Rights body urges balanced consultation on revitalization forum

September 30, 2017 (JUBA) – South Sudan Human Right Society for Advocacy (SHURSA) has urged the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to ensure revitalization of the peace process includes civil society groups and those in rebel-controlled areas.

SHURSA’s executive director, Biel Boutros Biel, in a statement to Sudan Tribune said the latest arrangement of peace consultation has only recognized the country’s warring parties and the rest civil society residing in Juba, while leaving out those in the diaspora.

“The schedule has only provided a space for the consultation with the warring parties, armed and non-armed political opposition leaders and civil society groups, youth, women’s bloc, faith¬-based leaders and business associations in and of Juba,” he said.

According to the official, many prominent members of the civil society fraternity in South Sudan fled Juba between 2013 and 2016.

“They are well informed on issues affecting South Sudan today. Their views and opinions significantly matter in informing relevantly realistic contents of the High-Level Revitalization Forum,” he stated.

The majority of the activists, he said, currently live in Nairobi, Kampala, Addis Ababa, Khartoum and other areas in the non-government-controlled areas in Equatoria, Upper Nile, and Western Bahr el Ghazal. But a sizable number of South Sudanese faith-based leaders, women groups and youth leaders, he added, currently reside in Gambella region and other urban areas.

“They were recently displaced from eastern South Sudan’s side of Pagak town. They can too be consulted,” he further stressed.

“Your Excellency, we kindly request your office to consider scheduling a consultation with the categories mentioned in Addis Ababa, Gambella, Nairobi, Kampala and Khartoum,” partly reads SHURSA’S letter addressed to IGAD special envoy to South Sudan.

The IGAD Council of Ministers, in July, approved the Indicative Implementation Matrix of the High-Level Revitalization Forum for the peace agreement on South Sudan. A IGAD-mediated peace deal led to the formation of a coalition government but was again devastated by fresh violence that broke out in July last year.

In a communique issued after the July meeting, the IGAD council of ministers called on parties to South Sudan’s 2015 peace agreement, to seize this opportunity to revitalize the deal, renounce violence, and to develop and submit concrete proposal

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have been killed, with millions of others displaced and over 4 million people left severely food insecure since December 2011.

(ST)