all the ingredients of a serious food crisis. And it is not for want of effort from the international community that we are in this position. Clearly, a humanitarian crisis seems inevitable.

And in the midst of all these, the political leadership is unable to agree a cessation of hostilities — a humanitarian peace. I find that utterly repugnant.

There is a campaign by civil society groups in the region to initiate processes that would see some of the key leaders held accountable for the violence. Is there a possibility that the EU may consider some form of sanctions against individuals deemed responsible for much of the violence?

The overriding concern today is, peace first and only then deal with issues of impunity. It has been made very public by both the EU, the US and the AU, through various statements, that people have to be held to account.

There are preparations under way to make certain people subject to certain sanctions. We will see when and how, if that becomes necessary. This would be determined by how people behave in the coming days and weeks.