The Fragmented Political Opposition Takes its Quarrels to the Addis Ababa Peace Talks
By Malith Alier, Juba
The seventeen (17) political parties which are in the Addis peace talks as part of a multi-stakeholder approach to those talks are at it again. Their political nature in the country can’t be more wanting.
They accused each other, replaced their leader, dissolved the first committee to the talks and finally replaced someone who represented them on the government side.
A brief history of the current conflict and the ongoing peace talks in Ethiopia is necessary to understand the dynamics of the peace negotiations.
It all began as a power struggle in the ruling SPLM party. The three contenders; Riek, Pagan and Rebecca for the chairmanship later united and formed the December 6 opposition.
The December six opposition, planned a rally for December 14 which was however, abandoned because of SPLM National Liberation Council (NLC) meeting tentatively planned for the same day. The 14th December event went in the NLC way. However, the temperatures boiled over on the following day and therefore, resulted in the gun violence.
Violence is what many generations of South Sudanese have known for close to a hundred years. The current conflict is just an extension of the past violence, something some people said caused great trauma to the affected people.
The main topic of this piece is the weakness and fragmentation of the opposition parties in South Sudan political arena.
The fragmented and divisive political opposition is also characterised as weak perhaps because of the existence of the almighty SPLM.
The opposition parties struggled together for a slot on the Addis talks but they now seem not to agree and stay together after incorporation into the talks. They now hold new conference after news conference to address the nonexistence political ghosts.
“We have closed the gap and we have washed our faces” said Dr. Martin Elia Lomoro of the seventeen political parties in Juba on 12 Sep. 14.
How clean they have washed their faces remains to be seen by the people of this country. What is clearly apparent is the division and fragmentation of the opposition in the face of SPLM dominance and manipulation.
Martin Elia Lomoro is the Minister of cabinet affairs in the SPLM dominated government. This is one way the SPLM manipulates the opposition by incorporating influential leaders like the said minister.
A mere statement to the media by the political opposition while standing behind one another does not mean that they have closed the gap leave alone having washed their faces. It should instead be more than that.
Dissolving the seventeen opposition parties to form one strong opposition is a strong indication to address the current mess the opposition is in. this also goes a long with resignation of those in the current government like Dr. Lomoro himself.
At the early stages of the peace talks, the role of the other stakeholders was not yet clear. The government and the SPLM/SPLA in Opposition were the main protagonists in those talks. However, the SPLM/A in Opposition pushed for a multi-stakeholder process to include all South Sudanese people inside and outside the country.
Also on the internal front, the political parties, religious groups, civil society alliance and other stakeholders pressed IGAD to be allowed to take part in the talks. Their prayers were eventually answered and the IGAD mediators accepted this argument.
Prior to this Dr. Lam Akol of the SPLM-DC and Joseph Ukel of USAP were parts of the government delegation to the talks. However, the new arrangement saw Joseph Ukel moving to the opposition political parties and Dr. Lam Akol remaining in the government delegation in addition to being head of the opposition political parties’ delegation.
This new dispensation was later affected by the same divisive opposition politics in the country. The good Dr. Lam was accused by the opposition delegates of having met Riek Machar without their knowledge. He was finally replaced the din by someone else ahead of the next round of talks schedule for the second half of September 2014.
The suitability of Opposition Delegation to the Addis peace talks is seriously now in question. During the meeting of the political parties Council in the State House, Juba, about seven of those opposition political parties elected not to attend that meeting.
They included the SPLM-DC which is the largest opposition party in South Sudan. The reasons for that are many; replacement of Lam Akol and lack of unity among those parties are in the forefront.
The South Sudan opposition parties have image problem as evidenced by the way they appeared after the fall out in Addis Ababa. This spelt their doom politics and the constant manipulation by the majority party whose structures are seriously dented by the infighting for power but people are not joining other parties because of the fear of the unknown.
By the examination of individual delegates of the opposition, one would conclude that they appear to be naïve and less knowledgeable about the country they would like to talk about on the negotiation table. You would often hear during news conferences that they called “South Sudan” as Southern Sudan, a name abandoned since 2011. The further, called people of South Sudan as “people of Southern Sudan.”
They simply look like those Ugandans or Kenyans who ask South Sudanese “when did you come from Southern Sudan?” Mind you dear that this author on many occasions, reminded them that the former half country known as Southern Sudan is now called South Sudan.
The reasons why some people are oblivious of the changes that had taken place in former “Southern Sudan” is that most of them were in Khartoum during the war and are permanently used to “Southern Sudan.” Another possible reason is that some of them have poor memory and are like the proverbial zebra that only retained “Z” as the only letter in the alphabet.
There is also the language problem. Some of them are fluent in Arabic and learning English is a hell of a problem to them.
The relevance of the opposition delegates to the peace talks is therefore, seriously damaged by infighting caused by image problem.
Furthermore, the top individuals in the opposition delegation seem to lack requisite information about the country on their fingertips. “Southern Sudan” is first Addis Ababa Peace Agreement (APA) and Comprehensive peace Agreement (CPA) era designation.
It should only be used when dealing or referring to those agreements and not in the matters that do not relate to APA and CPA. Simply put, it is a relic of APA and CPA.
And finally the opposition is only fooling itself by displaying their failure at home in Addis peace talks.
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