October 17, 2019(Nyamilepedia) — Briefing the South Sudanese communities in Alberta, Canada, the deputy chairman of South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLM/A(IO), Hon. Henry Odwar, explains why the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity(R-TGNU) may not be formed on November 12, 2019.
While he emphasizes the importance of implementing the security arrangement as stipulated in the peace agreements, Odwar reiterates that the issue of number and boundary of states is a deal breaker.
“32 States is a NO NO, we will not go by that. If the regime of Salva forms its RTGNU on November 12, 2019 based on 32 state, IO will not agree to that” Hon. Henry Odwar said.
Hon. Odwar explains that the issue of 32 states came into being on Oct 2nd, 2015 to violate and eventually dismantle the previous peace agreement, and therefore the SPLM/A(IO) believes that the peace guarantors and the international community should condemn Juba in the strongest terms possible.
“We wanted 21 states in 2015, the government wanted 10 states, then SPLM/A(IO) compromised to 10 states but on October 2, 2015, Kiir created 28 states in violation of the previous peace agreement” He continued
The Deputy Chairman of SPLM/A(IO) reiterates that accepting the 32 states amounts to accepting fragrant violation of the peace agreement by the regime.
Odwar further acknowledged that the Independent Boundary Commission (IBC) that was formed to resolve the issue of number and boundary of states has also recommended 10 States but the group failed short of one vote during the voting exercise.
According to the recent peace agreement, the government side took a lion share of 5 out 10 South Sudan members of the IBC and out of 10, at least 7 votes were expected to vote in favor of one number of states.
All the five members of the opposition plus one member from the government side voted for 10 states making the vote 6 out 10 against 4 in favor of 10 states.
The government delegation negotiated to ensure that the opposition group never win any democratic exercise that require voting whether in the IBC, cabinet, presidency or in the parliament.
Hon. Odwar further explains that his chairman, Dr. Riek Machar, will not go to Juba or else if he goes he will not make a difference saying that whatever needs to be negotiated with President Kiir can be handled by himself [Henry] and the rest of the team that is already in Juba.
