Dominance of South Sudan's ruling elite is a threat to peace and stability

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir with a delegation from the United Nations Security Council, including US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power (right) during a tour of South Sudan’s state house on September 4. [PHOTO: AFP]

There is no end in sight to South Sudan’s man-made apocalypse so long as its ruling “gunclass” runs the show.

These ethno-regional, sectarian warlords have benefited from the conflict through organised violence and plunder. On a number of occasions, they have organised pogroms against their own people on the grounds of ethnicity, political affiliation and social geography. The “gunclass” has tapped dangerously into sediments of age-old ethnic cleavages as a means of maintaining power, literally, by the barrel of the gun.