Rebels: The Position of the Vice President Should be Abolished for the Sake of Peace
PRESS STATEMENT
The Delegation of SPLM/SPLA avails itself of this opportunity to congratulate the IGAD Heads of State Government for the successful conclusion, and the resolutions of 28th Extraordinary Summit of the IGAD Heads of State and Government, 7 November 2014 marking a breakthrough in the IGAD Mediated Peace Talks on the South Sudan Crisis.
The SPLM/SPLA wants to reaffirm its commitment to peaceful resolution of the present civil war, and have gone an extra mile to demonstrate that commitment by making strategic concessions in the powers of the Prime Minister in regards to chairing the Council of Ministers. This makes the agreement on power sharing between the two principal a powerful document. It however, requires a power structure that is simple for its effective and efficient performance during the Transitional Period.
We in the SPLM/SPLA insist that the implementation of the Peace Agreement, through the various protocols particularly the Security Arrangements during the Transitional Period, shall require trust and confidence between the President and the Prime Minister. This means altering the status quo to accelerate the building of this trust and confidence and to move the country forwards and therefore entails compromises and sacrifices on both sides. We believe that the positions of the Vice President and the two deputies to the Prime Minister will complicate the working relations between the two principals and therefore should be expunged from the government structure.
This in our opinion does not contradict the principle of Inclusivity. The principle plays out in the context of the formation of the Transitional Government of National Unity [TGONU] and the distribution of the ministerial portfolios as shall be spelt out in the power-sharing formula in the Peace Agreement and should not be tied to specific individuals. The problem that triggered crisis in South Sudan since 2008 has been building constitutional provisions around certain names rendering it difficult to make compromises.
The suggestion made by some quarters that removal of the vice president from the government structure smacks of marginalisation of Equatorians (Bantus) by the Nilotics is incitingly absurd and does not augur well for peace, reconciliation and national healing in South Sudan. We accepted in Arusha that the responsibility and the root cause of the conflict lies in the political failure of the SPLM and not in the ethnic and regional configuration of South Sudan. The conflict should not endure simply on account of certain individuals being affected by the changes occasioned by the implementation of the Peace Agreement. The CPA implementation [2005 – 2011] is a living example of changes in the government structure in the Sudan.
The Peace Agreement should carry everybody particularly those who took up arms in response to the massacres of innocent people in Juba and elsewhere. There is need to assure them that the Peace Agreement especially its Protocol on Security arrangements will prevent commitment of such atrocities in future. The agreement therefore must be sellable, internalizeable and implementable to restore and rebuild the social capital destroyed by the conflict.
We avail ourselves of this opportunity to pay tribute to the IGAD Special Envoys and the IGAD Secretariat, the IGAD Partners, the Troika, the European Union, the African Union, the People’s Republic of China and the United Nations for the relentless efforts to resolve the South Sudan crisis and bring peace back to the country.
Gen. Taban Deng Gai
Chief Negotiator
SPLM/SPLA
November 10, 2014
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