G-10 Remarks on the Proposed Compromise Peace Agreement (CPA) for South Sudan
Remarks of the SPLM – Leaders (Former Political Detainees) on the Occasion of Submission of the Proposed Compromise Agreement to the South Sudan Stakeholders to Resolve the Crisis in South Sudan by the IGAD Mediation
By Cde Deng Alor
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; 24th July 2015
Capital Hotel, Aferwotk Tekle Hall
Your Excellency Chair of IGAD;
Your Excellencies IGAD Special Envoys;
Your Excellency Representative of Troika;
Your Excellency Representative of China;
Your Excellency Representative of EU;
Your Excellency Representative of IPF;
Your Excellency Representative of UN;
Your Excellency Chief Negotiator of the GRSS;
Your Excellency Chief Negotiator of SPLM/A – IO;
Your Excellency Representative of Political Parties;
Your Excellency Representative of the Faith Leaders;
Your Excellency Representative of the Eminent Personalities;
Your Excellency Representative of the Civil Society Organizations;
Your Excellency Representative of the Women Bloc;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
July 24, 2015 (SSB) —- On behalf of my colleagues – the SPLM Leaders (Former Political Detainees) – and on my own behalf, I would like at the onset to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to IGAD Heads of States, IGAD Foreign Ministers and the IGAD Special Envoys, AU and the International Community for their firm commitment for pursuit of peace in South Sudan. Throughout this crisis, we have witnessed the unfailing companionship and support accorded by the region and the international community to the people of South Sudan. As we gather here today for this exercise for the submission of the compromise agreement, the hopes of our people for a fresh beginning have been rekindled. It is this flicker of hope which has always sustained us under the most distressful life cycles of our struggle for peace, liberty, and statehood.
Your Excellencies;
As we converge here in Addis Ababa today to seek solutions and compromises in order to achieve peace, our war-ravaged young nation, South Sudan, is at the verge of collapse. This is an outcome which will have disastrous consequences to our people, the region, and beyond. Being at the farthest worst point of fragility, South Sudan will disintegrate into pieces if allowed to hit the hard surface. It is self-evident that such disintegration will not only be catastrophic but will be hard to reverse. There will be no any possibility of a group or groups picking the pieces or putting it back together. It is, in our view, crystal clear that the only option available to us is to prevent collapse and rescue the country. We should resolve that there shall be no further rounds to negotiate peace in Addis Ababa. This must be the last round in which we should agree and sign the compromise solution proposed by the mediation. Further follow-up processes and activities in Juba should aim at implementing the agreement and understanding reached in Addis. In particular, we should begin to reconfigure how to engage with the core tasks of institutional reforms, peacebuilding, reconciliation and healing, socioeconomic rebuilding – and more importantly how to break the cycle of violent conflict in our country.
Your Excellencies;
I will be lacking due diligence if I conclude without sharing with you what has always preoccupied the masses of our people after each round of talks in Addis ends inconclusively. The question which all the more begs an honest answer on our part will always be: “What is the endgame if this ‘Another IGAD Deadline’” elapses without peace?
Your Excellencies;
I must underscore that it takes leadership to terminate risks – especially the risk of war in which stakes are high. In order for us to achieve peace and focus on the future, we must demonstrate leadership and steadfastness; attributes which, in our case, have been missing in action for too long. At this juncture, we must realize that resilient and nimbler nations are founded on values that foster compromise and mutual-understanding, and inclusiveness; not on zero-sum game, rigid stance, exclusion and repulsion.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;
While we lay this new foundation for peace in our country, we must also admit that there can be no ideal and perfect solutions to the ongoing conflict in the short run. Rather, the only indispensible lubricant that can keep this imperfect deals and compromises running to achieve those pure and perfect goals of freedom, democracy, liberty and justice, in the long term – is in our collective commitment to reclaim our national will and to get our country back from the morass of fragility and entrapment. That fresh start begins with admitting that we cannot retrieve what is lost. It resides in realizing that we cannot agree on the narrative of what had gone wrong and the history of crisis. It begins with breaking free from past and in saying ‘so far no further’ and focusing on our common destiny which comes with the signing of peace here in Addis Ababa.
Thank you!
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