Revitalization forum alternative to end S. Sudan war: official
October 3, 2017 (JUBA) – A member of the Dinka council of elders has welcomed the revitalization forum of the peace agreement, pointing out that it was time to engage in order to identify the “unifying and inclusive issues, from “dividing and exclusive issues.
In June, a summit of heads of state and government from the regional bloc (IGAD) decided to convene a meeting of the signatories of the South Sudan peace agreement to discuss ways to revitalize the peace implementation.
It was agreed upon, during the June summit that all groups be included in discussion aimed at restoring a permanent ceasefire.
IGAD has unveiled the timetable for the revitalization forum to start consultations with South Sudanese leaders and the nation’s citizens. Consultations, it stated, will take place from 13-17 October, with leaders in South Sudan’s coalition government to be consulted first.
“The warring parties, at this last stage of national survival and revival, should strictly adopt these principles in order to inject a new life into the sick Agreement on Resolution of Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS), signed by the warring parties on 17 August 2015,” said Akuei.
According to the official, majority of South Sudanese, churches, friends and enemies worldwide, have contributed so much in supporting peace in South Sudan since the outbreak of war in 2013.
These peace efforts, he stressed, enabled the country to forge the Agreement on Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS).
Sponsored by IGAD, with full backing of the United Nations, the Troika (The USA, UK and Norway) and the rest of the world on the humanitarian basis, Akuei said ARCSS almost failed when its implementation was disrupted by renewed fighting between the two adversaries, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement In Opposition (SPLM-IO), on 8 July 2016.
“At the time, the peace-loving South Sudanese and the international well-wishers were astonished and disappointed”, he further added.
The veteran politician said the national dialogue initiative launched by the president was important because it would provide an opportunity for people to come out with ideas and views about how they need to form the state, arguing that the territory of what constitutes South Sudan today was never a single authority.
“Now comes a critical decision to make through dialogue, not through assumptions, arrogance, ignorance or lying to avoid telling facts and eventual primitive violence and war. Let’s be frank to one another and go for a strong federal constitution and system of governance, democracy and rule of law,” Akuei further wrote.
He further added, “Unity is strength and re-division is weakness”.
South Sudan government earlier warned that the revitalization forum by IGAD, which mediated the 2015 peace deal, should not be another platform for negotiation of the peace agreement between the two factions to the conflict.
Over 2 million people have fled South Sudan since conflict erupted in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir sacked Riek Machar from the vice-presidency. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan’s worst violence since it seceded from Sudan in 2011.
(ST)