Pagan Amum Okiech, the leader of the opposition Real SPLM at the Tumaini (hope) Peace Initiative, says the opposition group in Kenya is not ready to renegotiate the protocols initialled in July.
In an exclusive interview with Radio Tamazuj, Mr Amum, who also leads a faction of the holdout group, the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA), lashed out at Juba for sabotaging the Nairobi-based talks.
Below are edited excerpts:
Q. Honorable Pagan, could you update the public on the status of the Tumaini Initiative?
A. Thank you for this opportunity. People have been asking whether the initiative is dead or still alive. I want to confirm that the Tumaini Initiative is aimed at rescuing South Sudan from collapse and perpetual crisis in which the citizens live in abject poverty and with diseases caused by an economic crisis and failure of government to provide basic services and stop inter-communal violence.
The Initiative came about after the Transitional Government of National Unity failed to implement the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement despite several extensions. As a result, President Salva Kiir requested Dr William Ruto, the President of Kenya, to mediate between the government and the holdout opposition groups. In May, President Ruto assigned Gen (rtd) Lazaro Sumbeiywo, who launched the initiative on May 9 and the parties entered into talks for five months and agreed on everything on the Tumaini Consensus, which is the official name of the agreement. We actually agreed to sign the agreement on September 16. Unfortunately, the government delegation failed to come for the signing. That caused fears that the Tumaini might have died. However, I want to assure everyone that the Initiative is still alive. As the opposition, we are at the venue in Nairobi and we were ready to sign; only that the government did not turn up, and we have been waiting for them for three months now.
Q. Are you negotiating with the ruling party SPLM or all parties in the Transitional Government?
A. We are negotiating with the Revitalized Government of National Unity; we are not negotiating with parties, which form the government. The negotiation is between the government and the opposition.
Q. But the members of the SPLM-IO who were part of the government delegation pulled out in July. How do you explain this?
A. Yes, it is true that in July after the initialing of a number of protocols, the SPLM-IO led by Dr Riek Machar pulled out in protest, although they actively participated in the negotiations on all the eight protocols. I can say all the protocols of the Tumaini Initiative were exhaustively discussed and agreed on before the withdrawal of the SPLM-IO. Now, we are talking about all the members of the transitional government who went back to Juba for consultation, but could not come to Nairobi to sign the agreement on September 16.
Q. What are the fears of the government not returning to sign the agreement?
A. They did not tell us any positions officially but the transitional government recently dispatched a high-level delegation to Kenya. They met the President of Kenya, visited Ethiopia, Uganda and I think they plan to visit other countries. According to our findings, that group is opposed to Tumaini and they are launching this campaign to spoil or sabotage Tumaini and perhaps to cut any regional support for the initiative. This activity has also raised concerns about the fate of Tumaini. The president sent those delegations abroad to launch the anti-Tumaini Initiative campaigns.
Q. But it was President Kiir who initiated the talks in Nairobi. Why would he want the talks to fail?
A. That is the concern and the surprise that the president and the government were the ones who requested Kenya to mediate between us.
Q. The joint communique of the two leaders in Juba indicated that the peace process should be finalized within two weeks. What is your reading on this?
A. President Ruto met us before his Juba trip and we informed him about our readiness to sign the Tumaini Consensus. We agreed on inviting the other parties to signing the agreement. In addition, indeed, he visited Juba on November 6 at the invitation of President Kiir and both sides issued a joint communique that the mediation should complete the process and sign an agreement within two weeks, so this is my understanding of the outcome of the meeting in Juba.
We have received an invitation from the Kenyan mediation to resume the talks on November 11, and we will start the final phase, which will lead to the final signature of the agreement. We are ready to sign the agreement and we hope that the government delegation will attend the talks on Monday.
Q. Many people are asking about the content of the Tumaini’s responsibility-sharing protocol. Could you shed light on this?
A. Yes, we discussed the responsibility sharing protocol and eventually the government requested to go back to Juba for further consultation. They requested time to return to Juba for consultation but did not come back. I think this is the only protocol that we will discuss when the government delegation returns.
Q. Is it a complex protocol? Could you please disclose some of its content to the public?
A. It is not complex and we agreed on the main points and a specific transitional period that will allow the implementation and the democratic transition in South Sudan?
Q. It seems the government wants to renegotiate some of the protocols and ensure Tumaini is attached to R-ARISS. What is your position on this?
A. As I mentioned earlier, the negotiations have concluded and what is left is one protocol, which is power sharing or responsibility sharing as it is called. Parties negotiated and agreed that the Tumaini Consensus is an agreement to rescue South Sudan from collapse.
We agreed that the Tumaini Initiative would include all the provisions of the revitalized agreement that have not been implemented, and any attempt to renegotiate the agreement, like those by the so-called High Level Committee, will be considered an attempt to kill the Initiative. We are ready to sign the agreement and I think there are no outstanding issues. We think that the Tumaini consensus should not be attached to the revitalized agreement whose parties have failed to implement for six years. What was agreed was to incorporate all the unimplemented provisions and programs of the 2018 Peace Agreement into the Tumaini Initiative.
Q. The government extended its mandate for another two years to implement the 2018 agreement. After signing Tumaini, will there be two parallel agreements to be implemented in Juba?
A. Tumaini consensus will be the only agreement because it incorporates the unimplemented provisions of the revitalized agreement. Tumaini also has new programs that tackle the challenges facing South Sudan and is more inclusive and elaborate. We have also answered the question why the parties to the 2018 Peace Agreement failed by adopting strong mechanisms that will lead to full implementation of the agreement and the democratic transition.
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