Dinka elder says South Sudan needs negotiations on governance matters

File photo: Aldo Ajou Akuey

Aldo Ajou Deng Akuey, a prominent member of the Jieng (Dinka) of Council of Elders said South Sudan needs not power sharing negotiations but real negotiations cantered on governance matters.

Aldo Ajou Deng Akuey, a prominent member of the Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders said South Sudan needs not power sharing negotiations but real negotiations cantered on governance matters.

Aldo Deng's lobby group informally advises President Salva Kiir. The group purports to represent the interest of the Dinka ethnic group in the country.

“Destruction has been done, nothing is left. We are looking for peace.  Peace wants several ideas in order to find an acceptable solution to the problem,” said Ajou in a message for the public on the independence anniversary yesterday.

“What we want now is the real negotiation, away from petty demands: government sharing, my position in the government…etc. Such demands are not useful any longer. Such demands were and are responsible for the ongoing violence and chaos,” he added.

The elderly politician pointed out that it was not time to point fingers but coalescing efforts to end war.“We are on an incredibly steep learning curve of democracy now. South Sudan is a different place today because of the current situation. We have learned that if we want change, we have to make it ourselves,” he said.

“This is not to reject external support but these external supports must be complementary to our own efforts, they must be supportive of the home-grown efforts because they are context specific from other countries,” he added.