Machar ally urges Western powers to pressure Kiir’s party to live up to peace promise

JUBA – A senior member of the main armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny has appealed to South Sudan’s friends, the Troika (US, UK and Norway), to increase pressure on the SPLM party led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit to live up to his promises.

In a statement extended to Sudans Post, Dut Majokdit, a close ally of First Vice President Machar and the chairperson of Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, said the Troika should pressure the parties to the revitalized peace agreement, more precisely on the SPLM-IG, to cement their political will and implement the agreement.

“Troika must put more pressures on the political parties to the peace agreement and in particular the key partner (SPLM-IG) to urgently graduate the unified forces that are left at the training centers and begin the phase two of the security arrangements. Parliament must also ratify the political parties act of 2012 and the security bills that were returned back to the house for further deliberation as the deadlocked is being resolved by the presidency,” Majokdit said in the statement.

The senior opposition official said the parties must also be pressured to conduct the “responsibility sharing of the independent commissions, national authorities and other institutions at the national level, which must be done on time including the formation of the administrative areas governments for the political parties to complete the governance structure per the peace agreement,” he added.

The senior SPLM-IO official further welcomed the decision by the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) to endorse the extension of the transitional period by the parties for another two years to allow for implementation of the pending tasks and stressed that if the parties show political will, there would be something different in the agreement’s slow implementation.

“I applaud the R-JEMC position for its support to the roadmap on the implementation of the peace agreement for the next 24^th months extended by the parties. I think it’s time to demonstrate the political will and allow the parties to sell their ideologies to the public instead of the political illusion,” he said.

“Those who are obstacles to peace will be blamed by the international community if the parties failed again to implement the roadmap in letter and spirit,” he added.