Africa-Press – South-Sudan. Prominent South Sudan opposition leader Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin has said that there is almost nothing to celebrate as an achievement eleven years after the world’s youngest country gained its independence from Sudan following decades of war.
Akol who is also the chairman of the opposition National Democratic Movement (NDM) that signed the revitalized peace agreement made the remarks in his annual national address to mark the country’s 11th independence anniversary.
In the statement, Akol said there is nothing to celebrate as an achievement apart from a few infrastructural projects he said were all funded by foreign governments and entities despite the promises made to the people of South Sudan during the liberation struggle.
“Eleven years after independence we have little to show by way of translating into reality the slogans we have been shouting about during the struggle. We promised our people democracy, freedoms, service delivery, development, healthy economy, national unity, imposing the rule of law, accountability, and empowerment of women, promotion of national unity, accountability and promotion of the youth,” Akol said.
“Eleven years on we can hardly put our finger on an achievement on these important pillars of national obligation, except for one or two infrastructural projects designed, financed and executed by foreign countries,” he added.
The opposition leader said that the country instead witnessed “a devastating war twice (2013-2015 and 2017-2018) so devastating that we lost hundreds of thousand souls and produced millions of refugees and IDPs for the first time in our history.”
REVITALIZED PEACE AGREEMENT
Akol said the people of South Sudan were relieved with the signing of the revitalized peace agreement, are disappointed almost four years into signing given the continued lack of will to its implementation by the parties who signed it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in September 2018.
“Our people breathed a sigh of relief when the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was signed in Addis Ababa on 12 September 2018 thinking that it will pave the way for a democratic and prosperous country,” he said.
“Alas, 46 months now and we are still struggling to implement provisions of the agreement that should have been completed on or before 12 May 2019. It is an understatement to say that the implementation is going at a snail’s speed,” he added.
OPPOSITION MEETING OUTSIDE SOUTH SUDAN
The opposition leader further said the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement is now coming to an end without its provisions being translated into reality and that it was only a few months before the end of the transitional period.
“As the Revitalized Agreement stipulated, our country was to begin the elections process 34 months into the transitional period so that the elected government assumes office by 22 February 2023 to usher our country into a democratic era,” he said.
“Today, we are less than six months to the date set for the elections and nothing has been done in terms of creating a level space for free, fair and credible elections. All this for the lack of political will. No elections can be conducted under the current suffocating conditions,” he added.
He said the extension of the transitional period should not the alternative because doing so would mean rewarding the failure of the agreement and then called for an opposition meeting outside South Sudan to agree on the way forward.
“However, the alternative is not the extension of the transitional period under the current government whose legitimacy and mandate expire on 22 February 2023. Doing so is tantamount to rewarding deliberate failure to implement the agreement,” Akol said.
“The NDM position is for the political forces in the country including the hold-out groups to join their brothers in the civil society organizations in a round table conference outside the country to discuss and agree on the way forward for our country to alleviate the suffering our people have been reeling under before and after independence,” he added.
He further said that “No current configuration of transitional arrangements will deliver South Sudan, we have to shift gear.”
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