November 25th 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s holdout opposition alliance, the National Alliance for Democracy and Freedom Action (NADAFA) has said in a statement extended to Nyamilepedia that this month’s extension of pre-transitional period won’t add value to the ongoing peace process.
President Salva Kiir and main armed opposition leader, Dr. Riek Machar early this month agreed during a meeting in Uganda to extend the pre-transitional period for another three months because pre-transitional critical tasks needed for a unity government formation were not in place.
The parties had signed a peace deal in September last year to end the ongoing civil. The agreement required the parties to form unity government of 36-month by May 12th. However, because the same tasks were not in place, they decided to extend for a November 12th deadline which ended with a 100-day extension because of similar issues.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Dr. Hakim Dario, the Chairperson of NADAFA, said the latest extension by Kiir and Machar won’t change the reality on the ground accusing Kiir’s government of lacking the political will needed and intentionally evading funding of the peace process.
“In statement made on January 25th 2019, PDM a member of the alliance, South Sudan NADAFA, reiterated to the public and the international community, that the government of South Sudan lacked political will and, as expected, was shown by events to be deliberately refusing to fund the implementation of the flawed elites power-sharing agreement, R-ARCSS which it signed on September 12, 2018,” Dario said in the statement.
“It only did so for the promise of a new lease of life in power to continue its rule in the name of R-ARCSS. The flaws of this imposed agreement in its current form, has proven the non-signatories to it right,” he added.
“This month, 24th November 2019, marks the 10th month point in the implementation schedule of the Pre-Transitional Period benchmarks of the flawed R-ARCSS. What will another slippage of 100 days now do – dubbed as extension to the pre-transitional period – to snatch R-ARCSS from the jaws of certain and proven lack of political will to implement it?
“In the last 10 months, no cantonment camps were made fully operational for both government and opposition. The joint unified army that should provide the security in the entire country has not been established. The number of states has no been decided.
“Kampala, however, wants the world and IGAD to entertain the false belief and faith that these benchmarks will now suddenly happen within the new 100 days deadline before the return of the refugees from abroad and the IDPs to their original homes. The excuse given by the government in the last 10 months for missed deadlines was allegedly lack of funds.
“That being the case, South Sudan NADAFA questions as to where the money to pay for the bloated government, comprising of 5 vice presidents, 550 members of Parliaments, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of military generals, myriads of commissions and other institutions, would come from. The IGAD, which mediated R-ARCSS, has no answer to these questions. Instead IGAD assumed that the ‘donors’ and the ‘peace partners’ would foot the bill. Have the funds now made appearance to achieve all the critical benchmarks in the critical path to formation of R-TGONU in what is left of Kampala’s 100 days pre-transitional period extension?”
The holdout opposition group further “calls on the international community and on all our people and opposition groups to work for change with us, than with the current failed SPLM leaders, to bring about the People’s Transitional Federal Government of South Sudan NADAFA, based on power sharing between the peoples of Greater Equatoria, Greater Upper Nile and Greater Bahr al Ghazal regions, and in a bid to repair the country’s social fabric through a new people’s constitutional convention and people-driven constitution making processes for the country’s new beginning under a people-centric government during the transitional period.”
