South Sudan peace talks that almost reached completion faced a stumbling block, with opposition groups demanding that a newly passed bill allowing the detention of people without an arrest warrant be scrapped before they would sign a proposed deal.
Kenya has been hosting the high-level meetings since May between government representatives and rebel opposition groups who were not part of a 2018 agreement that ended a five-year civil war, leaving about 400,000 people dead and millions displaced.
Despite the agreement, violence often erupted in the country of 9 million people.
Photo: AP
Pagan Amum Okiech, negotiating on behalf of the South Sudan Opposition Movement Alliance, told reporters on Tuesday that it would be “meaningless to sign any agreement if the draconian National Security Act is signed into law by the president.”
Last week, parliament voted in favor of the 2015 bill and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has to approve it within 30 days for it to become law.
This comes ahead of the country’s first-ever election on Dec. 22.
“This law violates the fundamental rights and freedoms of South Sudanese citizens, it eliminates civic and political space,” Amum said. “There can be no peace or democracy under such a law.”
Attending the peace talks is Edmund Yakani, executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a non-profit that engages university students and fresh graduates.
Yakani said that the security bill “created a negative spirit for the negotiations.”
Human Rights Watch has also called on Kiir to reject the bill, saying that it would further undermine human rights and boost national security agencies that have a history of rights abuses.
The talks have resulted in a draft agreement proposing to extend the country’s transitional period and postpone the election to allow finishing up the country’s constitution and electoral laws, as well as set up constituency borders and a unified security force as proposed in the 2018 peace talks.
Some Western envoys also recommend delaying the poll “to guarantee a free and fair election.”
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