Presidency to blame if country fail to transition from violence to peace, says Yakani

JUBA – The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, has added his voice to the call by the head of R-JMEC Gen. Charles Gituai for the presidency to meet to agree on a timetable for the graduation of the unified forces and the implementation of remaining tasks of the revitalized peace deal.

The head of the cash-strapped peace monitoring mechanism made the call during a monthly meeting of the body held in Juba on Thursday evening.

“We urge the R-TGoNU to urgently set the date for graduation and redeployment of the unified forces and commencement of phase two and the DDR process,” he said.

In a statement to Sudans Post, Yakani welcomed the call by Gen. Gituai and stressed that there is need for a meeting of the presidency comprising President Kiir and his first deputy Dr. Riek Machar Teny to agree on a date for graduation of the unified forces.

“CEPO welcomes call by the leadership of R-JMEC for the South Sudan leaders in particular the president and the first vice president, of course as well as the other vice presidents, to take primary responsibility for deciding on the graduation of the unified forces since it is one of the essential pre-conditions for successful political transition of the situation of our country from violence to peace,” Yakani said Thursday.

“The presidency sincerely should urgently meet to sort out of the political deadlocks for the smooth implementation of the R-ARCSS. The task of developing roadmap for implementing the pending tasks of the peace agreement is an issue of urgency seriously,” he said.

The prominent activist further warned that “Any failure to transition the situation of violence to peace through the genuine implementation of R-ARCSS, the presidency is primarily to be blamed.”

“Finally CEPO is urging African Union instrument of the ad-hoc committee composed of Rwanda, Nigeria, Chad, Algeria and South Africa as chair should be proactive in pushing implementation of the political promises made by our leaders to the Senegal president at his capacity of chair of African Union,” he added.