Obama seeks South Sudan peace accord

President arrives in Ethiopia

President Barack Obama (bottom) greets Kenyans after delivering a speech at the Safaricom Indoor Arena in Nairobi on Sunday.
President Barack Obama (bottom) greets Kenyans after delivering a speech at the Safaricom Indoor Arena in Nairobi on Sunday.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- President Barack Obama arrived in Ethiopia on Sunday to talk about regional terrorism and make a final push to get South Sudan to accept an Africa-negotiated agreement to end the violence and atrocities there.

photo

AP

President Barack Obama is given a bouquet of flowers as he arrives at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia on Sunday. Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to visit Ethiopia.

But senior aides to the president said they aren't optimistic that there will be a breakthrough at the meeting set for today or before an Aug. 17 deadline set by the negotiators.

An administration official said Obama will seek a unified stance on penalties if the deadline is missed. That could include an arms embargo and sanctions targeting individuals' assets and ability to travel, the official said. The goal would be to impose sanctions backed by some combination of the U.S., European Union, regional countries and the United Nations. It's unclear how quickly the sanctions could take effect.

The president plans to meet with African leaders for about 90 minutes in Addis Ababa today to talk mainly about South Sudan. He arrived in the capital late Sunday after spending the weekend in Nairobi, Kenya.

Present for the meeting will be the presidents of Kenya and Uganda, the prime minister of Ethiopia, the head of the African Union and the Sudanese foreign minister, according to the official.

The meeting comes as African negotiators prepare a final offer to end the violence in South Sudan, where rival factions have led to widespread killings and human-rights violations.

Fighting between South Sudanese government and rebel forces led by the former vice president broke out in December 2013 and has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million, according to the U.N.

U.S. officials have been preparing for Obama's participation in the meeting for weeks, with calls to regional leaders by Secretary of State John Kerry and national security adviser Susan Rice, among others.

Obama thinks the time is right for a concerted regional campaign to pressure the factions into negotiation, the official said. The parties have been unwilling so far to relent in their fight, and South Sudan's humanitarian situation is worsening, the official added.

As many as 4.6 million people are facing severe food shortages, with about 250,000 children at risk from rapidly worsening nutrition, the U.N. said in a statement released this month.

"I am deeply shocked by what I have seen," Stephen O'Brien, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said Saturday after a four-day visit to South Sudan. "Families have endured horrendous atrocities ... including killing, abduction, and the recruitment of children into armed groups. Women and girls have been beaten, raped and set on fire."

The U.N. has a peacekeeping force of 12,500 troops in South Sudan, while the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional bloc, monitors the conflict.

The country split from Sudan in 2011 after a referendum in which an overwhelming majority voted to secede.

A senior official said Sunday that the U.S. prefers to see both sides accept the negotiated plan but isn't expecting that to happen.

"I don't think anybody should have high expectations that this is going to yield a breakthrough," the official said. "The parties have shown themselves to be utterly indifferent to their country and their people, and that is a hard thing to rectify."

Both parties are part of the problem and have had "many, many opportunities" to work things out with regional leaders, the official told the media pool. The official said the parties will face "sustained and concerted pressure" if there is no resolution.

The African Union has said it could send troops to South Sudan if an intervention became "necessary" to end the war.

East African negotiators presented a compromise proposal to government and rebel representatives Friday in the latest effort to forge a power-sharing deal.

The African Union Peace and Security Council "agrees, should this become necessary, to deploy an African force to bring the ongoing tragedy in South Sudan to a definite end," it said Saturday in an emailed statement.

A committee comprising Algeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda will study an African Union report on the civil war that has policy recommendations, the council said. African leaders will consider the committee's suggestions by the end of the month, it said.

Uganda, which militarily intervened to back South Sudan's President Salva Kiir's government shortly after the conflict began, shouldn't be part of the discussions as it's involved in the war, rebel leader and former Vice President Riek Machar said in a statement Friday. His movement has called for the African Union report, which includes a dissenting opinion, to be made public.

'Root out corruption'

Before leaving Kenya on Sunday, Obama pressed the nation of his father's birth to root out corruption, treat women and minorities as equal citizens, and take responsibility for its future.

Closing his visit with an address to the Kenyan people, Obama traced the arc of the country's evolution from colonialism to independence, as well as his own family's history there. Today, Obama said, young Kenyans are no longer constrained by the limited options of his grandfather, a cook for the country's former British rulers, or his father, who left to seek an education in America.

"Because of Kenya's progress -- because of your potential -- you can build your future right here, right now," Obama told the crowd of 4,500 packed into a sports arena in the capital, Nairobi. But he bluntly warned that Kenya must make "tough choices" to bolster its fragile democracy and fast-growing economy.

The bulk of Obama's address was a commentary on the East African nation's future. He spent considerable time warning about the risks of government corruption, calling it an "anchor" that could weigh down the country's promising future.

"Too often here in Kenya corruption is tolerated because that's how it's always been done," he said. "Here in Kenya, it's time to change habits."

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has taken steps to tackle corruption by suspending four Cabinet secretaries and 16 other senior officials amid an investigation into allegations of dishonesty. But the action has been met with skepticism by the public because in the past, suspensions of senior officials haven't resulted in anyone being convicted of a crime. Some officials even returned to their jobs before investigations were complete.

Kenyatta has been under public pressure to address corruption after reviews of his 2-year-old government that claimed his administration is more corrupt than previous administrations.

Obama urged an end to old tribal and ethnic divisions that are "doomed to tear our country apart. He spent significant time imploring Kenyans to respect the rights of women and girls, saying that marginalizing half of a country's population is "stupid." And he called for an end to forced marriages for girls who should otherwise be attending school and the tradition known as "genital mutilation."

"These traditions may date back centuries. They have no place in the 21st century," he said.

After his speech, Obama met with political opposition leaders, then with a group of African youth and civil leaders on ways to promote civil society efforts. He told the civil society group that "the country is going to be better off" if it can cultivate habits of public participation and freedom.

Obama's visit, his first as president, captivated a country that views him as a local son. Crowds lined the roadways to watch the presidential motorcade speed through the city Sunday, some climbing on rooftops to get a better view. The audience inside the arena chanted his name as he finished his remarks.

The president paused longer than normal atop the stairs to Air Force One to wave to the crowd before leaving on Sunday afternoon. He arrived two hours later in Ethiopia, where he met with diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in the evening.

Information for this article was contributed by Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times; by Mike Dorning, Margaret Talev and William Davison of Bloomberg News; by Julie Pace, Darlene Superville, Christopher Torchia and Tom Odula of The Associated Press.

A Section on 07/27/2015

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