South Sudan’s former detainees unveil peace plan to stop war
June 27, 2015 (JUBA) – The group of South Sudanese former political detainees who have now re-joined president Salva Kiir’s government have unveiled a plan to bring peace to the country, asserting rescuing the country from collapsing was the priority.
Former cabinet affairs minister, Deng Alor Kuol, who was also reinstated as member of the political bureau told Sudan Tribune on Friday that their national priority was to stop the ongoing conflict and bring peace in order to return the country to stability and order.
“The national priority now is peace. This requires unity and working together,” Kuol said.
He explained that the current conflict started within the SPLM party and that a solution to the conflict must come from the leadership of the party.
“The reunification of the SPLM leadership is very important. Unity of the SPLM is paramount because this is a historical party. It is the party which brought the peace and the independence,” he argued.
He said once the unity of the SPLM leadership was achieved, the issues of peace, reconciliation and healing will be given full attention, saying the SPLM leadership would then focus on them as the next step to ensuring the return of peace and stability.
“So the priority now is stopping the war and (this process) requires a united leadership. The next step after the reunification is to bring peace and then start the process of reconciliation and healing,” he added.
Kuol revealed that they have now embarked on the process to complete reunification of the party, pointing out that efforts were being made to bring on board the armed opposition leadership led by former vice-president, Riek Machar.
However, Machar’s opposition group said they would not accept a “half-baked” reunification process that only dwells on “mere” reinstatement to leadership positions without addressing the reform agenda and leadership issues that caused the crisis within the party.
They said they first wanted to see the Arusha roadmap agreement translated into a new constitution for the party as well as complete work on the party’s basic documents such as internal regulations, manifesto, code of conduct, etc, in Arusha. Also full implementation of a final agreement on intraparty dialogue, they said, would be connected to a peace agreement in Addis Ababa.
The former ‘former detainees’ led by Amum on Thursday met with Machar in Nairobi and agreed on the need for further bilateral intraparty dialogue in Arusha.
A summit that will include a number of regional heads of state and government in the presence of president Kiir and opposition leader Machar is also scheduled to take place in Arusha soon.
Kuol said the summit is to bring back all the SPLM family to evaluate the progress made with regards to the reunification agreement of the SPLM.
(ST)