By Deng Machol
JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan’s government has ordered the immediate withdrawal of the armed group allied to the country’s Vice President Riek Machar from the strategic town of Nasir in Upper Nile after overrunning an army base in the country’s north amid the looming tension and detention, Information Minister said on Wednesday.
South Sudan’s minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, said the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) base in Nasir was captured by a group allied to Machar, forcing the commanding general and his soldiers to take refuge in a tank.
Makuei said that the attack was orchestrated by the SPLM-IO, as the attackers were chanting “Viva,” a slogan linked to the SPLM-IO, during the assault.
According to Makuei, Machar and his members had been in contact with their forces and asked the SSPDF commander to surrender to the SPLM/A-IO for his safety but the Commander declined his offer.
This resulted in the surrounding of Machar’s home in the capital by the security forces, and Deputy Army Chief Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, also loyal to Machar, was detained Tuesday over the fighting in the north, while Machar ally and Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol was arrested Wednesday alongside his bodyguards and family. No reason was given for the arrests.
But Makuei said the detention was due to a violation of the law.
“They were arrested because they conflicted with the law. There is no joke about that,” Makuei told the journalists. What we need is security. If anybody is arrested, it is for a reason,” he added.
Minister Makuei called on the SPLM-IO to control and restrain its forces while honouring the resolutions of the presidency meeting.
Machar, whose political rivalry with President Salva Kiir has in the past exploded into civil war, said last month that the firing of several of his allies from posts in the government threatened the 2018 peace deal between him and Kiir that ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people were killed and displaced 2.5 million people. Makuei reassured the public that the government remains committed to the peace deal.
The IGAD Ambassadors based in Juba on Wednesday urged all the Parties and their affiliate groups to immediately cease hostilities and exercise maximum restraint.
Meanwhile, Water Minister Pal Mai Deng, spokesman for Machar’s SPLM-IO party, called for the release of their members, adding that the systemic arrest of the SPLM-IO members is looming large, a “formidable threat that risks the agreement.”
Western envoys in South Sudan have “deplored” the hostilities in Upper Nile State and raised concerns about the detention of political and military officials, urging all parties to exercise maximum restraint and an immediate halt to the ongoing violence in Upper Nile State.
