Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 02 August 2018

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In May 2014, President Salva Kiir claimed that he and former Vice President Dr Riek Machar signed a peace agreement in Addis Ababa under duress. He was threatened with imprisonment if he failed to sign the then proposed peace deal. 

Four years on, and after repeatedly failing to win over the consent of the Opposition Alliance to endorse a power-sharing formula designed to uphold the status quo and Salva Kiir as President, IGAD handed-over the peace process to the most improbable of mediators – Sudan and President Omer al-Bashir. 

One logic being peddled is the suspected friendship between President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Dr Riek Machar on the one hand, and President Yoweri K. Museveni of Uganda and President Salva Kiir on the other. It is a misguided decision not only because these two neighbouring countries have strong and deep vested economic interests in South Sudan, or that after the alleged December 15 coup, President Omer al-Bashir vowed not to ever again work with Dr Riek Machar; but more significantly, because ultimately “you negotiate lasting peace with your enemies and not with your friends”. 

President Kiir is on record as saying that he “regrets” not killing his former Vice President and some of the other members of the Opposition Groups. 

A document littered with bracketed contentious issues is not a peace agreement; instead, it is a negotiating document still to be concluded.

Hours before its anticipated signing in Khartoum, the underlying ‘root causes’ of the South Sudan conflict, and the issues preventing a genuine peace in the country remain “bracketed” in the proposed text, to be allegedly addressed later after signing. Basically putting the wagon before the horse. 

A document littered with bracketed contentious issues is not a peace agreement; instead, it is a negotiating document still to be concluded. Its signing is not worth attending by foreign Heads of States, unless there is an insidious agenda in play from the IGAD “Peace-makers” against the ordinary millions of downtrodden and suffering children, women and elderly of South Sudan. 

The Government of the Republic of Sudan, have exchanged the Foreign Office and its institutions of diplomacy with the security apparatuses and their archaic tactics of intimidation and coercion. 

The Sudanese Minister of Defence, Awad Ibn Ouf, and the National Intelligence and Security Services Director, Salah Gosh, are currently arm-twisting members of the Opposition Alliance in Khartoum, to sign an unworkable peace agreement document on the 5th August 2018. 

The Sudanese Military want to impose a non-inclusive peace deal that serves the interests of the elites in South Sudan and the elites in neighbouring IGAD countries.

If signed, and in the words of President Woodrow Wilson: 

“It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice; and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which term of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand.” 

It is now a real wake-up call to all genuinely patriotic sons and daughters of South Sudan, and also to their friends from around the world who have stood with them through so much towards their independence, must now protect their country from its enemies that are within and outside. Enemies who are once again working to suppress the liberated hopes of the people of South Sudan. The people will not allow this to ever happen; and especially after they fought, and died in the millions, for their freedom and Independence.

Signed

For UPDM
External Affairs and Communications