July 5th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – The Sudanese government, which is mediating a peace process for the South Sudanese warring parties, has today proposed, in a peace plan for South Sudan, that the Africa’s youngest nation be administered, during the thirty-six months interim period, on the basis of twenty-one (21) states as proposed in 2014 by Machar’s SPLM-IO during the Addis Ababa peace talks.
According to the new peace plan tabled by the Khartoum mediation today, South Sudan would be administered based on the British former 21 districts until the parties to the agreement reach consensus on the number of the states in South Sudan.
The SPLM-IO in 2014 proposed, during talks in Addis Ababa that the country be divided into twenty-one states based on the colonial division which it said would peacefully extend the number of states without border disputes between tribes.
The South Sudan government rejected the proposal and said the country should remain administered on then current 10 states because there was no budget for the development of the new states tabled.
However, in an abrupt change of mind, Kiir on October 2nd 2015, two months after peace agreement signed on the basis of ten states, divided the country into 28 states through a degree known as the ‘Establishment Order’.
The SPLM-IO, which sent an advance team to Juba as part of peace implementation and the international community including the United States, which is a guarantor to the signed peace, condemned the order and urged Kiir to return the country to ten states.
Kiir rejected and argued that the “long-awaited” division has been a demand of the people of South Sudan since 1947 and urged the armed opposition under Machar to agree to it and accept working on this basis.
