By Taban Henry
The civil society activist has said the people of South Sudan are leaving in fear due to the withdrawal of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army from the peace monitoring body.
Earlier this week, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) tendered a letter to the Chairperson of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, (RJMEC) suspending their participation in the meetings of the Ceasefire Monitoring body including the RJMEC.
The suspension was declared through a letter addressed to the R-JMEC Chairperson dated 22nd March 2022 as seen by No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper, on Tuesday.
The leadership of SPLM/A-IO said it was discouraged by the level of violations committed against their positions by the SPLM-IG and citing lack of action from CTSAMVM and R-JMEC as the security and peace monitoring bodies to hold perpetrators of violations accountable.
Speaking in a telephone interview to No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper, the Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization Edmund Yakani said the South Sudanese citizens are frightened and living in fear as the country is in a disturbing situation with high chances of getting to violence.
He added that the public and some private sectors are questioning whether the agreement will be pushed or not.
“I am calling upon the leaders to meet in the next two days and tell the public what exactly is going on as well as to call the situation because people in Juba and other urban centres across the country are frightened and leaving in fear. If the leaders are silent the chances of the army in the frontline involving into confrontation is very high,” Yakani said.
The Executive Director for Community Empowerment for Progress Organization is appealing to the members of the Presidency to call for an urgent meeting to come out to inform the nation that if there is the peace agreement among them people should remain calm.
He added that the SPLA-IO have moved away from the situation of having consensus of the security arrangement to the stage of confrontation rather that working together with the partners.
“Already the chapter two of the peace agreement is on suspension because the withdrawal of the SPLM-IO from all the security mechanism, the interpretation is that they have decided not to acknowledge any transitional security action from the day of yesterday when they declared their withdrawal, it means they are not going to have a bit of coordination of security action between the SPLM-IO and the SSPDF in the frontline,” he explained.
Yakani revealed that he received over 50 phone calls from the public across the country especially Juba and the private sector asking “what is this negative development that has come out from the SPLM-IO for withdrawing from the peace monitoring mechanism”.
He added that the recent development where the SPLM-IO withdraws out from the peace monitoring body has turned the mood of the citizens in the city.