James Kok Ruea claims he persuaded Taban, then IO chief negotiator, to sign 2015 peace deal

KHARTOUM – Former South Sudan Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management and ex-governor of the defunct Fangak state, James Kok Ruea, has claimed that he helped persuade then SPLM-IO chief negotiator, vice-president Taban Deng Gai, in 2015 to signed the Agreement for Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) when he was a member of the government negotiation team.

Following the outbreak of the conflict in Juba in December 2013, government and opposition groups had been meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to help find way to end what was then a conflict that was fought mostly along ethnic lines with ethnic Dinka supporting Kiir and Nuer supporting the Machar-led main armed opposition group, SPLM-IO.

As mediators were exhausting, the regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), presented a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ proposal to the parties to end the civil war in July 2015.

The parties were given a two-week leave to go and consult with their constituencies over the IGAD proposal.

The SPLM-IO came back with an expression that it agreed to it, but President Salva Kiir’s group rejected it because it creates two armies for the country which they viewed as a recipe for another deadly conflict in the capital which had already experienced conflicts that mostly targeted civilians.

The SPLM-IO and the former detainees signed the deal on August 17, but President Salva Kiir decided to snub it, asking for one more week for consultation, and would eventually sign it on August 26 in Juba after international pressure.

The agreement would collapse the following year after fighting broke out during a presidency meeting in Juba and Machar was forced to leave the capital.

Speaking to a congregation last week in Khartoum, James Kok said he had persuaded General Taban to sign the deal because he knew his boss, Salva Kiir, was going to be forced to sign the agreement a few days later by the international community which was growing hostile against the government over its reluctant to bring peace.

“I called Taban [Deng Gai] and Hussein Mar Nyuot,” Kok said. “I told them let us go to the toilet because there was nowhere to speak to them. I told them ‘look. Sign this peace because it is in our interest because those dying from both sides are mostly Nuer’. I told them that whoever [referring to President Kiir] do not want to sign this agreement will sign it whether he like it or not,” he said.

“The agreement was signed but because President Salva Kiir was not interested in bringing a durable peace, the agreement which would have brought peace, if implemented in letter and spirit, eventually collapsed,” he added.

Following the fighting in July 2016, First Vice President would flee the country to Congo and would then be replaced by Taban Deng as First Vice President. He was then exiled to South Africa in what the SPLM-IO calls a illegal forced detention.

In September 2018, Machar’s detention was eased and he was allowed to travel to Addis Ababa for peace mission and then to Khartoum where he negotiated what is now the revitalized peace agreement.

James Kok who has always been hostile to Machar decided, earlier this year, to defects from Kiir and join the SPLM-IO.