SPLM secretary-general meets South Sudanese rebel leader
June 25, 2015 (NAIROBI) – The newly reinstated secretary-general of the ruling SPLM party in South Sudan, Pagan Amum, Thursday has met with former vice-president, Riek Machar, who leads an armed opposition faction of the party, to discuss a way forward in the peace process so as to end the 18-month long conflict.
On his part, Machar involved senior officials of the rebel movement including chief negotiator, Taban Deng Gai, foreign relations committee chairman, Dhieu Mathok Diing, committee chairman for SPLM reorganization, Peter Adwok Nyaba and committee chairman for justice and human rights, Richard K. Mulla, among others.
Rebel leader’s press secretary said the meeting focused on the need to expeditiously achieve peace in the country through the two processes of the Arusha intraparty dialogue and the Addis Ababa comprehensive peace process.
“A government’s SPLM faction delegation from Juba led by the newly reinstated party’s secretary general, Comrade Pagan Amum, requested a meeting with our chairman and this meeting took place here in Nairobi on Thursday,” James Gatdet Dak told Sudan Tribune.
Dak said the two parties agreed on the need to continue with dialogue in order to complete the process of the party’s reunification as well as expedite and conclude a negotiated comprehensive peace agreement in Addis Ababa.
“There is now understanding between the two parties that the Arusha reunification process of the SPLM is not complete until remaining outstanding issues are tackled between the SPLM in opposition and SPLM in government,” he said.
Dak also said another understanding in the meeting was that even if the party’s reunification process was to be complete, it alone would not bring peace to South Sudan unless other fundamental issues were resolved through the IGAD-Plus comprehensive peace process in Addis Ababa.
He said preparations were ongoing for bilateral dialogue to resume in Arusha between the two factions of the SPLM.
After his reinstatement this week, Amum told reporters that all his efforts will be dedicated to achieve the reunification of the SPLM, adding it is “a business of proceeding to stop this war and bring peace to our country so that we can rebuild South Sudan”.
KIIR TO MEET MACHAR
Dak said that Amum informed the opposition leadership about his new role as reinstated secretary general and revealed that president Kiir would travel to Nairobi and meet with Machar under the auspices of the Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.
He further explained that some of the outstanding issues highlighted in the Arusha roadmap agreement including issues of party’s constitution and basic documents and leadership needed to be thoroughly addressed and agreed upon in Arusha.
The opposition leader’s spokesperson also said the roadmap agreement to reinstate dismissed senior party leaders by president Salva Kiir didn’t mean confirming him to “unconstitutionally” continue as chairman of the party, but to simply revoke his unconstitutional decision.
He added that Kiir’s elected five-year term as party chairman per the national convention in May 2008 expired in May 2013 and that another convention failed to take place which would have either confirmed him or elected a new chairman.
“The Arusha roadmap agreement which provided for revocation of Salva Kiir’s unconstitutional dismissal of party leaders was to simply undo that decision as unnecessary. This is so that the whole process of internal reform agenda and issues of leadership which he violently interrupted in Juba in December 2013 could now be addressed in Arusha by that rival collective leadership,” he argued.
He said even if Machar was to be reinstated as first deputy chairman of the party he would not return to Juba to take oath of office like was done by Amum and his colleagues of the now former detainees, saying this was not the cause, but impact of the crisis.
He said the SPLM-IO leadership made it clear that issues that brought about the crisis within the ruling party would first be tackled in Arusha plus a comprehensive peace agreement in Addis Ababa.
(ST)