South Sudan’s national government paid delegates claiming to represent independent civil society as much as $50 per day at the Addis Ababa peace talks late last year.
The national government is controlled by SPLM-Juba, one of two main warring parties in South Sudan. The party early in 2014 opposed the inclusion civil society at roundtable peace talks mediated by the East African body IGAD but later accepted some representation.
A government document obtained by Radio Tamazuj states that civil society leader Charles Obaj and another six representatives were paid $50 per day over a ten day period in November 2014, for a total of $500 each.
Radio Tamazuj obtained evidence of only a single payment. Whether additional payments were made at other rounds of the peace talks is not evident.
Charles Obaj, one of the paid civil society members, last June led a demonstration in Juba asking mediators to exclude another civil society group, Citizens for Peace and Justice (CPJ), which has been memorializing conflict victims with a project called “Naming the Ones We Lost.”
The anti-war civil society group had sought nomination to join the peace talks in Addis Ababa, but ultimately was denied. Obaj led a group of protesters who petitioned the US Embassy, EU and the IGAD office in Juba against the involvement of CPJ.
According to the same document, three Muslim community leaders who also attended the talks as observers were also paid $50 per day by the government.
File photo: Charles Obaj (Radio Tamazuj)
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