Lazaro Sumbeiywo, special envoy of the Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD), visited Juba earlier this week for consultations with civil society groups. He faced criticism over the groups that he chose to meet.

IGAD is mediating the peace process in South Sudan and has planned to include civil society, women’s leaders, youth and religious leaders in the political talks that are currently adjourned but are set to restart later this month.

Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenyan general who helped broker the Sudan-SPLM/A peace agreement of 2005, made a call at the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, ahead of meetings elsewhere with civil society leaders.

Speaking after the meeting, Bashir Gbandi, South Sudan’s deputy foreign minister, said that the envoy’s pick of groups for his first meetings “do not represent the whole south.”

The official explained that he gave to the envoy a list of groups that the government considers acceptable ‘stakeholders’ for the talks. “I told him we have a list of whom we consider to be the stakeholders. I will present it to him, and he will have to look at it critically,” said Bashir.

At the same press event, Sumbeiywo was also questioned by a pro-government journalist who told him, “It’s not up to the mediating team to select – it should be a view from the two parties involved.”

Sumbeiywo replied that the 9 May deal signed by the government “doesn’t say selectivity, it says inclusivity. The reason why I’m here is because of inclusivity.”

He was referring to the 9 May deal signed by President Salva Kiir, in which he agreed to “ensure the inclusion of all South Sudanese stakeholders in the peace process, and the negotiation of a transitional government of national unity.”

Sumbeiywo continued, “Those whom we have identified and have written to us is what we have. [Deputy Foreign Minister Bashir Gbandi] has added the list to us, we will see them. And if it takes time for us to see, if it takes a week or two, we will do so.”

“We are not going to be selective. Because we are not making an agreement between us and the people of South Sudan. It is the people of South Sudan making their own agreement – we are facilitating.”

On the following day, IGAD came under fire from the South Sudan Civil Society Alliance (SSCSA) for meeting with an ‘unregistered’ civil society group.

Deng Athuai, the head of the SSCSA, criticized the IGAD mediators for failing to listen to SSCSA and meeting instead with an ‘unregistered’ body, Citizens for Peace and Justice (CPJ).

“Unfortunately, South Sudan Civil Society Alliance, which is the umbrella of over 300 registered civil society organizations across the country, was excluded in the process of consultative meetings. IGAD met and invited unregistered civil society – CPJ – which is body working outside South Sudan,” Athuai said. 

He made these remarks at a news conference on Friday at the SSCSA office at South Sudan Hotel. He further said that IGAD mediators were supposed to host a press conference on Friday, but left back to Addis Ababa instead without giving any statement to the press.   

Athuai further alleged, “We as civil society alliance were informed in previous days of our meeting with IGAD mediators, but unfortunately we met the IGAD this afternoon and they said they do not recognize our body.”

For his part, the chairperson of the South Sudan Youth Organization, Charles Obaj, said the step taken by IGAD in Juba does not contribute to bring peace in South Sudan.

“We as local civil society representing our youth in South Sudan have rejected the steps taken by IGAD mediators because since yesterday as are waiting for them in order for us to give them our views, but later they rejected us and considered a different body which does also even represent a body in South Sudan,” Obaj said.

Rose Lisok Paulino, representing ‘South Sudanese Women for Peace’, an organization under the umbrella of the South Sudan Civil Society Alliance, said there is a need for IGAD mediators to listen to their views as a body that represents affected women in the region.

“We feel sorry for what has happened today, because we put our efforts working to increase our voice and our participation to see inclusive process of the consultative. Because we are the one producing these children, our loves once are dying in the front line, so we need this war to stop,” Lisok ended.

For its part, Citizens for Peace and Justice describes itself on its Facebook page as “a coalition of more than 40 organizations dedicated to the promotion of peace and justice through political, social and economic transformation in South Sudan”

The coalition has been associated with the South Sudan Law Society, The Roots Project and the Sudd Institute, among others.

File photo: IGAD Special Envoy Lazaro Sumbeiywo at a press event at the Foreign Ministry in Juba, 29 May 2014 (Radio Tamazuj)

FORUM: Join the discussion on Facebook about the inclusion of civil society groups and other 'stakeholders' at the next round of talks in Addis Ababa.

Gallery 1: Deng Athuai Mawiir, Chairman of the South Sudan Civil Society Alliance

Gallery 2: Charles Obaj, Chairman of the South Sudan Youth Organization

Gallery 3: Rose Lisok Paulino, representative of South Sudanese Women for Peace