Radio Miraya
2754: NAIROBI PEACE TALKS: Commitments must be implemented - Joseph Madak Both Wuol
To tell us more about what has been going on for the last few days or few weeks as the talks started last month, I am joined here by Dr. Joseph Madok Boz, who is the Secretary General and the Chief Mediator to the Can Lead Mediation for South Sudan Priestock. Good morning, Dr. Joseph, and thank you so much for coming on the show. Good morning, Sani Margin, and good morning to our listeners of Mirai Radio from Juba. Today, this Friday morning. Okay, you are the chief negotiator of the U.D.R.M., that is the United Democratic Revolution Movement, Stroke Army. First of all, what is the latest on the peace talk and how are they progressing? Thank you very much. This is a very important question. I would like to note that the peace talk generally, continue to make some significant progress, despite cautious optimism on agreement on key issues, that the mediation also struggles with it. We are expecting them to very soon bring back to the plenary, to the opposition and the parties to the process, the discussed key issues to these talks. So what are the key issues we are talking about? The key issues are as follows, the politics and governance in the country, the security in the country, the economic and social cohesion issues in the country, and the issue of justice and transitional justice, and finally, the issue of the permanent constitution in the country and the constitutional making processes. Those are the key critical issues that being prioritized as the agenda for the talks. We understand that delegates reached some kind of agreement last week, and we also had that they will be initialing this document, maybe in the coming days, and this was broken by the religious group from both the Muslim and Christians. So tell us more about this document. An update is our listeners back in South Wales, I would like to know from you. This is a very important step in the peace talk process. Five days ago, the religious leaders from the Muslim phase base and from the Christians, and the imminent persons, most of them are, some of them are professors and retired senior officials, requested the mediation headed by a general retired Lazarus to give them an opportunity for South Sudanese to dialogue on issues of trust and confidence building. Primarily, this was very important after hectic discussions on key issues to the talks, so that was convened for five consecutive days, including Saturdays and Sundays, and now they were very touching issues, and both all the parties, the government delegation, the opposition group, including the UDRM and SONA, discussed honestly and frankly, these trust and confidence issues, and they are bearing the effect on the country's peace and stability. Those issues were discussed in five days, the issues, what are the issues of trust and confidence building, and the solutions were also identified and measures to be taken to address these issues, because they impact, they impact the overall situation in the country. Yes. The agreement was reached. Okay. Now, according to retired bishop of in October, from the South Sudan council of churches, and also a member of our government, he says that 12 points have been agreed upon and has to speak right now, maybe some of your group are meeting and discussing some of these issues. One of them is peace spoilers, he talked about peace spoilers, there are people back in South Sudan who don't want peace. He also talked about the issue of trust deficit. He talked about the issue of the distance or the gap between action and the words, so how significant is this kind of agreement by the parties to a sustainable peace in South Sudan? As I said earlier, it was a very important intra-Zah Sudanese interaction on this trust and confidence building. We finally arrived indeed in a matrix where issues were identified, and the issues we just mentioned, the leadership crisis was also identified as an issue of trust and confidence building. And the list goes on, as you said, up to the tough issues, issues of to do with land management or land governance, which is a big topic across South Sudan, and many other issues. Those ones were reached and solutions were proposed, and we were in the point of initially that particular document, and unfortunately it was not, it was not initial. What happened? Indeed, what happened was more or less administrative procedures where the opposition raised the view that we have other critical issues to these talks, which is the governance, politics and security. Those ones have not yet been initialed and have not finally been approved because they have been handed over to the Secretariat to harmonize the document and bring them back to the plenary for approval. So we said what should be prioritized is those issues, and then we come to trust and confidence building is good that we have agreed on it. We thank the Bush of Enoch who is heading the group that we have no problem, but let's focus on the first issues to be brought back, and we expect that to be happening by Monday. Yes, as a chief negotiator from the United Democratic Revolution Movement, what are your concerns and demands which have so far raised as a group? To us, the same with other opposition groups, because we are a member