South Sudan News Agency

H.E. John Luk argued unconvincingly that the technical committee formed by the decree of President Kiir does not replace the Commission that is supposed to be formed as per the terms of reference of last October South-South Conference. According to South—South Dialogue concluded by all the political parties last year, it is the commission that could prepare the ground for Constitutional Conference. There is nowhere in the last year Communiqué it is mentioned that a “committee” should be formed to prepare the ground for constitutional conference to take place as the honorable minister would want the public to believe. Since the resolutions of last year called for the formation of a commission rather than a committee, reasonable people would not fail to notice that Mr. John Luk contradicted himself by saying that the committee formed by Kiir’s decree is “to prepare convening of conference”. If the technical committee is the one to prepare the ground for constitutional conference, it follows logically that there is no commission that would be formed to do the same task.

The question the people of South Sudan should ask is whether the committee formed by President Salva Kiir is different from the commission stipulated in the resolutions of the South—South Dialogue of October, 2010. The President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) issued on 21st instant “Presidential Decree No. 022/2011 for the Formation of the Technical Committee to Review the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan, 2005” . The technical committee the decree talked about is composed exclusively of members of the SPLM, except for one Minister in the GOSS, Gabriel Changson Chang, who declined participation as he was not consulted. So, it is only one party to prepare the Transitional Constitution for the independent South Sudan. If there is nothing wrong with this, I leave it for the readers to judge. My concern here is to address the disinformation being peddled around by the Minister of Legal Affairs and the Constitutional Development that the Committee is just technical and will make its findings available to the Constitutional Review Commission stipulated in the resolutions of the South-South Consensus Dialogue Conference and the subsequent three meetings of its Leadership Forum.

For those who want to compare notes and would want to examine contradictory statements of Mr. John Luk, the mandate, membership, scope of work, functions and powers of the Committee are spelt out clearly in President Kiir’s decree. It is on the basis of these provisions that we can pass judgments on what the Committee is all about. In the first place, there is nothing “technical” about the Committee. Its terms of reference and its membership clearly show that it is a “political” Committee as it should be. No Committee that is tasked to work on a constitution can be technical. Therefore, it is the interest of all not to belabor on this obvious point. Nobody will buy it and it will make its proponents look funny in the eyes of the public.

The second central issue is whether the Committee is a step towards forming the Constitutional Review Commission stipulated in the resolutions of the South-South Dialogue Consensus Conference, as made out by Minister John Luk, or whether the Committee supplants the Commission. According to the honorable Minister of Legal Affairs, the committee does not violate the terms of reference of last year consensus. If this were to be the case, the findings of the Committee would be reported to the Commission to consider. However, the answer to this is to be found in paragraph 3.1.6 of the “Scope of Work” of the Committee which directs the committee to “present the final draft of a Transitional Constitution, with an explanatory report, to the President not later than 25th April 2011, for presentation to the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA)”.

The key words are those highlighted above. If the honorable Minister is not deceiving the public, perhaps he read the last year Final Communiqué of South Sudan parties upside down because the work of the Committee is a final draft to be presented to the SSLA for adoption pursuance to the decree of President Kiir. The question that poses itself to reasonable people is: Where does the “Commission” come in here?

The people of South Sudan should warn the Minister of Legal Affairs that nobody will be hoodwinked by the cheap and hollow propaganda that there will be a Commission to wait for. In fact, the Committee’s mandate goes further than just the review of the ICSS to include working on the Permanent Constitution (see para 3.1.5 of the Scope of work), thus rendering the Constitutional Conference agreed upon in the resolutions of the South-South Conference redundant. The SPLM should come out clearly that it had arrogated to itself the right to write the Constitution of the independent South Sudan alone without the participation of other political parties.

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It is the understanding of all political forces that after the successful conclusion of the South-South Dialogue, South Sudan Leadership Consultative Forum was formed to steer the South towards nationhood. As a result of that, a roadmap was created to ensure that the SPLM and all political parties would hold a conference in Juba to guide the future governance of the region after the referendum. The Final Communiqué, which was endorsed by all political parties including the SPLM, stipulates that a constitutional review conference will be conducted after the referendum and will agree on the specifics of the formation of a new transitional broad-based government by 9 July 2011.

