Members of Parliament in Kenya are due to consider next week a motion that will enable their government to carry out targeted sanctions on South Sudanese leaders.

The bill will be tabled by the National Assembly’s committees of Administration, and National Security, Defense and Foreign Relations.

It seeks to impose sanctions on individuals they say are derailing the implementation of the peace agreement.
The joint motion will target asset freezes, including barring children of these leaders from attending schools in Kenya.

The Defense Committee chairman Ndung’u Gethenji warned Dr. Riek Machar and his top generals from returning the country into full blown conflict.

Mr. Gethenji urged Dr. Machar to pursue diplomatic channels in resolving the crisis in South Sudan.

On his part, the chairperson of the National Security Committee, Asman Kamama, said they will appeal to IGAD member countries to consider imposing similar targeted sanctions on South Sudan’s war perpetrators.

“The East African Community must also stand up strong, and say enough is enough, and issue a notice for termination of membership of South Sudan,” says Asman Kamama.

“We must also look at sanctions –targetted at those people who are involved in the fighting, in the financing and those who are involved in these ethnic killings in their country,” he said.

“And many of those people are living in Kenya, in Addis Ababa, in Khartoum, and this must end immediately.”

The threat of sanctions by the Kenyan MPs comes a month after revelations by the U.S-based ‘The Sentry report that some South Sudanese leaders and their families have continued to live luxuriously in neighboring countries despite the war and the economic crisis.

The report says some top political and military leaders from both the government and the SPLM in Opposition have accumulated wealth and acquired assets in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Australia.

The Sentry encouraged South Sudan’s neighbors to control the alleged money laundering in banks and freeze assets of top leaders who are advancing war for their personal benefits.