Will sanctioned officials participate in South Sudan revitalized cabinet

By Tito Anthony

I asked myself this questions on 20, February 2020 will I see Sanctioned Individuals or official back to R-TGONU again? Actually, I failed to answer it, but I wonder if the parties could consider sanction as one of the criteria for nominating their candidate for any particular seat in the new government.

I concluded that I shouldn’t be surprised to see all Sanctioned officials from all the parties back to the new coalition government. For the following factors;
1. SPLM party consider that only some cadres in their file could be able and have the capacity to push their agendas and Vision to secure their success during the transitional period.
2. SPLM/A-IO, Which is a big movement, considers only a few are capable to confront Kiir government.
3. For the SSOA, I have a lot to worries about, because they are a confused coalition and it’s leadership rarely to come into one decision all the time since its inception, and here I can describe them in one word “man-made disaster”.

In what I narrated above I found my answer is “yes” I and we will see Sanctioned individuals in the new government, but again what is raising alarm is the following question. Do we need Sanctioned individuals in R-TGONU? My answer was we don’t need Sanctioned individuals or officials to participate the R-TGONU because their participation will have some negative impact at some point, and by this, I mean that they may not travel for official duties in line with their appointment to a country which Sanctioned them and other countries which cooperation with country or international entities which sanction them in this context we are losing business and diplomatic relationship as a country, so we, therefore, need to agree as citizens and do away with this Sanctioned individuals or officials until their record is clear by either court of law at national level (Juba) or at Hybrid Court of South Sudan to be established according to the peace agreement. Why am putting them into two groups, because there are some types of Sanctions placed on them can be handled by two different entities South Sudan government and Hybrid Court of South Sudan? Their sanctions are the following;

1. Officials sanction for human rights violations (To be handle by Hybrid Court of South Sudan).
2. Officials sanction for corruption cases (To be handled by South Sudan Anti-corruption Act) and other relevant applicable laws of our Republic.
3. Officials & Military personal sanction for war crime( To be handle by Hybrid Court of South Sudan).

Now out of these individuals, you find no one is suitable to be constitutional postholder because these are major offences that are committed within less than seven years which also our South Sudan Transitional Constitution 2011 as amended talked about and these are constitutional facts. Some fellow citizens will not agree with me because they are either members of SPLM, SPLM/A-IO, SSOA or Other Political Parties who will in a way or another support the decision of his or her party.

In my point of view, the Sanctioned Individuals or officials should be kept out of the R-TGONU till they are proven innocent by both court of law in South Sudan for corruption cases and Hybrid Court of South Sudan for cases of human rights violations and the war crime, and after they can participate in government or upcoming election by the end of the transitional period.

Finally, I congratulate the parties to the peace agreement for partially forming the government, leaving us with a simple question for them.

Do sanctions give more credibility to your respective party member and grant him an appointment in R-TGONU? Or it one of the criteria that you will consider in their nomination to any of providing seats in government? Happy day!.

Tito Anthony is Rights Activist & a writer, formerly Executive Director for Centre for Peace and Justice. He is reachable at [email protected]