Right rights wants decree on S. Sudan’s new states reversed

October 14, 2017 (JUBA) – The Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), a South Sudanese human rights body, has urged President Salva Kiir to reverse his executive order creating 32 new states in South Sudan.

In October 2015, President Kiir dissolved the nation’s 10 regional states and created 28 new ones, a move that was then interpreted as a violation of the peace deal signed in August 2015 to end the civil war in the young nation.

The South Sudanese leader also appointed 28 new state governors.

The president, in a separate decree, later formed four other states.

In a statement, however, CPJ’s coordinator, Tito Anthony said the division of the states has caused problem in the country and that President Kiir should reverse the order that created the 32 states.

[The] president should reverse the states and work to bring peace to the nation and after that wider consultation can be carried out to determine number of states,” partly reads the statement.

Tito cited lack of funding to establish government offices and run the news states as some of the challenges currently being encountered.

He said, “You find one office used to carry out their ministerial duties, commissioners are working under trees like community chiefs”.

According to the CPJ coordinator, the president should have first consulted the country’s citizens before issuing decrees on the new states.

South Sudan’s war began in December 2013 when Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the country along ethnic lines.

Tens of thousands have been killed in the fighting that has displaced more than two million from their homes since it broke out four years ago.

(ST)