Tuesday, January 10, 2017

South Sudan Former Detainees Call for 5-year Interim Administration
January 9, 2017

(JUBA) - South Sudanese ex-political detainees are lobbying the international community to support an interim administration to be managed by experts for a five year period.

The group, led by Pagan Amum, Secretary General of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) which has now split into three separate groups, said the new administration, if formed, would prepare the country to go into the general elections after all the governance matters have been addressed through national dialogue and other processes, including the drafting of an all-encompassing constitution and establishing vibrant and independent judicial system in the country.

In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, the South Sudan’s former deputy defence minister, Majak D’ Agoot, said their proposal would the only way to return the country on the trajectory of peace and stability as well as averting fragmentation.

“The solution from our perspectives rest squarely with the proposal that we have put across recently, where we have called for a round-table conference of all South Sudanese stakeholders and all the affected constituencies so that we are able to have a clean break from the status quo that has created this kind of stagnation”, he said.

Majak said their group was looking for a way to move the country away from the status quo and interim administrations whose performances have not delivered than escalating the conflicts.

“And what we are putting on the table is what we call a caretaker administration of technocrats to run the country for five years leading to general elections at the end of interim period and move away completely from the kinds of transitions that have now failed the country and are escalating the conflicts and are exposing our people to very bad future and consequences like genocide and that you have”, he stressed.

The former South Sudanese deputy defense minister argued that the dialogue launched by President Salva Kiir was "meant to consolidate his hold on power and not necessarily intending it to reconcile and unite the country", citing the resumption of the conflict in 2016, which he claimed resulted from president Kiir’s refusal to implement the agreement which temporarily halted a civil war.

War-torn South Sudan will experience extreme levels of food insecurity across the country during the first half of 2017, a recent food security analysis indicated.

The conflict between South Sudan’s rival factions, has led to deaths of thousands since it broke out in mid-December 2013. Aid agencies say over 2.5 million people have been displaced by the conflict in South Sudan, with an estimated over a million said to have fled into its neighbouring nations.

(ST)

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