Maj Gen (Rtd) Charles Tai Gituai is the man leading the commission that monitors the implementation of the South Sudan revitalized peace agreement.
The Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission monitors the peace deal signed in Addis Ababa on September 12, 2018 under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
The youngest country in Africa, which has been troubled since gaining independence a decade ago, is, however, struggling and lagging behind in the implementation of key pillars of the peace agreement.
Will the Pope’s visit add impetus to the implementation and finally bring peace to South Sudan? What needs to be done? Ambassador Gituai answers these questions in a conversation with the Star’s Eliud Kibii.
THE STAR: Pope Francis made his maiden visit on February 3. While the leadership of South Sudan committed to peace and to the implementation of the agreement, do you think the visit will add impetus to the implementation, or will it be a repeat of April 2019, when the Pope kissed their feet?
AMB GITUAI: South Sudan has come from very difficult situation and since 2018, it is in the process of implementing the peace agreement.
This agreement is very important for the stability of the country. The Pope’s visit was yet another occasion. He had met the leadership of South Sudan earlier and this time, the highest moral authority also came to appeal to the leadership of South Sudan.
We believe this is a great opportunity for the leadership to carry the message that was brought by ecumenical pilgrimage of peace led by the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church.
These spiritual leaders appealed to the conscious of the leaders and it is our belief the government, having listened to these faithful leaders, will ensure peace.
We’ve already seen that, for example, at the recent Cabinet meeting. They spent time to do an evaluation of the Pope’s visit and what came out very clearly is that they noted the significance of the visit and particularly, appealing for forgiveness, inclusivity and working together as leaders for reconciliation.
We believe this message will appeal to their conscious and are looking forward to seeing this process being improved.
Over 20 people were killed in Kajo Keji, Central Equatoria State just before the Poe’s visit. You appealed to the parties and the government to address the root causes of these armed conflicts and find lasting solutions. What are these underlying issues, and how can they be addressed?
I think it is the important to appreciate the situation of South Sudan as a country that is coming from conflict. This communal fighting is from different perspectives. Sometimes they are caused by the normal cattle rustling mainly based on the traditional dowry aspects.
The other issue is natural calamities, for example, flooding. You begin to see the consequential effects, where cattle is moved from one place and it goes to occupy other people’s places and in the process causes conflict.
We have also seen a movement of cattle coming from herders into the farming, communities and gracing on the crops and this again brings conflict. There are others caused by revenge. Basically, these are conflicts that are associated with the traditional and cultural values of the people. What we would appeal to is to probably have the country begin to think about the traditional conflict resolution mechanisms.
Again, these conflicts are associated with communities issues regarding the challenges of infrastructure and development. For example, if there could be areas where there could be commercial farming of cattle, it could improve the communities in a way that they don’t have to move from point A to B.
These conflicts are not necessarily connected with the parties to the agreement. The peace agreement speaks about conflicts that are associated with the militaries or with the parties that have signed the agreement. This is not what we have.
We have conflicts associated with community fighting based on the issues I have raised. You have to separate that.
And of course commercial developments that would help to ease some of these tensions.
Do you think the issues, be they communal, are leading to tensions that have an impact on the implementation of the agreement?
What we do is castigate this kind of fighting and it is deplorable, particularly the recent one in Kajo Keji, where we lost about 27 people. These are not things we would want because they will affect the morale of the people and create diversionary situation from the agreement implementation.
However, as long as the actual partners in the agreement are not engaged in the fighting, it will be easier for them to resolve the communal fighting.
During the Pope’s visit, President Salva Kiir lifted the suspension of the Rome process. What does it mean to the peace agreement?
The Rome agreement is signed by the holdout groups: The groups that did not sign the agreement and are outside the agreement. They are the ones involved in the Rome talks.
We’ve already progressed in that area whereby the groups have come up with the Rome resolution as well as the Rome declaration.
The most recent meeting was an agreement that the some of these groups will participate in CTSAMVM (Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring and Verification Mechanism.
In the recent presidential speech, President Kiir mentioned that he would like to have these talks to resume, which is a very fundamental statement at this very critical time when there are this fighting in the Equatorial region.
