Radio Miraya
2730: Opposition Groups Leader Pagan Amum Speaks on the Position of Non-Signatories at the Mediation Talks
Your Excellency, President William Brutu, President of the Republic, Kenya, your Excellency, President Salpakir Mayardid, President of the Republic of South Sudan. Your Excellencies, heads of the States and other guests. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the opposition, our movements and on behalf of the National Consensus Forum, I would like to thank President Brutu for accepting the request of President Salpakir Mayardid to mediate between the government of South Sudan and the opposition. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, South Sudan has been at war and conflict with itself for almost all the time since its independence. South Sudan, South Sudanese have fought, displaced and killed themselves since 2013. They have negotiated and signed agreements under the A-guard mediation. They have also negotiated and signed several documents in Rome under the mediation of Santigidio community. All these agreements have not entered South Sudan into peace and good governance. All the transitions and the transitional governments have failed to take South Sudan into peace. Today, South Sudan is threatened with disintegration and collapse into chaos and disorder. It is gripped by multiple crises. The country suffers from a constitutional crisis. It is governed by constitutional, by interim constitutions and presidential decrease. The process for the people of South Sudan to make and adapt their permanent constitution is destroyed. This is a crisis. The country is also in a political crisis with a dysfunctional government unable to deliver peace and services to its people or to return the power to the people to elect their governments in free, peaceful and fair elections. The country is in a severe economic crisis and the state has been bankrupted. It is incapable to pay its civil servants or make meaningful development or even to maintain its diplomatic missions outside the country. To the point that some of its diplomats are evicted and made homeless like what happened in Rome two days ago. Our country is suffering probably the worst humanitarian crisis in our history. More than 75% of our population are in danger of starvation and hunger. For them to survive, they need humanitarian assistance in the world that is also changing and becoming more difficult today. South Sudan is in another crisis. Probably it is among the first countries that have become victim of climate change. We have been having floods for the last five years and large territory of South Sudan is under floods continuously for the last five years while other areas are suffering, fraud, disrupting our subsistence agriculture and causing food insecurity. With also a lot of heat waves that are disrupting the normal life of our people. The social fabric of our society is toned and destroyed. Communities are divided and are made to fight among themselves. South Sudan is engulfed in conflict and violence among our communities. All these crisis need South Sudanese to put their heads together to dialogue and find solutions. This is the only best way for us to respond to your initiative and that of the region and international community. Engaging in national dialogue and building national consensus and agreeing to a new social contract is what is required. But for us to achieve this, I believe and in this with this initiative which is the hope initiative to my initiative to give hope to our people. We need to leave the mindset of conflict. We need to stop seeing ourselves as enemies. We are brothers and sisters. President here we are brothers and sisters. As the present generation of South Sudanese, we are the founding mothers and fathers of this new nation. Our historical task is to lay the foundation of this new nation. This is really our historical task after independence. And to achieve that we have to engage in dialogue. We have to be positive. We have to overcome. This hatred that has filled our hearts. This is not time for that. Especially now that the world is changing and there are many crisis that are even coming up beyond the one that we have created ourselves. I believe this is our last opportunity and we must take this seriously and engage in dialogue and it must be an inclusive dialogue. What we need is not another peace agreement. Peace agreements are not being implemented. What we need is a serious dialogue and a real soul set so that we can really address the root causes and come out with a new social contract that will define what type of state we want to have that will define what type of nation we are and how do we manage our affairs. Thank you very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]