On October 31, South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar entered the capitol city of Juba for the first time in two years to attend a peace ceremony. This was a significant moment in South Sudan’s civil war, which is among the deadliest and most destructive in the world.
The ceremony in Juba was intended as a confidence building measure toward the implementation of the peace deal to end this conflict. Earlier this summer, Machar and South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir signed that peace deal, formally ending a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced over a million more. But the extent to which this deal will succeed where others have failed is still very much uncertain.
On the line with me to discuss the peace deal is Alan Boswell. He is a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who has been following events in South Sudan for years. We discuss the roots of the conflict, what lead to this peace agreement, and what can make this new peace agreement take hold.
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