Opposition accuses government of turning its back on peace as talks stall again

JUBA – South Sudan’s opposition group UPA has accused President Salva Kiir’s administration of abandoning the Kenya-led peace talks after the government delegation departed Nairobi for Juba last week to attend the launch of the extended transitional government on February 22.

The delegation, led by Kiir’s senior adviser Kuol Manyang Juuk, returned to South Sudan after requesting that Kenyan mediators adjourn the peace negotiations, also known as the Tumaini (“Hope”) peace talks.

The delegation said its return was to participate in the launch of the 24-month extension of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU), set for February 22.

However, Lual Dau, Secretary-General of the United People’s Alliance (UPA) – the coalition of opposition parties negotiating with the government in the Tumaini Talks – said the government’s return to Juba without significant progress in the negotiations was obstructive and counterproductive.

“The government delegation’s negative, obstructive, and anti-Tumaini behaviour reflects that achieving peace is not their priority,” Dau said in a statement seen by Sudans Post.

Dau, who is also UPA’s spokesperson, called the government’s abrupt return a sign of its lack of commitment to peace and failure to address the suffering of South Sudanese citizens enduring the instability from the 2013 war.

“It also demonstrates their aloofness to the suffering of our people and their inability to comprehend what is needed to rescue the country from imminent collapse and total disintegration,” he added.

Despite this, Dau reiterated that the UPA remains committed to the Tumaini peace process, an initiative that took over mediation from the Rome-based community of Sant’Egidio, which had been facilitating peace talks between South Sudanese parties since 2019.

The South Sudanese government has not yet responded to UPA’s accusations. However, Martin Elia Lomuro, a senior member of Juba’s delegation to the Nairobi peace talks and Minister of Cabinet Affairs, said the last round of discussions had made progress in identifying the root cause of the conflict, one of the key sticking points in the talks.

Lomuro said Thursday that the government and opposition had agreed on 19 of the 20 factors, with the sole disagreement over the opposition’s claim that a failure of political leadership was one of the root causes of the conflict.