Opinion | The dissolution of the illegitimate TNLA and the Council of States

By Gattiek Wichar

OPINION — The decision by President Salva Kiir to dissolve — on Saturday night — the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) and the Council of States (CS) is a positive step in the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.

While it symbolizes a positive gesture by the parties in their struggle for the implementation of the peace agreement, the action should have happened in 2019 as provided for in the agreement if the parties are serious to implement the deal in letter and spirit.

It has been more than one year since the formation of the Revitalized Transitional government of the National Unity (R-TGoNU) of the Republic of South Sudan. However intransigency of the peace partners and other stakeholders to the revitalized peace agreement frustrated all efforts to implement the agreement in due time since there is no political will among them to expedite the implementation process and has in practice pushed the formation of the peace parliament ahead.

The implementation process stuck only in Chapter I of the agreement since the formation of the peace cabinet when in fact the agreement has more than seven chapters. It is crystal clear now that the delay in peace implementation process is a stratagem of the predatory elite within the former RTGONU seeking an extension of to the former RTGONU with the aim of maintaining the status quo at the expense of the people of South Sudan.

The civil population has been suffering for more than seven consecutive years. People have been both internally and externally displaced despite the fact that they are the very people to whom this peace was signed on their behalf and yet their conditions have never been put into consideration by the parties.

The political behaviors of the leaders toward citizens after the signing of the Khartoum-negotiated peace pact in 2018 are too arrogant and provocative. Many have already argued that the deal was literally meant for distribution of wealth and positions among the corrupt political elites rather than for ending the untold sufferings of the people of South Sudan.

This is justified by the fact that politicians are just wrangling on daily basis on who should take this cake instead of reaching mutual and peaceful consensus on all matters for the prime interest of their citizens and country and this wrangling has pushed forward and delayed implementation of crucial peace tasks that should be in place today.

South Sudanese have never enjoyed peace dividends since 2005 upto date. Only handful group of criminals live luxurious life where by the innocent majority, the rest of citizens, live an unimaginable destitution and to make it worse such classification at wealth and power sharing is being exercised shamelessly by the same SPLM ruling party that fought against such discriminative policies for many decades against Khartoum theocratic regime inorder for South sudanese to achieve their real freedom, peace and equality at last.

South Sudanese leaders need to rethink for the future of their country and citizens instead of thinking for themselves all the times for more than 15 years since the signing of comprehensive peace agreement(CPA) in 2005 otherwise the struggles of South sudanese which cost them more than sixty years in jungle will be meaningless sacrifices. Struggle continues!

The author is South Sudanese political activist based in Cairo, Egypt. He can be reached via: gattiekwichar@gmail.com.

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