November 29th 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan government said on Wednesday that regional bloc, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the African Union (AU) should help bring holdout opposition leaders General Paul Malong and General Thomas Cirilo Swaka to the negotiating table.
Malong and Cirilo are not signatories to the revitalized peace agreement signed by President Salva Kiir Mayardit and several opposition groups in Addis Ababa last year.
Cirilo had pulled out of talks in Khartoum claiming that Kiir – a party to the then negotiation – was monopolizing the peace process where as Malong was not a participant of the peace process as his movement was created several months after the IGAD-led process started.
The two men now demands the reopening of the 2018 peace agreement for renegotiation saying it favors the government of president Salva Kiir and doesn’t address the root causes of the six-year old conflict.
Speaking in Addis Ababa on Wednesday during a cross-border meeting between Sudan and South Sudan, information minister and government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth said the IGAD and AU should help bring Malong and Cirilo to the negotiating table.
“We have called on the African Union, IGAD and international community to support us in talking to the non-signatories so that they join us in the peace process,” Makuei said.
“If they so do, by 2020 South Sudan will be silent of guns,” Makuei added.
