Withdrawal of the Civil Society Delegation From the Plenary Session in Addis Ababa
3 min readSouth Sudan Civil Society
Delegation of Civil Society to the IGAD-Led Peace Process for South Sudan
Withdrawal of Civil Society Delegation From the Plenary Session
Ladies and gentleman of the press
- First and foremost, we would like to thank stakeholders participating at the IGAD-led peace process for South Sudan and in particular the Government of the Republic of South Sudan GRSS and the Sudan people liberation Movement and Army SPLM/A in-Opposition for the time we spent together since June 20, 2014 in an attempt to bring peace to South Sudan. Unfortunately, the recounting circumstances created by the principal parties to the armed conflict at different stages made the peace process very bleak for reasons best known to them and the IGAD mediation team.
- The present of other stakeholders including the SPLM/A in Opposition is a partial negotiation and the IGAD mediation team did not tell us the wisdom behind this formula or made available any authority upon which such meaningful discussions and contributions by other stakeholders will not be altered or rejected by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan. If the IGAD special envoys lack such guarantee and deliberately allow the session to partially continues when in fact all work shall be put to dustbin upon arrival of the GRSS as the main challenger with the SPLM/A in Opposition, then this is a waste of time, energy and resources.
- After having explore the causes for the absentia of the GRSS at the talk; we found out two reasons according to the content of their letter dated 16 August, 2014 as follows
- The GRSS want signing of the implementation matrix of the cessation of hostilities agreement CoH first with the SPLM/A in opposition before any talk on political transitional arrangement and
- That the sufficient consensus as came in the rules of procedure to be amended and restricted to two warring parties, however, it is provided in the rules of procedure that decisions shall be reached by the two warring parties and two other stakeholders. The GRSS feel that the other three stakeholders may not be in their favor when deciding on substantive matters
- After such prevailing deadlock, the stakeholders were putting their hope in the adjourned IGAD heads of State and government submit where the contentious matters including renewal of the mandate following end of 60 days without peace and formation of the Transitional Government of National unity and other related issues were suppose to be done, but again in vain for reasons best known to the IGAD Special Envoys and the political leadership of IGAD member states.
- Finally in light of the above situations and findings as representatives of the people at the IGAD-led peace process for South Sudan, we hereby announce that we withdraw from the partial session of the peace talk. We will continue to work at our engagement level and shall be ready to return to the negotiating table once IGAD resolve the matter between the principal parties to the armed conflict.
- Accept the assurances of our highest respect.
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