For Immediate release
By the Equatoria Peoples’ Alliance (EPA),
April 5, 2021(Nyamilepedia) — The Equatoria Peoples’ Alliance (EPA) is deeply outraged and appalled that Equatoria is bleeding as Governors Lt. Gen. Louis Lobong and Emmanuel Adil are joined up with President Salva Kiir, in their unseemly alliance to make evil, covering Equatoria and the country with blood and violence. EPA condemns in no uncertain terms, the unspeakable violence and unabated gross human rights violations and abuses meted out at innocent women and children at Loriyok, Eastern Equatoria State, in The Republic of South Sudan.
Loriyok massacre of 28th March 2021 death tall in Eastern Equatoria stands at the grim figure of 17 innocent Laarim women, children and unarmed civilians while Governor Lt. Gen Louis Lobong and his crowd chants SPLM Oyee to a hero’s welcome of Gen. Lojore in his home town of Kapoeta, where he shamelessly enjoyed being adorned and showered with flowers amid SPLM Oyee ululations, unperturbed by the loss of innocent lives, including a 6 year old! There was not a single minute of silence by the Governor and his crowd in honor of 17 innocent lives of women and children or the 6 year old who were murdered in cold blood in their sleep and their huts burnt on them. History will remember the Oyee chanting Gen. Lojore and his aides, who spared not a moment of silence in respect of the dead, as SPLM Oyee chanting got the better of him, his aides and the crowd that is insulated from expression of sympathy for the 17 lost lives of innocent women and children at the cowardly hands of militia men. The Governor would not be relieved as demanded by the victims to allow for an independent investigation of the massacre at Loriyok. Never will there be justice and redress for the crimes against the people in Equatoria.
The situation in Central Equatoria is no less different, no less grim as scores of civilians are murdered and burnt on Juba-Yei-Kaya road, or in their villages and on Juba-Nimule road by the terrorist Mathiang Anywor militia while Emmanuel Adil with utter contempt is busy showering and ululating praises congratulating the sponsor and founding father of the terrorist Mathiang Anywor at J1. The state has long withered and ceased to exist in South Sudan, and violence against civilians remains unstoppable and persistent by design of Salva Kiir’s Dinka militias.
This “Mathiang Anywor” menace is now being home grown under Lt. Gen Lojore in Eastern Equatoria, presiding over repeat massacres of Laarim and Didinga communities, burning innocent women and children to sow discord, acts of revenge, disunity and divisions which continue covering Budi county, Equatoria and the country in blood and violence to maintain President Salva Kiir and his imposed, unelected Governors in power to do his bidding.
Equatoria continued bleeding in the hands of Adil and Lojore against their own people, at the behest of J1 occupants’ impunity, has left the social fabric of the country destructed, and without the people of Equatoria exercising political power over affairs of their existence and governance without undue influences from J1 Jieng and miscellaneous JCE [1]sponsored occupants.
The people of Equatoria call on TROIKA[2] countries, IGAD and UN Security Council, to voice our deeply combusting frustrations that the flawed elites-driven RARCSS[3] and R-TGONU have failed our people and made a failed state of our country, and the SPLM leaders are without legitimacy to preside over permanent constitution making, neither over free and fair elections.
The Peoples’ of Equatoria, in the public interest, call for a caretaker government in South Sudan, replacing the failed R-TOGONU, and with a mandate to oversee and preside over:
- A people-driven constitution making, through popular Peoples’ Constitutional Conventions in Equatoria, Upper Nile, and Bahr al Ghazal regions as per the 1st January 1956 provincial boundaries, districts and constituencies; to elect peoples’ representatives to a Constituent Assembly and National Legislative Assembly
- Carry out a new population Census in the country
- Conduct unfettered free and fair elections under a new constitution for the country made by the people, and derives authority, legitimacy and power from the will of the people.
- Implement the transitional justice mechanisms, truth and reconciliation, Hybrid Court and accountability for Human Rights violations
- Reconstituting and reform of the National Security and the National Army in the country to serve the people
- Implement Democratic Media Laws for the Right of Access to Information, the Public’s Right to Know, unfettered free and independent media to foster freedom of expression and inclusive democratic space in the country
- Transformation of state controlled Radio and TV to public broadcasting service that is made accountable through the public, and the National Legislature
- Anti-Corruption and National Revenue Authorities policies, with a mandate to recover stolen public finances that were lost to corruption, and prosecution of offenders
The terms and provisions of the flawed R-ARCSS power and responsibility sharing model, present a convoluted “to be” reconstituted National Legislative Assembly (NLA) comprising of a bloated 550 members Legislature, of whom 330 members are to be appointed by President Salva Kiir for SPLM-IG[4], and 130 members to be appointed by Dr. Riek Machar for SPLM-IO[5], which makes a total of 460 members for SPLM party alone. Where are the people in all this? The remaining 90 members are to be shared between SSOA[6] and OPP[7]. This would create a top down NLA of the parties to R-ARCSS and not from representatives of the people, whom these parties do not represent.
The members of this “to be” R-NLA, would not be “elected representatives” of the people, but political appointees representing specific political groups, and whose members are without a mandate from the people of Equatoria, Upper Nile and Bahr al Ghazal states `and administrative areas. The R-ARCSS does not provide for a Constituent Assembly, neither for Constitutional Conventions in the Equatoria, Upper Nile and Bahr al Ghazal states and administrative areas to elect their peoples’ representatives to a Constituent Assembly. This is an essential provision that is missing in R-ARCSS but critical for the purposes of permanent constitution making process in which representatives of the people participate in their permanent constitution making process for the newest country in Africa.
The exclusion of the people from direct involvement in the vital permanent constitution making process by way of electing their peoples’ representatives to a Constituent Assembly, is a gross violation of inalienable rights of the people of Equatoria, over 1.8 million of whom are in refugee camps in Uganda, Kenya, Egypt and Sudan and they are not represented by the SPLM IG, neither by SPLM IO. The EPA does not recognize the proposed permanent constitution making process and any election subsequent to it to be legitimate under SPLM-made constitution.
EPA is repeatedly calling on the international community, TROIKA in particular, IGAD and AU to standing with the people of South Sudan in their quest to establish their new state on foundations of legitimacy, power and authority that is deriving from the people and from their full participation in their permanent constitution making process for their new state, and to make the constitution making to be people-driven, which R-ARCSS provisions unfortunately do not accord such recognition.
The peoples of Equatoria demand their rights for there to be a legitimate people-driven constitution making and legitimate peoples’ representatives and leaders participation in a Constituent Assembly whose authority derives from the people, and without which the country would not be able to reconcile itself and repair our broken social fabric through the constitution making process.
Equatoria will not participate in a sham constitution and state formation process, one that is without a Constituent Assembly and without Equatoria Peoples’ Constitutional Convention in Equatoria for the peoples’ participation in the permanent constitution-making process that is people-driven, and not Government, neither SPLM Party driven with 460 SPLM Party members between IG and IO alone.
EPA calls on the people of Equatoria to stand united in their call for a caretaker government to be instituted in place of the failed R-TGONU in our country. This is in the interest of an inclusive state formation process in which we participate in permanent constitution decision-making as a people on par with the peoples’ representatives from historic Upper Nile and Bahr al Ghazal regions.
References:
[1] Jieng Council of Elders
[2] USA, UK, Norway
[3] Revitalized Agreement for Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan, 2018
[4] Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement – In Government
[5] Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement – In Opposition
[6] South Sudan Opposition Alliance
[7] Other Political Parties
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