Press Statement on VP James Wani Igga’s UN Visit–Part 1
By David Mayen Ayarbior,
Press Secretary of H.E. the VP, James Wani Igga, New York City, USA
mayen.ayarbior@gmail.com
September 27, 2015 (SSB) — The Vice President of South has had a number of statements to make to a couple of meetings of heads of state and government.
Today 27 September 2015, he attended an AU Peace and Security meeting of heads of state and government organized by the Permanent Mission of the AU/ AU Peace and Security which discussed two main topics. The first agenda was a proposal given to the AU Peace and Security by the government of the United States in which it promised that it could convince the UN Security Council to provide 75% of funding to AU peacekeeping operations in Africa if the later promised to provide 25% of the arrangement.
Since the United States has been the main obstacle in the face of adopting some Security Council measures towards Africa, promising that it would convince Congress to provide funding explains why the negotiation is with the U.S. Mission instead of directly with the Security Council.
Since the proposal is not new, the AU Commission has sought permission to negotiate this arrangement. The Chair of the Summit, President Museveni of Uganda convinced the summit to give the AU Commission the go ahead to negotiate the said arrangement in the spirit of African ownership of decision making and global partnership in logistical terms. He also reminded the other African leaders that Africa could sponsor its own operations as Uganda has successfully done in South Sudan and Somalia, resulting into preventing state collapse in both cases to the benefit of the entire region.
The second agenda was the IGAD-Plus agreement signed by the Government of South Sudan and SPLM-IO. The other heads of state and government expressed their concern that if the two parties to the IGAD agreement did not implement what they have signed then ownership of the settlement process could be taken from the continent by the UN. The latter option may have grave implications to peace and security not only to South Sudan but the region as a whole since foreigners have always failed to provide durable solutions to African problems.
It was argued that the west presently has so much to grapple with in terms of unsuccessful interventions. The situation in Libya which was not left for an African solution as well as Iraq and Syria demonstrate that in most cases things got worse when foreign solutions were imposed on a situation which could be adequately addressed through domestic and regional initiatives.
Vice President H.E. Wani Igaa’s intervention was well received as he made a bold commitment that Juba is more than willing to bring the current state of what he termed as a “senseless war” to an end so that the people of South Sudan regain their lost peace. He explained that Juba has just ordered its troops outside the city as stipulated in the agreement. However, he appealed to the international community to play their part in making implementation possible. For example, quickly building barracks for the troops moving out of Juba and other cities would even go a long way into ascertaining the SPLA’s parade, which will be appositive in terms of security policy making.
The Vice President also called on SPLM-IO to implement its part of the bargain without trying to go out of the text of the agreement. That they should not misinterpret the government’s reservations as a sign of lack of goodwill, but a responsibility to highlight those areas that could be bottlenecks in future. One evidence to that effect is that the orders for troops to redeploy out of Juba was one of the reservation, yet they have been ordered anyway.
The Vice President is also expected to meet with Dr. Riek Machar and Cde. Pagan Amum in bilateral and multilateral talks. The three are scheduled to take part in a much publicized meeting organized by the UN Security Council to mobilize international support for the implementation of the agreement.
With the current positive spirit shown by the government, there is much optimism that peace is finally coming so close to the suffering people of South Sudan. With positive contribution from the international partners and commitment from SPLM-IO, there is no reason why our long suffering people should not celebrate next Christmas as citizens of the same country. Let us bury the hatchet and swallow the bitter pills of compromise in order for South Sudan to live.
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