The leader of the Minority in South Sudan’s National Parliament Hon Onyoti Adigo Nyikwec said that the current IGAD proposal is a ‘good’ working paper for the two warring parties to reach a compromise that will end the 19 months of fighting in the country.
Speaking on Monday, Hon Adigo said he think the proposal is a good start and those who are criticizing it outright are “not reasonable”, showing that they are not serious about reaching peace.
“When I look at it, I think it is a good document which needs a lot of attention to be focused on, but it is a good working paper where people can achieve peace amicably because in this paper a lot of things are enshrined in it and it is good that those of IGAD gave it ahead of time so that people are able to look into it,” he said.
“But I look at it that some people reacting to the situation because you are not told to come and sign it, but you’re told to come and look on it and bring in your alternative. Now in these alternatives you can have a lot of things in it because it is a compromise peace proposal which is ‘give and take’,” Adigo said.
“In fact somebody saying he’s rejecting the proposal that person has no sense… Because as I said you read the proposal properly and try to take whatever you could take from it and amend, you don’t reject but amend what comes from it,” he added.
On the issue of two armies during the interim period, Adigo said that he sees no problem in the matter, added that “that will be only during the time of interim period.”
“We need to reform the security sectors, if we need to reform the security sectors that is good for the reformation unless people do not want reformation. So when they said that there is duration of a certain month because at the present moment the army is building on tribal lines. The rebels have built their army majority are Nuer, and the government majority are Dinka,” he said.
Adigo added that he thinks it is very unfortunate that people fallen into the footsteps of the National Congress Party in Khartoum: “When there are things then they turn to mobilize people and unknowingly people will take side… things are now being built on tribalism and when we talk of tribalism they say no, you are tribalist.”
“So if we want a national army, we need to reform the army and the reform should start with the agreement like identifying the number of soldiers we have in South Sudan, how many do we need, how do we reform it, how many [from each region] do we make in those units,” he concluded.