Full interview with Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin

July 3, 2020 Interviews, News, Newsbeat

Chairman of National Democratic Movement (NDM) and Secretary-General of South Sudan Opposition Alliance Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin speaking in an interview (Photo credit: Supplied)

July 3, 2020 (SSNN) – Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, the chairperson of the National Democratic Movement and Secretary-General of South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), has been on loggerheads with other members of the Alliance over how to share power within the opposition consortium.

In an interview with South Sudan News Now on Friday, he explained what went wrong in the alliance. We also discussed the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement signed by the SSOA, then ITGONU led by president Kiir, the SPLM-IO, and the Other Opposition Parties (OPP) and what has been achieved so far by the parties.

Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, welcome to this interview, and thank you for accepting to speak to South Sudan News Now and Nyamilepedia.

Answer: You are welcome!

QUESTION 1: You are a co-founder of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) and we also understand that the decision which culminated in the Alliance originated from you and General Peter Gatdet in 2017. The objective of the Alliance was to achieve peace within the country. Today, three years on, there is no peace even within the Alliance as there are a lot of differences in the opposition consortium, what went wrong?

ANSWER: Well first of all thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to interact with you on these issues. SSOA, which is South Sudan Opposition Alliance, was formed after a long, long effort between us. The idea started in 2016 in August in Nairobi where we held a conference to bring together all the opposition groups and our people.

We didn’t have a name by that time. You remember it was just after the fighting at J1. So, the idea was to bring together all the opposition forces so that they can mount a credible alternative for the current government which has proven to be incapable of running the country.

Then after that, a number of meetings have taken place with a meeting in Nyahururu in Kenya that really worked out what became later on the charter of the SSOA, and this charter was adopted in Addis Ababa in February 2018. So briefly this is how this alliance came about.

The original members of the alliance some of them left as the result of the peace agreement. When the peace agreement was signed in Khartoum we lost two members. First, it was Thomas Cirilo of the National Salvation Front (NAS) and then Hakim Dario Moi of the PDM [People’s Democratic Movement].

These two gentlemen did not sign the peace agreement because for them the agreement did not address the causes of the conflict. So, we remained six members of the Alliance. So, we differed on principles. We said, “if you don’t want to sign the agreement, it’s your right.”

Then for us, we thought that if implemented properly, the peace agreement could resolve the major problems in the country [and] so we signed the agreement.

Later on, some two people came up to claim the membership [of the Alliance], replacing the two gentlemen who have refused to sign the peace agreement and we went on. Now, you ask what went wrong. What went wrong is that as soon as people came to Juba, the government began to work on a number of organizations in SSOA.

As we speak now, they have become mouthpiece of the government. They have abandoned the objectives of SSOA which are enshrined in the charter. The charter is very clear that to be a member of SSOA, you must stand up for justice, for reforms and against the policies of the current regime in Juba.

So, we are actually up against the policies of the government and what brought us together with the government was just the peace agreement. So, they went against that and became a mouthpiece of the government that is one of the most important reasons why SSOA has become what it is today.

The other reason is that some of the members of SSOA don’t understand how an alliance works. You know, they assume as if the Alliance is a party, is one party. No, Alliance is made up of a group of political parties that have agreed to work together on points that are common to them.

So, whenever we have a common point, we work together. But if on a particular issue we don’t agree, then each party will express its own opinion. You don’t talk about a majority in an alliance that the majority said this, no. It’s clear in the charter that we are there on things that unite us. If we disagree, then each party will follow its line.

Some people here think that Alliance is a political party. They talk of majority, minority, and all that. That is one reason also why people do not understand themselves very well.

Point number three is that some of the parties really don’t have grassroots support. It is only leaders who talk about the parties. They don’t go back to their constituencies in order to discuss with them kind of issues that are discussed on the level of the Alliance.

They don’t go back. Even one of them said recently that the positions in government are only for the leaders [of the groups that constitute the Alliance]. Anybody below the leader has no right. When we nominated somebody they said ‘no he is a secretary-general, he cannot be given a position.’

