Dr. Sunday De John, South Sudan United Front/Army’s (SSUF/A) former Secretary for Information & Communications Technology and Spokesman was suspended by Gen. Paul Malong in September 2020. He immediately went ahead and formed a splinter group called SSUF-Progressive which he says is youth-focused.
During an interview with Radio Tamazuj, Dr. De John said the faction of the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA) led by Generals Paul Malong and Pagan Amum blocked other rebel and opposition groups from participating in the Rome Talks mediated by the Community Sant’Egidio.
He also says his outfit has not yet received an invitation to the planned peace talks to be mediated by Kenyan President William Ruto in Kenya but advised that they be inclusive if they are to be relevant and fruitful.
Below are edited excerpts:
Q: Has your SSUF-Progressive been invited to participate in the new peace talks to be mediated by President Ruto?
A: We parted ways with General Paul Malong’s SSUF/A based on internal disagreements and became a separate movement, especially a movement of youth that is not very associated with old-school thinking. As such, the movement of Malong became competitive against us. In every forum, they would want to represent us even without our permission. We strived up to this stage and we teamed up with other like-minded people. We share issues of South Sudan from our tables so we can be able to see what the way forward for our country is.
Q: Are you part of the opposition alliance?
A: We opted for an alternative platform out of SSOMA because their agenda is not very clear. Today, they want to address the problem from the root causes but after some time they said they want a roundtable conference and a technocratic government.
In light of this, we opted to work independently of them and our agenda is that the country should be revived because the national fabric is torn, people are now scattered along ethnic lines and there is disengagement from national matters. That is why, first of all, we should have harmony as South Sudanese. What matters is that we have to have an understanding so we can avert the conflict. When there is no conflict, then we can think about issues of governance and development.
If people are not united, there will be no good governance and no development. All these follow harmony. At the moment, South Sudan is in high need of harmony more than anything. When there is harmony, there will be a way of choosing leaders, whether democratically or through a forum.
Q: So you are accusing Amum and Malong of sidelining other opposition groups?
A: General Malong and Pagan Amum have been using SSOMA as their platform and they made a framework that if they do not invite someone, this person should not be part of any peace talks.
Based on the request of President Salva Kiir, the Kenyan government should not repeat the same mistake that was applied at the Rome Talks to give excessive unnecessary authority to Pagan and Malong to determine who comes to the Sant’Egidio table and who does not. The Kenyans should avoid this scenario.
I would also advise the Kenyan government that they seek the opinions of South Sudanese. There are no peace talks that happen without Civil Society Organizations, rights groups, and other parties, especially those parties in exile.
In such an environment, there will be no peace. By the time some groups sit down to negotiate, other actors are not at the table and will act contrary to their work. That means their efforts will be futile.
For example, if they sit in Nairobi, and a certain movement that is not on the table starts attacking people in any town in South Sudan, this will be a negation for their peace efforts. There is a need to call on all parties to sit so that they can participate in to discussion.
Secondly, most of the leaders of the parties in the talks are expatriates in the sense that they hold dual citizenship. So, they do not feel the pain that South Sudanese are going through in the country or the refugee camps. They act big because they need status. They do not fight to ensure that South Sudan becomes stable and citizens get the freedom and prosperity they deserve.
Q: So what do you want the Kenyan mediation to do?
A: The Kenyan authorities should look at this matter not from the angle of elites but from the angle of the common citizens of South Sudan. The major interest of elites is to divide power among themselves and gain access to the resources of the country for self-enrichment as they did earlier.
These are the same people who started the problem in our county and now they are trying to come up with solutions. It requires a mix of this generation, the previous generation, and all the stakeholders to find solutions. The stakeholders are the people of South Sudan who are represented by Civil Society Organizations. There are also rights groups and political parties of which we also represent a section. If this process is left to three or four people, it is not a solution to the problem of South Sudan. All should come on board.
The Malong and Pagan group pretend that they represent South Sudanese when they reject South Sudanese like us who are interested in participation. This is a hypocrisy of the highest order and this is why they divided the SPLM Party and failed the nation.
