Cirillo made the remarks on Wednesday during a high-level virtual panel discussion organised by the Department of History at Fordham University, where participants examined South Sudan’s political trajectory and prospects for ending the country’s prolonged crisis.
Responding to a question on what steps are needed to complete the transition, Cirillo rejected the characterisation used by some scholars that South Sudan is undergoing an unfinished transition.
“With due respect to that definition, the National Salvation Front views the situation as political stagnation,” he said. “We call it an aborted transition because this transition did not start.”
According to Cirillo, the implementation of the 2018 Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) stalled from the outset due to what he described as a lack of political will by President Salva Kiir’s government.
“We are now eight years in, and according to international observers, only 10 to 15 per cent of the agreement has been implemented,” he said. “President Salva Kiir himself admitted—and all of us know this—that the agreement was not meant for implementation.”
Cirillo, whose movement declined to sign the 2018 peace deal, maintained that the agreement was fundamentally flawed but accused the government of deliberately undermining even its limited implementation.
He alleged that authorities weakened signatory opposition groups by recruiting their members, attacking military bases, arresting political and military leaders, and, in some cases, killing them. He also cited the detention of First Vice President and SPLM-IO leader Dr Riek Machar as evidence that the peace process had collapsed.
“The regime decided to control critical institutions such as the security sector, the judiciary, and economic institutions of the country through ethnic policies,” he said. “This situation has resulted in an autocratic regime where one person controls all institutions of the government.”
Cirillo further accused the government of shrinking civic space through arbitrary arrests, killings, forced displacement and the abduction of activists and dissidents, while alleging widespread corruption and state capture.
He argued that the limited progress made under the peace agreement amounted largely to the allocation of government positions to opposition parties without meaningful authority.
“All these positions are empty, without real powers,” he said. “All powers remain with Salva Kiir and his group.”
Mr Cirillo said South Sudan’s worsening political and security situation requires an entirely new national dialogue rather than continued implementation of the current agreement.
He called for “a new comprehensive, inclusive peace process” involving armed opposition groups, political parties, civil society organisations, faith leaders, women and youth representatives.
The NAS leader said any future negotiations should be facilitated by neutral mediators, backed by credible guarantors, held in a safe venue acceptable to all parties, and guided by an agenda agreed upon by South Sudanese stakeholders themselves.
He criticised previous mediation efforts, including the Tumaini Initiative in Kenya, arguing they focused on salvaging what he described as a failed agreement rather than addressing the root causes of the conflict.
“It is time for us to create conditions that allow South Sudanese to sit together and rescue their own country,” Cirillo said.
He proposed establishing an interim government through a new political settlement and immediately introducing a federal system of governance, arguing that decentralisation would allow citizens to manage their own affairs instead of concentrating authority in the presidency.
Cirillo said such an arrangement should be followed by the voluntary return and resettlement of displaced people, a national population census, and elections that would allow South Sudanese to choose their leaders in what he described as the country’s first genuine democratic transition.
Touching on the conflict in neighbouring Sudan, Cirillo warned that the war has increasingly spilt over into South Sudan, citing cross-border insecurity, the closure of border crossings, accusations that Juba supports armed groups, and concerns over trafficking and the reported movement of mercenaries. He said the instability has further exposed South Sudan’s inability to effectively secure its territory.