of Soma, and we are not different in terms of, because we work together here as a position to facilitate talks. We bring our different concerns and demands as independent movements, and we harmonize them, put them as one position. Our demands is fixing the current politics in the country, fixing the governance. This is one of our prime things. If the politics is not fixed, then you won't have a good governance. Our first concern that the country currently is having this issue of politics and governance. We also have the issue of management of natural resources, and also how do we manage foreign contribution or foreign aid, which goes to the bigger part of the country to address the issues. And also, we raise the concern of social cohesion. The country is now ailing, is in a terrible situation in terms of communities being fitted against each other because of the politics. Then we have the security, we have the justice, and so on. As you already said, these are our concerns, and we demand that they should be fixed. Dr. Joseph, what you are saying here are already in the agreement. If you go chapter by chapter in the 2018 report analysis agreement, all what you are mentioning are all there. How different is what you are raising here in Nairobi from what is being implemented in the analysis? Yes, what you are saying is true, and I concur with that. The issues in our country are not different. If you go back into our liberation struggle in 1983, these same issues remains the same. The issue of politics and governance is done. We were not happy with that, and that's why we had the liberation movement in 1983. Again, now that there are so many agreements that have been signed, the issue of honouring agreements, committing to the promises you have made to the people that have signed an agreement. Lack of implementation is the issue. So to us, this forum, this opportunity provided by the Kenyan high-level mediation is to focus on ensuring that commitments are at help, commitments are implemented. Yes, we don't have much time because you have to go for the news, but I want to raise this concern. People listening to us in South Sudan will never be saying, some of you who are here in Nairobi, I want to be looking for a post in Juba. We just want to fight for your position, the moment you get it, you keep quiet. What is your take on this? I tried to do the first page. They did a solution, and it is the right to say their opinion, but to UTRM and to other leaders that I have interacted with them, they are serious, that they wanted to bring a solution to this crisis we have in the country. We need a commitment to implementing agreements so that the country have the security, the politics becomes stable, and there will be a democratic exercise of that. That goes to our social cohesion, that goes to our economic prosperity. If a country is having difficulties providing food on the table for the people, that's challenging. And finally, what should the people of South Sudan expect after this process? The expectations that they should expect is a peace deal, a peace agreement that would be haunted and would be respected. And I trust that the president of the Republic, General Sulfur Kilmayard, and his counterpart, Dr. Roto, commitment to ensure that this process would be implemented. Our people should hold into that, and should be holding them accountable for the words that this time around we are going to implement this agreement. Yes, that is a final question. I wanted to find that for me, because also many South Sudanies are very skeptical that whatever will be agreed here will not be implemented, because this is not the first agreement we are talking about. It's true that people are frustrated, as I said, people are hopeless, and they cannot guarantee and trust anybody. But let us hope that we have a new dispensation, we have a new development. This is Kenya this time around. Before it was Uganda, who was a guarantor, where we have experienced the situation. So let us hope that the Kenyan government will ensure that it live up to the economy. Can they keep hoping? Is there any nearby or we have to wait and see a protracted negotiation in Nairob? We have discussed the critical issues, and what is going on now is going to be the final stages of going to the assenting and agreeing to the issues finally, letting them into a protocol draft to be initial, and then we will go to the implementation modalities. I suspect this should be the process, and then move on to the implementation stage. Yes, Dr. Joseph Madak, both the chief negotiator of the United Democratic Revolution Movement and the stroke army, thank you so much for your time, we have to close it. I would love to maybe say, briefly in a second, because the news is up. The leaders of South Sudan and the leaders of the Tomany Initiative should ensure that this is not a personalized initiative to bring in a particular individual. They should ensure that it becomes inclusive and transparent for it to achieve its goal. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's it. We have for you here, and we will continue to monitor and update our listeners as they go by today. There is no preliminary, but like I said, they are for caucus's meeting, reviewing this document. That will be initially possible next week.