Part II: Why one of the VPs should go to Bahr el Ghazal region?

*By Pal Chol Chan 

The Revitalized Agreement for the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCISS) was signed last year in Khartoum under the auspices of the ousted Sudanese President, Omar El Bashir. The agreement provided that there shall be five vice Presidents (VPs) including the First Vice President (FVP) to constitute a collegial presidency for the transitional period, which commences once a unified security forces are put in place. The mechanisms are now being worked on. These modalities though behind schedule, are on course.

It is clearly stipulated in sub-article 1.5.1.2 that the chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement - In Opposition (SPLM-IO), Dr. Riek Machar Teny, shall assume the position of the FVP.  One VP is to be nominated by the Former Detainees (FDs) and must be a woman.

One is also to be nominated by South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA). 

In the incumbent Transitional Government of National Unity (TGONU), one of the two VPs (Taban Deng Gai) is from Upper Nile and the other (James Wani Igga) is from Equatoria  as per the August 2015 ARCISS, now being revitalized. 

For those who have read the R-ARCISS, they will agree with me that it mentions the reconstitution and expansion of the national parliament, council of states, cabinet ministers and reforms within the security sector plus all the institutions within the Republic of South Sudan. 

It is also worth mentioning that the head of the SPLM-IO is from Upper Nile region. Summed up, the four VPs will come from the Upper Nile should the president swallow his pride and maintain the incumbent two. That means Bahr el Ghazal region will have only person in the presidency, who is none other than His Excellency, the President of the Republic of South Sudan. If taken to be true, it will be a moral blunder in the sense that His Excellency, the President doesn't represent a region, state or a constituency. He represents the whole country. He is the symbol of our sovereignty and the State.  

If you read Chapter 1 of the ARCISS, article 1.9, about the powers, functions and responsibilities of the president, the FVP and the other VPs, you will find that the RTGONU is founded on the premise that there shall be a collegial collaboration in the decision-making and continuous consultations within the Presidency.

With that taken into account and in the event that the presidency doesn't see eye to eye on any outstanding issues related to regional interests, the people of the Bahr el Ghazal region will have theirs compromised . As such, I am of the opinion that one of the VPs ought to come from Bhar el Ghazal region for equal representation in the decision-making centre ( presidency).

When I talked about this last year, some quarters accused me of conspiring against individuals they favour.  But those who accused me favour these individuals more than the general public, something which they didn't know was damaging to some parts of the country.

I leave it to you the reader to analyse and see where I did go wrong. The negotiation of the agreement was faulty from the beginning in the words of our renowned academician and a veteran politician Professor Peter Adwok Nyaba.

There were issues that were not addressed for the good of all but much time was devoted to who becomes or gets what.The roots causes of the conflict were addressed half-hardheartedly. The President should not be confused and bothered by people who don't have people and the country at heart. The time for self-aggrandizement is over. We all need to live in ivory towers.

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The author is a concerned citizen and an opinion writer who has written extensively on political, social and economic issues. Email palcholnyan2016@gmail.com

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in the article do not reflect the views of "The Philosophical Refugee" but that of the author. 

Coercion and mediation in South Sudan: Forcing agreements and ignoring reservations

By Kuir ë Garang*


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"However, the peace partners and the mediators glossed over these issues as if these pertinent issues would magically disappear without being addressed. Bold writings were on the wall."

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Downplaying reservations

A South Sudanese gentleman asked me during my presentation on May 22, 2016 in Calgary, Alberta, about the prospects for peace in South Sudan. Given that the two principal warring parties had just signed the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCISS), there was a considerable anxiety marked by thin hope about the possibility of peace being realized after nearly two years of bloodshed, political confusion and tribal division.

While I didn’t come out as predicting what would happen to the agreement, I sounded very pessimistic about a successful implementation of ARCISS. Since it was clear from the outset that the two leaders where forced into signing the agreement and Riek Machar was hesitant about coming to Juba, it was easy to see that the agreement would not hold.

