Riek Machar: South Sudan peace talks is in serious confusion

South Sudan peace talks is in serious confusion.

There was a meeting in Kampala which was attended by three head of states and governments that is the prime minister of Ethiopia Haile Mariam, president Uhuru of Kenya, President Museveni of Uganda and then foreign minister of Sudan Dr.Ibrahim Ganduor. They met as frontline states to South Sudan and they discussed the proposed compromise agreement by the IGAD-PLUS and the resolutions they made are:

1.They have changed the power sharing representation at the state level and confined it only to the executive while hey dismissed the power sharing at the state level and particularly for the three states of Upper Nile region, where the SPLM/A would have 53%, 33% for the government and 14% for political parties and other stakeholders. this has now been abolished by Kampala meeting.

2.They also resolved that we return to status quo. this return to status quo is not yet clear what does it means.

3. On security arrangements, they resolved very serious matters. the IGAD-PLUS document says Juba will be demilitarized and some of the state capitals also will be demilitarized and and some major towns. Now they say No demilitarization of Juba. we now have a new text and i don´t know how it is going to be presented. the Kampala which is competing with Addis Ababa text , the IGAD-PLUS compromise document.

In regard to reservations of Kampala meeting; i actually wanted to meet Ethiopïan prime minister but he delegated H.E.Seyuom Mesfin who is chief envoy on the peace talks for South Sudan and he had briefed Me in full and when we heard this we said you have derailed the peace process, you now have two texts; Addis Ababa text and Kampala text. Which one are we going to TAKE? How do we call the process? Is it still IGAD-PLUS process or Kampala process? this is a big concern. We have protested and we are still continue to protest.

Now, the world is said to be united for peace to be signed on 17/8. Well, the world is united on what now? Are they united on IGAD-PLUS text or the Kampala text ? Acctually the Kampala text is the Museveni text because what they did in Kampala is to address the concerns of president Salva Kiir. we should been sitting with president Salva Kiir on 13 and 14 august respectively negotiating before the 15th august when we will be joined by IGAD leaders in the summit form but he has not come. so where is the way forward? i have been here in Addis Ababa since the 11th of this month but president Salva Kiir boycotted.

In reference to IGAD-PLUS doucument, We have issues that we would want to discuss with the government. we are continuing negotiating on those issues but it is always good to say this is the document you negotiate on. You don´t put people in confusion where you give them a document and then the same people come up with another document.