President Salva Kiir Mayardit on his Independence speech solemnly decelerated his commitment to the New Nation and the world on the 9th July 2011 by the following statement “We have waited 56 years for this day. For many generations, we have been made to suffer, have been bombed, maimed, enslaved, discriminated against and treated worse than a refugee in our own country. Having been at the receiving end of injustice for so many decades, South Sudanese will not be aggressors or trouble makers. Independence is an opportunity for a new beginning of tolerance, love and unity.”
This year marks the 7th year of the independence, and the people of South Sudan have not seen the opportunity Mr. Mayardit vowed to bring. The New Nation instead has suffered a serious setback sliding into a civil war worse than the 20 years of South-North war we came out of.
While we the South Sudan Community in the United Kingdom thank the international community, AU, UN, the Troika (The United States of America, The United Kingdom and Norway) and IGAD for their untiring efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the current devastating conflict in the youngest nation. Nevertheless, we are deeply concerned of how the mediation is proceeding. It has been reduced to a bilateral negotiation between President Kiir and the ex-Vice President Machar, which undermined the core principle of the HLRF of inclusivity and is simply focusing on power/responsibility sharing and rewarding the warlords and war criminals.
We for the above stated reasons reject the Entebbe Proposal as it is none but a repetition of the so-called IGAD’s Bridging Proposal which was met with overwhelming rejection by all patriotic South Sudanese because it ignores the root causes of the conflict. We strongly believe that some members of the mediation team are trying to bulldoze an agreement to legitimize the illegitimate, diabolical, ethnocentric, unpopular and failed Kiir’s regime.
We hereby again repeat our call for the mediation responsibility to be passed to the African Union supported by the UN and the Troika. We also call upon the Troika and international community to review their support to a failing IGAD mediation.
Signed by leaders of South Sudan Communities in UK representing (the Equatoria region more than 30 ethnic/tribal groups), Western Bahr El Ghazal State (Fertit) more than 8 ethnic/tribal groups and the Shilluk/Chollo Community.
Federico Vuni
Chair
Equatorian Community in the UK
Karlo Kwol Akol
Representative
Chollo (Shilluk) Community in the UK
Peter Gaere
For Western Bahr El Ghazal (Fertit) Community in the UK
For contact: Federico Vuni federicovuni58@gmail.com
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