Yakani tells South Sudan leaders to use UN chief’s pledge to support peace process as opportunity

JUBA – South Sudan activist Edmund Yakani has urged his country’s leaders to use the pledge by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to support the ongoing peace implementation as an opportunity to win international support, amid US suspension of funding for peace mechanisms over slow implementation of the agreement.

Yesterday, Vice President Hussein Abdelbaggi met Guterres on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States of America, where the UN chief reiterated his support to the ongoing implementation of the revitalized peace agreement in South Sudan where insecurity and floods have displaced millions of citizens.

The parties to the incumbent coalition government in 2018 signed a revitalized version of a 2015 peace agreement, but its implementation has been largely slow with leaders blaming it on lack of funds, against international community’s assertion that the parties themselves lack the much-needed political will to advance the peace process.

As results of the slow implementation and continued blame statements among the parties, the United States of America suspended the funding to two key peace monitoring mechanisms, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) and the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMVM).

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Yakani who is also the Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) urged South Sudan leaders to grab the pledge by the UN chief as an opportunity to win back, on rolling basis, the international trust that they have lost in the implementation of the agreement.

“It is time to move the redeployment of the graduated unified forces faster. CEPO is aware that issues associated with the unification of the ranks of the parties’ forces may delay the timely redeployment of the graduated forces. Without proper and agreed upon unified ranking system that will cause clashes in decision making and smooth functioning of leadership. The presidency and the unified command structure should speed up the process for unification of ranking system,” the statement reads in part.

“CEPO is urging the unified command to have some joint deliberations with the UN Peace keeping mission uniform units namely the police and military for building synergies on strengthening the capacity of the state in providing protection of civilians, enforcement of rule of law, respect of human rights and prevention of armed inter and intra-communal violence,” it added.

The statement further urged “the South Sudan political leaders to take the advantage of the pledge of the UNSG on the political transitional process through demonstrating political attitude change that support speedy implementation of the pending tasks of the R-ARCSS before the end of the transitional period.”