There have been accusations of some of those groups fighting are not able to be on the table to defend themselves, the groups that are in areas of Upper Nile and Jonglei state.
This is an important statement by the president and in our view, it will help facilitate those outside the agreement to participate in one way or the other in the forthcoming constitution review process or even in the elections.
Elections should have held this month but were once again pushed to 2024. But given the pending issues such as the unification of forces, the constitution, rehabilitation and integration of IDPs, are you confident the polls will be held?
One of the reasons there was the extension of the agreement was that this agreement was signed in 2018 and from then up to 2019 or thereabout, the government had not been formed because the first vice president, not returned to Juba.
And when he came back from exile and joined the first agreement ( 2016 ), hardly two months later the war broke out and he left. There was a high-level revitilised forum that came up with the new agreement.
Between 2018-19, he [Riek Machar] had not come back. So, when he returned to from the government, it was towards the end of 2019. The government was formed in February 22, 2020. In fact, it is going to be three years this February since the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU).
So, they were not able to complete what they were supposed to have done because of the delays of formation of government and Covid-19 in 2020.
So we asked, how are you going to complete these tasks within the short time? Through our push, the parties agreed to the extension of the 24 months. When the parties agreed, the decision was taken to the Cabinet and approved and then brought to us, RJMEC, and we consented and Parliament endorsed.
The extension is the parties’ decision that they needed to come up with the critical issues they thought are very important in the roadmap: A constitution within the timeframe, a unified force, operationalization of the legal framework of the reviewed laws by the constitutional, election laws and Political Parties Council and the election processes.
We, therefore, have no doubt that they will be able to hold elections at the appropriate time within the timeframe.
Do you think they are on track?
There are delays in certain areas such as the constitution making process. The President assented to the law but we have not seen the operationalization of the law. We will be seeing the formation of National Constitution Review Commission and the establishment of the drafting committee. All those processes that are envisaged in the law shouldn’t be going on. This is what is delaying.
We are also seeing delays in unification of forces but we have seen real progress as Phase one has been done and phase two is commencing.
If they sustain the focus, with the help of the international community, we will be able to see the elections come up.
The government/ President Kiir has blamed the arms embargo for slowing the implementation of the security arrangements. This embargo was renewed in May last year. As the monitor, what are your thoughts on the embargo. Is it for the betterment or detriment of the implementation of the agreement?
First of all, the arms embargo is a bilateral issue between South Sudan and the United Nations. It’s outside the agreement.
However, they are very specific issues that the UN placed on South Sudan to work on before they lift the embargo and are clearly defined in documents. It is basically a question of being able to implement the agreement and once they do that, the embargo will be lifted.
Secondly, there is provision for waiver, if they do specific actions and apply for the waiver with specific descriptions of what they have done and intend to do.
The bottom line is actually unification of forces and SDSR [Strategic Defence and Security Review] board and establishing the security sector reforms. Once they complete that, they will be able to have the embargo lifted. But it is not in our purview as it is not in the agreement.
Since you took over as chairman what are the areas would highlight as achievements and failures in implementation of the deal?
Since I joined this organization as chair[man] in 2020, we’ve been able to, first of all, elevate the status of South Sudan at the level where it is more visible at IGAD level, at the UN and African Union Security Council.
We are mandated to address the Peace and Security Council, which we have done several times, I have also addressed the IGAD Council of Ministers and the UN on South Sudan matters.
I have also visited all IGAD Heads of State and briefed them on the progress of the implementation. We have also seen the continued holding of the ceasefire, meaning we have not seen any fighting between the parties to the agreement.
We have also seen the establishment of the coalition government with Parliament and Council of Ministers, sub-national governments and governors are in place and phase one of the unification of forces.
Some humanitarian corridors have been opened and refugees are coming back as well as reforms in resource and economic management in transparency and accountability, oil revenue, review of some laws by a committee chaired by a Kenyan judge and a lot of work in the Judicial Review Commission.
The challenge has been funding of implementation, which again South Sudan has always sought international support so they can complete the transfer of security arrangements.
The biggest challenge is the DDR [Disarmament, Demobilization and Rehabilitation ] because if you are bring about the unification of forces, you need to have those who are not legible to have a place to go.
