S. Sudan opposition movements retain international law firm
October 23, 2019 (NAIROBI) – Members of South Sudan Opposition Movements (SSOM) alliance have retained services of Amsterdam and Partners LLP, an international law firm led by Robert Amsterdam.
The international law firm will also highlight the ongoing corruption and human rights abuses allegedly taking place under the present government in order to bring accountability to those responsible.
“The people of South Sudan have been subjected to a series of systemic human rights violations by the current administration and its security services for years; something which the new nation may not recover from for a whole generation or more,” Robert Amsterdam, founding partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP said in a statement.
He added, “These reprehensible acts of state aggression and violence episodes that have not been seen since the days of Omar Hassan al-Bashir require a robust and broad response from the international community to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable.”
The South Sudanese opposition movement alliance was formed at The Hague, Netherlands on August 30, 2019 in response to what the group described as the violation of the full implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) by the government of President Salva Kiir.
The alliance, during the meeting held at The Hague, called for genuine truth and justice in South Sudan for the deaths of over 400,000 South Sudanese citizens under the regime of President Kiir.
“To date, no justice has been delivered to the many victims of this long-running conflict, which we argue was instigated by Mr. Salva Kiir himself in December 2013,” said Amsterdam.
“Lawmakers and stakeholders need to understand that this lobbying spending is aimed at laundering Kiir’s image and halting the formation of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan and covering up years of crimes and abuses,” he added.
The international law firm is known for representing African political figures such as Bobi Wine of Uganda, Tundu Lissu of Tanzania, former President Rupiah Banda of Zambia, among other personalities.
South Sudan descended into war in December 2013 when President Kiir accused the country’s former Vice President Riek Machar of plotting a coup, allegations he denied.
In September 2018, the rival factions involved in the conflict signed a peace deal to end the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 2 million people in the country.
In May, the two sides agreed to form a unity government in six months and in September said that they will establish a transitional government by November 12 as part of the peace accord.
(ST)