The decree of President Salva Kiir caught the people of South Sudan and the international community by surprise due to the fact that it contravened the terms all the political parties agreed to last October. First, the October 2010 Final Communiqué of all the parties called for the formation of Constitution Review Commission. The “Constitutional Review Committee” stated in the President Kiir’s decree seems to have no political connection with the terms of the last year agreement of all the political forces. To refresh the memory of all those concerned, it is important to note that article 3 (b) (i) of the last year communiqué states that in the event that separation is the choice of the people of Southern Sudan in the referendum, “GOSS shall establish a National Constitution Review Commission to review the current interim constitution of Southern Sudan for adoption by the SSLA as a transitional constitution”.

Reasonable people would not fail to realize that the understanding of all the parties was that prior to the formation of the Commission, the leadership forum, which is composed of all the leaders of the Southern political parties, would sit down to nominate persons who will form the commission. Unfortunately, the decree of President Salva Kiir not only failed to consult the leaders of South Sudan parties, but also formed a committee which was not agreed upon in the first place. To add insult to injury, the committee President Kiir formed combined members of South Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA) with the GOSS cabinet ministers in violation of the last year Final Communiqué which does not require members of SSLA to be part of Constitution Review Commission because the SSLA is the last body that is supposed to review the work of the Constitution Commission. If the chairperson of the SSLA’s Constitutional committee is also part of the so-called “constitution review committee”, it follows logically that there would be no need for SSLA to adopt the final review of the constitution because its members are already part of the committee. Moreover, the neutrality of SSLA is compromised if the chairperson of the constitutional committee of the August House is also a member of the so-called “constitution review committee”.

It goes without saying that the intention of the decree is very confusing let alone the fact that the composition of the committee itself is unexplainable. If the committee was intended to be GOSS Cabinet committee entrusted to oversee the formation of Constitution Review Commission as it was agreed upon by all the political parties last October, then, there was no need to include judges, private lawyers and members of SSLA. The last year communiqué stated that “GOSS shall establish a National Constitution Review Commission to review the current interim constitution of Southern Sudan for adoption by the SSLA as a transitional constitution”. The phrase “for adoption by the SSLA” would not allow members of SSLA to be part of Constitution Review Commission because it is the SSLA that would eventually study the work of the commission prior to its adoption by the August House. If the chairperson of Constitutional committee of the SSLA is also part of the so-called “Constitutional Review Committee”, it means that the SSLA will not independently study the work of the committee before its adoption and this begs the question whether the President of the GOSS had a proper legal advice prior to issuing a decree.

It is a mistake for the President of the GOSS to think that consultation of other political parties is not required for the review of the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan. The terms of last October dialogue do require the involvement of other political parties in the review because it is the reviewed constitution that would serve as the post-independent transitional constitution before the adoption of permanent constitution, which would take more than a year to complete. The processes of permanent constitution require that the coalition government that shall be formed after July would convene an all-party constitutional conference to deliberate and adopt a constitutional system for the new independent and sovereign state of South Sudan. If other political parties are not involved in the review of Interim Constitution of South Sudan, the question that poses itself is whether a coalition government would be formed after July that would include all the political forces of Southern Sudan.

The international community needs to be concerned with the political developments taking place in South Sudan because the decree of President Salva Kiir is the first violation of South-South Dialogue concluded last October. If the political forces in the South cannot work together starting from now, the international community should be concerned about the future political stability of South Sudan. If South Sudan political forces cannot work together during transitional period prior to constituency and presidential elections, it should be reasonably concluded that stability in the South would be difficult to attain.

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January 12, 2011 (Washington, D.C.) -- South Sudan Referendum voter turnout in the United States has reached an all time high, said the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) official Representative to the United States and the United Nations (UN), Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth.

"The turnout of the South Sudanese in the USA has reached 74% in the third day of the voting process. We in the government of Southern Sudan Mission to USA and UN are in all the 8 centers to make sure that we complete 100% turnout and to monitor the process so that all is done credibly, free, fair and transparent”, Gatkuoth said.

Gatkuoth is an SPLM Diplomat; known for his criticism of the National Congress party’s policy toward Southern Sudan and its people.

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the ruling National Congress party (NCP) marked the end of decades of bloody civil war between the North and South.

"The process so far has been so free, fair, credible and transparent and we commend the staff of the IOM and those who are observing", Gatkuoth noticed.

The weeklong voting process is being conducted at eight polling stations based in Nebraska, Arizona, Texas, Washington State, Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.

The United States is one of the countries with large population of Southern Sudanese.