First, President Salva Kiir refused to sign the agreement when it was signed by the opposition leader, Dr. Riek Machar, on August 17, 2015. President Kiir ‘wanted time’ to consult with his people in Juba. However, the international pressure and the threats of sanctions from the United States, the United Nations, and the Inter-government Authority on Development (IGAD) forced president Kiir to sign the agreement about a week later in Juba on August 26, 2015. As he signed, the president cited ‘serious reservations’ about the agreement. The fact that the two leaders signed the agreement on two different days and in two different countries with one leader citing ‘reservations’, should have called for a somber reconsideration against rushing to implement the agreement.

However, the peace partners and the mediators glossed over these issues as if these pertinent issues would magically disappear without being addressed. Bold writings were on the wall. When President Kiir refused to sign the agreement on August 17th, Seyyoum Mesfin, then the chief IGAD mediator said that ‘I hope that President Kiir will sign. There is no reason why he requested time. We call on President Kiir to reconsider his position so that they can sign and we can go ahead.’ Instead of addressing Kiir’s reservations as the mediator in order to assuage the feeling of discontent, IGAD was more interested in the ‘signature’ than the actual conditions necessary for a long-lasting peace in South Sudan.

When President Kiir finally signed the agreement on August 26^th in Juba and cited a host of reservations, the United States, which is one of the key partners in the peace negotiations and also one of the funders, said that it didn’t ‘recognize any reservations’ from President Kiir. The agreement was therefore signed under duress and obvious discontent so its implementation would limp under the same nervous conditions.

While no agreement can be completely free of ‘reservations’, the way in which the mediators dismissed officially expressed grievances and hesitations is a cause for concern. Essentially, the warring parties were expected to embrace the agreement under unfavorable, yet obviously belligerent conditions. In other words, President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar had not voluntarily signed the agreement. Since the mediators knew the intransigence of the two leaders and their past disagreements, it seems the mediators were more interested in covering up their failure to make the two leaders regard the agreement as a necessary compromise. Forcing the signatories to sign under uncertain circumstances, claiming victory and then blaming any failure on the warring parties seemed to have been the interest of the mediators and the peace partners. While this sounds like an unfair accusation, the conditions of the mediation at the time warrant this conclusion.

Undoubtedly, the costly outbreak of fighting in July of 2016 after Machar went to Juba in April 2016 to implement the ARCISS was a consequent of a forced agreement.

Following the July 2016 outbreak of violence that killed more than 200 people in July, there was an outrage.  However, the outrage expressed by the mediators and peace partners was rather dishonest. If they didn’t see the signs that the agreement would potentially fail, then the mediation process was unaccountable and seriously flawed. And if they knew it would potentially fail but just put their hope in its magical success then there is a lot to be asked about the ethical status of IGAD as the peace mediator.

But that is in the past and someone might say that we can’t cry over spilled milk. Admittedly, the most pressing and pertinent issue now is: what have we learned? As the world and South Sudanese wait for the implementation of the Revitalized-ARCISS, there is again much anxiety about what is going to happen in November. Since the R-ARCISS travelled from Addis Ababa to Nairobi only to end up being signed in Khartoum under the guidance of the former Sudanese President, Omer El Beshir and postponed again from May this year to November, it is understandable for one to be skeptical.

Mediation and coercion

Obviously, the chief aim of the mediators is to create an enabling atmosphere so that the warrying parties would find themselves comfortable to negotiate in good faith and make concessions when necessary. Unfortunately, this conducive atmosphere became rather a coercive one: sign or face sanctions. Going by effective mediation processes, the August 17, 2015 agreement was forced not mediated. Why did peace mediation become coercion? Was this coercive agreement a diplomatic experiment in South Sudan or was it a mediation of an agreement between two warring parties all of whom respect was not necessary? The diplomatic stick and carrot policy was inappropriate given the then precariousness of the South Sudanese situation.