Parties to Arusha Agreement disagree, call it off

The parties at the talks in the Addis Ababa, Ethiopian have disagreed on the implementation of the Arusha, Agreement on the re-unification of the three SPLM groups.

Delegates to the peace talks have been meeting since Tuesday, in three thematic groups.

They were meeting to discuss the issues of governance and leadership, security and economy and finance.

The disagreement came up while the parties were discussing power sharing.

Michael Makuei Lueth is the spokesperson of the government’s delegation to the peace talks.

He said: “To our understanding the Arusha agreement is out of question, so all that we have been doing in Arusha is in vain. So we agreed to disagree and as a result, we agreed that we continued with the talks as if there is no Arusha.” Adding that: “Our position is very clear, the same thing with SPLM former detainees, the FDs. They were in a full agreement with the government delegation on this issue of reunification and the way forward in term of the peace talks. So as of now, we are agreed on the agenda and we will continue to negotiate on the rainbow document as if there is no Arusha.”

The faith base group’s representative Bishop Isaiah Majok Dau said both IGAD and Arusha talks are important.

“In our view, these two issues are related. The whole agreement can be thrown away as a whole. Our advice was that they should identify the areas of disagreement and then work on them and use the Arusha as a facility to push Addis Ababa forward and secure agreement before the 5th of March.’’ He said.

The Arusha Agreement was signed on the 21st of Feb and was meant to reunite the three SPLM factions.