South Sudan’s leaders: Kiir and Machar

Juba. After more than two years locked in combat, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and arch-rival rebel chief Riek Machar are due to forge a unity government.

Machar is set to become vice-president, the post he held from 2005-2013 before being sacked. Five months later, war broke out.

Both Kiir and Machar are former rebel leaders who rose to power during vast Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war between north and south -- a conflict in which the men also fought each other -- before South Sudan won freedom in 2011.

United Nations experts say Kiir and Machar are both responsible for most of the violence committed during the war, which has seen tens of thousands killed.

Civil war in South Sudan erupted in December 2013 after Kiir accused troops loyal to his rival of staging a failed coup, a claim Machar denied.

The two leaders come from the south’s two main ethnic groups -- Kiir from the Dinka people and Machar from the Nuer -- tribes that are themselves split into multiple and sometimes rival clans.

Here are profiles of the two leaders:

SALVA KIIR

The ex-guerrilla commander, usually sporting a cowboy hat, was for years more accustomed to leading troops in a bush war than making political speeches. He reluctantly took power only after the death of his chief, South Sudan’s first president John Garang, in a 2005 helicopter crash.

But since Kiir oversaw the birth of a nation whose southern capital Juba peacefully broke free from former enemies in Khartoum in July 2011, he has struggled to stem corruption and to rebuild after decades of conflict.

Huge sums from oil revenues have been squandered on Kiir’s watch, with the president in 2012 writing a desperate letter to 75 past and present officials begging for the return of an estimated $4 billion in stolen funds.

Born in 1951 in the remote cattle-herding state of Warrap among the majority Dinka people, Kiir spent much of his life carrying a gun. He still sports the thick beard of the bush rebel.

A career soldier, he fought in both Sudan’s first civil war, lasting from soon after independence from Britain in 1956 until 1972, as well as the subsequent 1983-2005 conflict.

A devout Roman Catholic, Kiir has often given sermons at the cathedral in Juba, towering down from the pulpit wearing his trademark hat, a gift from US President George Bush, a key figure in the 2005 peace deal.

Kiir was elected as South Sudan’s president in 2011. Elections due in 2015 never took place because of the war.

RIEK MACHAR

Charismatic and controversial, Riek Machar once charmed a big part of the international community with his broad, gap-toothed smile and eloquent speeches, while remaining deeply distrusted by many in South Sudan.

Born in 1953 in the oil-producing state of Unity, Machar comes from the Nuer people.

He never underwent the traditional deep horizontal forehead scarring that differentiates Nuer men from boys and used his education as a step up in life.

After an engineering degree in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Machar gained a doctorate from Britain’s University of Bradford.

But he returned to fight after the outbreak of civil war in 1983, winning the support of many of his fellow Nuer to bolster the rebel army, until then dominated largely by Dinka forces.

During the war, Machar took a second wife, British aid worker Emma McCune. Their love story was told in the book “Emma’s War” by journalist Deborah Scroggins, a tale once touted in Hollywood as possible film material.

McCune died in a road crash in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in 1993.

Machar grew frustrated with rebel commander John Garang, staging a failed 1991 coup against him and other commanders, including Kiir.

As the rebel army split along ethnic lines, Machar was accused of carrying out a brutal massacre in the Dinka-dominated town of Bor. After forging a breakaway faction, he later signed a deal with his former enemies in Khartoum.

But he returned to the rebel fold in 2002. Once a peace deal was struck in 2005, he rose to become vice-president.

Machar sought to rebuild a reputation damaged during the war by leading failed efforts to persuade Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels to end their decades-long insurgency.

But he was sacked in July 2013 and, days before the war began, he openly challenged Kiir, calling him “dictatorial”.

The extent of Machar’s control over opposition forces on the ground is questionable, with key rebel commanders having split.(AFP)