October 30th 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – Regional and International envoys who met in Djibouti between October 25th – 26th has recommended to the regional bloc, IGAD, to meet and determine the status of the SPLM-IO leader Dr. Riek Machar who has been under forced confinement since 2016.
The call is not the first of its kind. The IGAD Council of Ministers wrote twice this year to the regional heads of state and government to meet and determine the status of the main armed opposition leader but a UN general assembly meeting in New York failed the high-level meeting.
It remains unclear as to when that important meeting will take place as the parties are near to a November 12th deadline in which the parties are required – by the agreement – to form a unity government.
Machar is an important figure in the revitalized peace agreement signed by the government and several opposition groups in September last year. Through that agreement, Machar is now designated as the country’s first vice-president.
In a statement on Monday, the regional and international envoys meeting in Djibouti recommended to the heads of state and government of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development to meet and decided the status of Machar who is now being kept in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
“IGAD to convene Heads of State and Government Summit as urgently as possible to be preceded by a meeting of the leaders of the guarantors of the R-ARCSS namely Uganda and the Sudan,” the statement extended to Nyamilepedia partly reads.
The statement further said the regional heads of states should in that meeting give advice on the way forward regarding the number and boundaries of states among other outstanding issues.
“The IGAD Summit in consultation with the Parties and taking into consideration the advice of the guarantors, should give guidance on pending pre-transitional tasks and the formation of R-TGoNU in particular transitional security arrangements and number and boundaries of states,” it added.