So, you can see [that] there is a distorted view of understanding how an alliance works and how to approach the peace agreement. But the basic issue is that most of us have fallen under the armpit of the government. We are being controlled by the government.

QUESTION 2: You just said that when the peace agreement was signed in Khartoum, this is when you accepted to sign the agreement, you thought that the agreement would be implemented as it was signed. How do you see the agreement now is it not being implemented?

ANSWER: Well of course what is being implemented is not the agreement that we have signed. Now the president takes decisions that are not compatible with the peace agreement. He issues decrees at will. I will give you a few examples. One, you know that the peace agreement was supposed to be incorporated into the constitution and there was a committee called the National Constitution Amendment Committee (NCAC).

That committee which includes many from the government side recommended a bill that should become a constitution, a transitional constitution and the agreement said that the role of the parliament is to ratify that bill and cannot change a single letter [or] even a comma they cannot change it.

What happened is that the parliament went ahead and gave itself the right to amend and they came out with something else. So, as we speak now there is no interim constitution that is accepted by all.

Point number two: I told you that the allocation of power positions according to the agreement, according to the allocation of states, the government should get five [SPLM-] IO three, SSOA one and Other Political Parties (OPP) one. What happened eventually is that the government took six and denied the OPP their right of representation.

Also, the question of undersecretaries, the agreement says for an undersecretary to be appointed, it must be the minister concerned to recommend that person and then he/she is vetted by the council of ministers and then the president can appoint him/her. Kiir doesn’t care about the provisions on undersecretary and a few weeks ago, he removed the undersecretary of the ministry of health without the knowledge of the minister, you see?

Also the question of the security arrangements, now things are not moving because there is no enthusiasm because the training areas and the cantonment areas are not getting food they are supposed to get so that you can proceed with the training. So, many many things come in contrary to the peace agreement [and] of course we are urging the government that we must stick to the agreement.

This agreement is the only chance that we have as South Sudanese to get out of these problems to establish peace in our country because without peace there is no development and without development there is no peace. So, the agreement is not being implemented according to [what we signed in the] letter but then we have not given up, we continue to urge the parties concerned to really take the agreement seriously.

QUESTION 3: Some members of the Alliance, especially the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) led by Josephine Lagu and the Federal Democratic Party (FDP) led by Changson Gabriel Chang, are saying that you are behind the disagreements within the Alliance because, according to their own words, you has been acting outside the charter of the Alliance. Do you think otherwise?

ANSWER: (laughing) Of course that is a ridiculous statement coming from them because what does the charter of the Alliance say? The charter of the Alliance says we are an opposition group, ok? We are an opposition group; they have now become a part of the government. The charter of the Alliance says we must respect the fact that the political parties in the SSOA are independent, they have their own programs but what unites them is the charter.

They don’t respect the charter. The charter also talks about how decisions are taken within SSOA. The charter also said that the term of office of the chairperson of SSOA is only for six months, non-renewable and she (SSOA chairperson Josephine Lagu) is now refusing to give over the chair.

She was supposed to leave the office on the 14th of March [2020]. She now goes on to say that she wants to complete the formation of the government. Where is it said in the charter that certain functions must be finished by some individuals? So, it’s ridiculous for them to talk about the charter when they really have left the charter.

What was the last time, you are a journalist you must have been following statements, you follow positions, when was the last time they issued a statement that is different from that of the government? Or they issued a statement that is critical of the government? I told you before about the constitution, how the parliament is trying to amend the constitution, did they give an opinion? They didn’t.

When the peace agreement was being violated in the various forms whether it is the appointment of the undersecretaries or the appointment of the people of the bank of South Sudan, whether it is seizing position of the OPP, did they issue a statement as a SSOA to say no this is wrong let us stick to the peace agreement?

They have become a laughing stock among the South Sudanese. Now, the South Sudanese tell them [that] now you have deceived us that you have a charter which says very nice things about reforms, about change, about constitution and now you are doing something different. So, they are the last people to talk about anybody not respecting the charter because they don’t even want to hear about the charter.

