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South Sudan Machar’s party pulls out of peace process
South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar (left) and South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir sign a ceasefire and power-sharing agreement in Khartoum, Sudan, on August 5, 2018. PHOTO/REUTERS
What you need to know:
- SPLM-IO says it has withdrawn from the security arrangements of the 2018 peace deal.
The South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) says it has withdrawn from the security arrangements of the 2018 peace deal, signalling further wrangling in the coalition government.
The SPLM-IO, led by First Vice President Riek Machar, a key signatory to the agreement, said it was pulling its support from the security mechanisms in protest at the detention of several of its senior leaders and the entry of Ugandan troops into South Sudan.
The peace deal ended five years of civil war and led to the formation of a coalition government known as the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGoNU), which includes Dr Machar’s party, President Salva Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and several other armed movements.
In a letter dated March 17, SPLM-IO deputy chairman, Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, said: “All participation by the members of the security and political mechanisms is hereby frozen with immediate effect until all the SPLM-IO political detainees are unconditionally released.”
The freeze means that the SPLM-IO has withdrawn from the Joint Defence Board, the High-Level Political Committee, the Joint Military Ceasefire Committee and the Joint Transitional Security Committee, weakening coordination efforts and raising the possibility of renewed conflict.
Security forces arrested several SPLM-IO officials earlier this month following clashes between South Sudanese soldiers and local White Army militias in the town of Nasir, near the Ethiopian border, that forced the troops to withdraw.
A military general was among around 27 soldiers killed on March 7 when a UN helicopter trying to evacuate them from Nasir came under attack.
Authorities in Juba accuse Machar’s party of having links to the White Army, a charge the SPLM-IO denies.
On Sunday night, the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF), in collaboration with the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), shelled villages in Nasir in Upper Nile State, killing 21 people and destroying property.
“The invitation and deployment of UPDF around the country complicates the geopolitical situation of South Sudan and is tantamount to a declaration of war on the peace partners and the people of South Sudan by the two governments,” said Mr Pierino.
The Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and signed in 2018, grants key SPLM-IO officials immunity from prosecution and dismissal from government positions without consent of the party. However, this has since been violated by President Kiir.
The SPLM-IO political and military officials currently in detention include Petroleum minister Puot Kang Chol, who is also the deputy chairman of the High-Level Political Committee, General Gabriel Duop Lam, the deputy chief of defence forces and co-chair of the Joint Defence Board, MPs Gatwech Lam Puoch, Camilo Gatmai Kel and 19 others.
On Monday, the government spokesman Michael Makuei announced that the State had revoked the immunity of the detained opposition officials, declared war on the White Army and warned civilians to evacuate Nasir.
Mr Pierino said that South Sudan, and Juba in particular, was becoming increasingly unsafe for the members of the opposition and Dr Machar, who is under house arrest.
Edmund Yakani, the executive director of the advocacy group Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation, said the withdrawal of the SPLM-IO would seriously undermine the 2018 peace agreement and could cause South Sudanese to lose faith in the country’s political transition process during the newly extended two-year transitional period.
