A senior legislator from Salva Kiir’s SPLM-Juba faction lambasted the regional IGAD initiative and asked for his party to pull out of peace talks underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Tulio Odongi Ayahu, the government’s chief whip in parliament, said the IGAD proposed power sharing deal undermines the intraparty dialogue and other efforts aimed at reuniting the three rival factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
“I sincerely concur with the proposition that SPLM family makes an immediate withdrawal from Addis to Arusha,” he said.
“Truly, how does the structure imposed to us answers the root causes of the conflict: reforms in governance, intra-regional balance, leadership succession, security reforms, truth and reconciliation, including all those integration points agreed during Arusha-Intra Party Dialogue?” he asked.
Tulio said that the Addis Ababa process may “impose deep ethnic conflicts, which must be avoided at all cost.”
“I think the Tanzania smart approach of do it yourselves could be best solution for the negotiations,” he said.