Gen. Oyay Deng Ajak speaks on Eye Radio's Dawn Show. December 9, 2024. (Photo: Lou Nelson).

A member of South Sudan Opposition Movement Alliance reiterated that the Tumaini Initiative should be a standalone agreement, adding that lack of commitment and determination from the transitional government has led to the slow pace of the 2018 peace implementation.

Gen. Oyay Deng Ajak said the Tumaini Initiative currently being negotiated in Nairobi is the best chance for the country’s transition to democracy.

Gen. Ajak – a former chief of general staff of the South Sudan army – argued that the revitalized peace agreement is not taking the country anywhere.

Now a member of the member of Real SPLM, Ajak said the Kenya-led peace process should not be an annex to the 2018 peace accord.

“Tumaini initiative is Tumaini initiative, that’s why it is called initiative, it is a new initiative, new idea to discuss the existing problems in South Sudan,” he said in an interview with Eye Radio’s Dawn Show in Nairobi.

“Of course we can make some references, but we are not attaching the Tumaini to the R-ARCSS. If R-ARCSS was a good agreement why did they not implement it, they have even now extended it recently for another two years.”

He said if South Sudan has implemented the 2018 peace deal in letter and spirit, there would be no need for the Tumaini peace process.

“Since that agreement was signed [in 2018] up to today, we are going for many years, the children born in those years, they are now running in Juba and the agreement is not running.”

“We believe what we are going to sign in Tumaini, it will be based on the timetable and we are going to implement it and there will be a guarantee from the region.”

As the Tumaini peace initiative entered its fourth day on Monday, parties are still conducting consultations of the agenda to be adopted for negotiation.