This means a lot of money because South Sudan does not have the system of pension schemes and are beginning to start those systems now. This is an area that they need support
There are also the election processes that are ongoing and we have also been able to help with the formation of the 10 states and brokering many political deadlocks and kept the agreement alive.
We have been holding monthly meeting to report of the progress of the implementation to the patties, the government, civil society and western and African diplomats. We write reports every three months and share with regional presidents and UN Peace and Security Council.
This agreement legitimizes the transition government and if it outside this deal, then it will not be legitimate.
There are many players involved in the peace process. Do you feel the many interests clog the process?
The members of the international community are part of the process. If you read the agreement Chapter 7, you’ll see that RJMEC members are the parties to the agreement.
The political parties in South Sudan are members, so are international ambassadors, including Troika (the US, the UK and Norway), the UN, the C5 (South Africa, Algeria, Chad, Nigeria and Rwanda), the civil society, women groups, academia and the government itself. There are 43 members and are party to the process.
We cannot, therefore, say there is the clogging of the process or interference. We work together and when I give my statement every month, government responds and each one of them is free to question the government and we come up with specific resolutions on what we would like the government, Igad and specific partners to do
We cannot say there is interference because they are part of the process.
In a July 2021 interview, President Kiir said he was not happy with Kenya because, after the attempted coup in 2013, President Uhuru offered refuge to individuals he had apprehended and offered them asylum. Soon thereafter, one of the political prisoners, former SPLA chief of staff Gen Oyay Deng Ajak, in an interview declared they are planning to oust Kiir. Do these remarks affect the implementation?
The agreement is very clear on those who are signatories to the agreement.
Those other people are not part of agreement are under the holdout groups and there is a forum for them by Sant’Egidio in Rome peace talks. So if they feel that they want to say anything or they want to participate, that is for around there.
Otherwise, if they’re not party to the agreement, they have no ability to interfere with the process of agreement because it transition government that is in power and it includes all the parties, who have agreed to this transition within a certain time up to the time when there will be a new constitution, unified forces, processes of election and election.
As a country, we have seen the interest they [South Sudan] have for the peace process. The people want to peace. We have seen the leadership is tired of war.
So every a party that wants to participate in this process, then it has to be hosted within a framework of the holdout groups. Through that forum, they can find a way to agree with the government because it is party to the Rome peace talks.
You have monitored the implementation of the peace process as the RJMEC boss. You also have had an impressive career in security and peace processes, including in Somalia and Sierra Leone. What is your diagnosis of the South Sudanese problem and what prescription do you recommend?
My experience in Somalia was different. Somalia was a case whereby they were able to galvanise international support and also developed the Somali transition plan, which was all inclusive and greed by all the parties and the national community.
We were able to galvanise international support, even organised a conference in London for the support of the Somalia situation.
Somalia, of course, was able to govern a support from the UK, even from Turkey, the AU and Qatar, and even the region.
Recently there was this meeting of the regional leaders in Mogadishu. So Somalia is a different case in terms of how it managed its situation.
Sierra Leone was also able to galvanize a support from the international community and particularly through negotiated processes with the opposition parties. And again, of course, the UN where I was the chief of staff, they were able to come up with an agreement and the way forward and resolved their problems through international assistance.
I think South Sudan needs to also equally be able to galvanize international support and we think South Sudan should not be forgotten by the international community.
As a country, we have seen the interest they have for the peace process. The people want to peace. We have seen the leadership is tired of war. The President has said on several occasion that he doesn’t want to take the country back to war and we think that this is very genuine from the him.
So, my take on this, is that the solution to the South Sudan peace process is to have the full implementation of the agreement. Because this agreement came about as a result of years of struggle and fighting. It is a document that involves all the parties and in which the international community is central to and has the support from the guarantors of the region.
What we need is to have a level of leadership that going to look at how they can build trust, renew their confidence in the peace process and of course, embrace the spirit of forgiveness , reconciliation, inclusivity and magnanimity above individual interests to achieve what is in their motto: Justice, liberty and prosperity.
Parting shot?
I would like to have the international community focus on South Sudan because it will not be worth it to come later when the station has escalated. It is important that we focus so that we can have this agreement fully implemented and peaceful elections in 2024.