QUESTION 4: There are more recent statements that you have given to several media houses blaming other leaders of the alliance for undermining the representation of some of the groups of the Alliance including the NDM. Why do you think they are doing so? What would be the reason for the SSOA to be unhappy when you are represented?

ANSWER: Well, it is because they are just getting directives, they are just getting orders. They get orders from somewhere and I don’t blame them really (laugh).

QUESTION 5: Last week, you nominated the NDM secretary-general for the governor of Jonglei state. The other members of the Alliance – exception the group led by Bapiny – have disagreed. There is no any other nominee from the SSOA either who are opposition the nomination of the NDM official to state top position, how do you see the end of the game here. Is it necessary for the people of Jonglei state to wait longer in the face of the intercommunal crisis?

ANSWER: Well in the first place let me tell you this: the very reason why last time we welcomed the decision of SPLM-IO and SPLM-IG was that at least after four months there is an agreement to help our people get out of the problems that they have and they have been waiting for long to get their governors but then it was not necessary, only because of the disagreements.

So we welcomed that and definitely we cannot be asked who would want the people of Jonglei to wait for another more days. We would want the governor to be appointed yesterday, not today. So that is one.

Number two, we made a nomination as NDM. This is the procedure we always follow in an alliance. We made a nomination as NDM and it was supporting by Bapiny so our candidate was officially nominated. The other side did not have a nominee [and] so, according to our rules, our nominee should have been endorsed by SSOA by consensus.

They had earlier issued a statement that they don’t want Jonglei on the 17^th of June. They said they don’t want Jonglei they want Upper Nile so I assumed that they did not make nomination because they still don’t want Jonglei.

Now, if they have been persuaded to accept Jonglei, then they should issue a statement to the people of South Sudan that ‘we have now changed our mind from rejection of Jonglei to accepting Jonglei’. So, after that, we can talk of nominating somebody.

QEUSTION 6: The NDM led by you has nominated a person and President Kiir has rejected the NDM nominee, does this mean a violation of the revitalized peace agreement, or how do you see the response from Kiir? Is it Kiir that is violating the agreement, or the other members of SSOA?

ANSWER: Well, I am not sure whether President Kiir has rejected the nomination. I have no information.

QUESTION 7: This is because of the Eye Radio yesterday and you mentioned that you were surprised that President Kiir did not appoint your nominee, apparently because he did not agree to that nomination.

ANSWER: Yes, I was surprised that he was not appointed but I did not say that he has rejected it. Maybe he has some reasons that led to the decision not to announce it. We don’t know.

QUESTION 8: Now we are coming to the end of this interview. Do you have a message for your colleagues in the alliance, the people of South Sudan, and lastly, President Salva Kiir?

ANSWER: You remember last time when we issued our statement on the 19th of June. We concluded by saying that we would want the parties to come together and sit. So, we repeat that we need to sit as the five signatories to the revitalized peace agreement to evaluate the progress that has been made, where we have failed, and why.

This is the only thing I can say about the parties. About the South Sudanese people, we continue always to be with them in their suffering. They have suffered for too long and we have promised them that we have signed a peace agreement and we need to implement that peace agreement so that the life returns to normal. We are however urging them that a little more patience may be needed so that we can sit with others who are reluctant to implement the peace agreement to come on track.

QEUSTION 9: Now you are in Juba. Other opposition leaders including those in the SPLM-IO have gone silent and apparently fear to speak out against violations to the peace agreement. Why are you not doing the same, why you are not afraid of speaking out?

ANSWER: Well, I cannot fear because we have an agreement that we have all signed. So, I take it that everybody who has signed this agreement is committed to it and that peace agreement says that everybody will have the freedom to associate, the freedom to express himself or herself and will have the freedom to say what is right or what is wrong and also as a signatory, I am obliged by the agreement to implement what is written in that agreement, the same obligation to the other four signatories.

So, for the proper implementation of the peace agreement people must tell the facts. If something is wrong you say is wrong, if something is right you say is right. So there is no reason for somebody not to speak out.

Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, Chairman of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) and Secretary-General of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), thank you for speaking to us.

You are welcome and thank you very much!

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