We are supposed to be partaking in any matter of our country as far as political consciousness is concerned.
Q: Does this mean you are interested in participating in the talks to be mediated by Kenya?
A: Yes! We are interested as SSUF-Progressive. The United Democratic Revolutionary Movement/Army (UDRM/A), South Sudan People’s Movement /Army (SSPM/A), and other actors should also be involved in this.
Recently, based on the hostilities of the government of the Republic of South Sudan, the Democratic Resistance Movement (DRM) led by Doctor Lado Jada attacked Nimule. Also, our forces under Gen. Stephen Buay are being disturbed by the Government of South Sudan in their hideouts. What will happen? We may get tired and resort to war which we do not want and that is why we have to come to the table so our ideas can also be shared. Nobody will reject sitting down with a brother and sister to discuss their country.
We do not choose fighting as the number one mechanism of resolving the conflict, we always choose dialogue. Kenya has a good name in handling issues in this region. If South Sudan exists today, it is because Kenya was the one that offered a platform in conjunction with international actors to negotiate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which led to South Sudan’s independence.
We believe that Kenya can offer solutions and we also believe that President Ruto has what it takes because he has the understanding.
Q: Have Gen. Stephen Buay and Dr. Lado expressed any interest in participating in the new initiative in Kenya”
A: The issue here is not about signatories or non-signatories to the peace agreement, they are actors. Even after the 2018 peace agreement, mediators continued to call everybody holdout groups. So, I would like to suggest that they should be brought to the peace process because what is the importance of peace? Why should we negotiate? We negotiate because we need harmony.
We need solutions to the problems and if these people are actors and they are not part of peace, what will happen? We will not achieve harmony. They don’t need to tell me that they have an interest in taking part but I know that as a South Sudanese and as an actor here.
These are counterparts that can resolve this conflict. If at all we need to destroy South Sudan, they can also do so. And for this reason, we do not have to neglect a section of our country by creating this point of holdout or no holdout group.
Since the 2018 peace agreement, there are new political entities that were established. How can we address their grievances? How many tables do the mediators need to address them? They should all be brought to one table and negotiated.
If SSOMA has its agenda to be discussed, it should be discussed there. But the right to negotiate is the right of everybody. I see Doctor Lado is a sound South Sudanese, Gen. Buay is also a sound Sudanese and they can find solutions to our country’s problems. And for this reason, they should not be left out.
It is the same with Dr. Santo, Ustaz Deng Vanang, e Gen. Gatwich Dual, Gen. Tobi Maduot, and others. They are on Sudan’s border and at any time they can explode in war. Do we still need war or do we need a solution to our problems so that our country can be taken in the direction of prosperity?
Q: Did you write to the Government of Kenya outlining all these points?
A: We heard this over the media and the Government of South Sudan did not address us directly. They wrote to their counterpart in Kenya. We also saw the answer of the Kenyan government which expressed their readiness to take up this task. President Ruto is now in Rome to speak with the Community Sant’Egidio who started the talks earlier.
They did not write to us. Instead, they called Malong because the Kenyan government has offered protection to Malong and his group and for all of us. They called Malong and he met with the Principal Secretary of Foreign Affairs and they asked Malong to extend this invitation to another organization.
Since Malong is operating only with his friends and he does not want any other South Sudanese to participate, he only spoke with Pagan and General Thomas Cirillo. However, in our way, we are liaising to reach the Government of Kenya to give them our views. If they want us to participate, they will engage us but if they do not want to, there is no problem and eventually, we will be on the outside because we are actors in our country.
At the end of the day, those who understand the problem of South Sudan are the neighboring countries.
Q: Any final message to South Sudanese?
A: I would like to tell them that we are not warmongers and we are not evading accountability. We will be able to put forward all the necessary ideas. We are all one; Stephen Buay, Dr. Ladu, Sunday De John, Gen. Gatwich, General Tobi Maduot, and others and we are entities that have an interest in ensuring that our country is brought to a prosperous status.