Members of the holdout opposition groups at the Nairobi Tumaini Initiative talks were last week left in disappointment after President Salva Kiir’s associates cancelled their plan to meet him while on a mission to South Africa.
Kiir left for Pretoria, South Africa last Wednesday for a working visit during which he engaged in bilateral talks with his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa. He returned home on Sunday.
Multiple credible sources told Radio Tamazuj that leaders of Real SPLM and the South Sudan United Front, Pagan Amum and Gen. Paul Malong, respectively, had planned to meet President Kiir during his visit to South Africa to brief him about the progress and the challenges facing the talks in Kenya.
One of the sources, who preferred anonymity, revealed that Malong and Pagan had booked their tickets from Nairobi to Pretoria, but the meeting was abruptly cancelled by the President’s close associates without clear reasons.
Other sources also spoke about sharp divisions within the ruling SPLM Party and allies of the President over the Tumaini Initiative, as they perceive it as a threat to some influential political figures.
There was also confusion over the fate of the Nairobi Tumaini talks after SPLM-IO pulled out over some concerns.
The Tumaini (hope) Peace Initiative, launched on 9 May, seeks a final settlement by including opposition groups that have not signed the 2018 Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan.
Last month, SPLM-IO led by First Vice-President Riek Machar, withdrew from the Kenyan-mediated talks. The party had expressed dissatisfaction with the protocols recently reached by the negotiating groups.
It accused the Initiative of diverting from its original purpose, especially on the creation of the proposed National Leadership Council (NLC), which the SPLM-IO argues would yield unchecked power, potentially surpassing constitutional bodies such as the Presidency, the Council of Ministers, the National Legislature, and the National Security Council.
Push for consensus
The chief mediator, Gen (rtd) Lazarus Sumbeiywo of Kenya, told Radio Tamazuj on Tuesday the mediation was at a very advanced stage after the parties initialed a number of protocols.
“The parties have initialed six protocols, three remaining and main one to be discussed or done at home. So we are very advanced with the Tumaini peace process and we trust that in three to four weeks, we will sign an agreement and the brothers and sisters will go back home,” he said.
According to Sumbeiywo, the mediation briefed the leadership in Juba and said that they were waiting for the government delegation to resume the talks.
“The outlook is bright and we hope that this will be the last time that South Sudanese will ever go out to look for peace,” he concluded.