South Sudan Opposition Alliance Rejects November 12, 2019 Dateline

October 20, 2019 Civil War, Newsbeat, South Sudan

Published: Oct 20, 2019

A South Sudan Opposition Movements alliance led by Dr. Sunday de John, Kwaje Lasu and Celesio Lomunu welcomes the visit of the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) to Juba; and their search for a permanent peace in South Sudan; however, the alliance reiterates their rejection to forming a rush Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity on November 12, 2019.

South Sudan arch rivals, President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his former deputy, Dr. Riek Machar Teny, leader of the SPLM/A in Opposition gazing at each other’s eyes during peace process in Khartoum in 2018(Photo credit: shared/unknown)

“The Alliance strongly believes that the wrongful and hasty formation of any new transitional government under the leadership of Salva Kiir Mayardit, and without addressing the fundamental root causes of the conflict is another recipe for a return to full-blown violence in South Sudan; as was witnessed in July 2016 – with the death of over 700 people in the capital, Juba.” Read part of the new alliance’s press release.

“We believe from the very beginning of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development’s (IGAD) High Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF), that the process for negotiating the R-ARCSS was flawed.” They continued.

The alliances blames IGAD for excluding their group from the earlier peace negotiation process and now wants a new peace process to include their new alliance.

“It has inevitably, therefore, led to a flawed and non-inclusive peace agreement, which failed to address the fundamental root causes of the crisis of governance, justice and accountability and leadership in South Sudan. Therefore, the hasty calls for the establishment of the R-TGoNU in less than 4 weeks time, is an endorsement of the status quo and undermines the suffering of our people and their demands for reform.” They continued.

“A new platform to make the R-ARCSS fully inclusive. It is only in this way that a durable, genuine, and just peace can be realized in South Sudan. This will not come about via the formation of an incomplete and non-inclusive transitional government that is being forced upon the long-suffering and downtrodden people of South Sudan, yet again.”

The new South Sudan Opposition Movements alliance is appealing to the UNSC, the African Union, and the IGAD countries, to provide a new platform for renegotiating the R-ARCSS, so as to address all of the above issues.

Since peace negotiations begin in January 2014, number of armed and political oppositions has overwhelming increased. Most of these opposition lacks military present in South Sudan, however, the recent peace deal has given birth to more than 20 new military groups in South Sudan – all of them are now training and preparing their forces for what may happen next.