I was in Addis for a few days last week and left the day
after the signing of the agreements.
A few things on my mind, since;
-
The level of personalization (if that is a word)
of what is now a national crisis is tragic. Speaking to the SPLM/A in Opposition
negotiators, a lot of talk was focused on, ‘I lost this’, ‘or I was frustrated
in parliament’ or ‘my brother was shot in Juba’, or ‘I will not go back to Juba
unless Kiir goes’. This made it
difficult to even ask that we stop navel-gazing and look at the wider issues,
especially the suffering of innocent civilians, not involved in the
conflict. It also made me wonder if it
is at all possible to negotiate in what is clearly an extremely emotional and
hostile environment. What exactly will this political dialogue be about? Are we
only looking to settle scores?
-
On the government side, it is quite clear that
they perceive this as an abrogation of the Transitional Constitution of the
Republic of South Sudan. By this, the government is not necessarily focusing on
the failures of the SPLM party to contain its internal differences, but on the
actions following. The GRSS is also
quite clear that the detainees will have to be tried in court. There has been
little acknowledgement of any extra-judicial killings that might have happened
– and this is wrong. We hold the government to a much higher standard – many of
us fear that the government did let us down.
-
There was no push by either side to ensure that
the accused persons would receive a fair and honest day in court. We all agree
that the judicial system in South Sudan is flawed, and that we lack an
independent judiciary. Given this, even if the GRSS has credible evidence to
try the accused persons, it will be difficult for us as South Sudanese to
accept the rulings of a court system we have little faith in. There should have
been mechanisms to ensure that any trials would be of the highest standard to
ensure we can respect these rulings.
-
The day after the signing of the agreements,
accusations went back and forth about breaking of the terms of the agreement. The
White Army –underage children with very little understanding of the political
issues that drove them to rebellion in the first place, were on the BBC stating
their intentions to continue fighting until they install Riek Machar as
president. The government was [accused
of] trying to capture as much territory as possible, before the agreement
actually went into force, within 24hrs. This was depressing –this meant that
innocent civilians were still dying and that perhaps we were too optimistic.
-
We hope that IGAD does take forward our
recommendation that a regional body of inquiry is set up to establish the
veracity of the Dec 15th & 16th events. There are too
many versions going around and too many people (Rebecca Garang, hello) taking
advantage of this to do quite a bit of posturing. We need to establish what
started this madness, it is important to hold accountable any persons that
violated the law – i.e. any party to extra-judicial killings, lootings
etc. Since we became a republic, we like
to state that, ‘we are not in the bush, anymore’, we need this clearly
understood.
-
We all agree that we need inclusion of key
stakeholders in the mediation/ negotiation process. Some of us don’t feel like
the teams currently involved have any remaining credibility- and so what we
need to be doing right now, is advocating for our inclusion, and developing
modalities for inclusion. It is not enough to say- we need civil society,
religious leaders, women etc. This is too vague. We need to rally around
stakeholders we feel will hold our interests to heart, and will not be using
this as an opportunity for individual gain (unfortunately, many of our leaders,
do not look beyond the personal).
One overall question I have though, given that this started
as an issue within a political party that became a national crisis, do we give
these failings legitimacy by taking it to the international level? I am
wondering if the role of IGAD and other such institutions is to resolve the
internal problems I should say failures
of political parties and persons. For example, David Yau Yau’s negotiating team
was in Addis as well. We are not sure if he wants IGAD to carve him a state in
South Sudan. But is the sign of things to come? We will all run to the
international stage whenever there are issues like this? At what point do
certain actions become unconstitutional and where does sovereignty begin and
end?
I have more to say on this, but I still need to flesh out my
thoughts. I just know that it does not feel right that political dialogue will
be mediated on the IGAD stage. For example, are they going to go through the
SPLM constitution and manifesto? Are they going to discuss the legislature, the
judiciary and the executive organs of government in Addis? Are they discussing
power sharing? Are they going to discuss
the establishment of political parties? Are they going to be revising the
Transitional Constitution? Are these not
issues that should be discussed in Juba- with the full involvement of the
citizenry- who after all have a bigger stake in all this, and who voted and
will be voting (insh’allah) come 2015? I’m puzzled.
