Africa-Press – South-Sudan. President Salva Kiir has finally dismissed the leader of the Kit-Gwang faction, Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual, as the Presidential Advisor for Peace months after declining to fill the post.Gen. Dual who was appointed in June 2021 before leaving Dr. Riek Machar’s camp, was immediately replaced by David Reath Malual in a separate Presidential Decree read on the state-owned SSBC on Monday evening,He had said his appointment to the position was not in conformity with the revitalised peace agreement, adding that he could accept such a position only after the implementation of the security arrangement.
Two months after his appointment, Dual rebelled against his former boss and assumed the leadership of the party and commander in chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA) in August 2021.
He then accused Dr. Machar of abandoning forces and failing to implement Chapter Two of the security arrangement, declaring that his decision was not war but the implementation of the agreement.
However, following several clashes with forces loyal to the First Vice President, Dr. Machar, that claimed lives and displaced civilians in Upper Nile State, Gen. Dual’s group signed a peace deal with President Kiir’s ruling party, the SPLM-IG.
Peace deal signed
Despite the fact that the president granted Gen. Dual, his deputy Gen. Johnson Olony, and their followers amnesty in October 2021 as part of the Khartoum Peace Agreement, neither has set foot in the capital, Juba.
It remained unclear what prompted the President to take the decision at the time, as none of the provisions of the Khartoum deal had yet to be implemented, including integration of the Kit-Gwang and Agwelek forces into the SSPDF.
However, Gen. Dual who was nominated for the position by Dr. Machar on the SPLM/A-IO, and the appointment of Reith who also hails from the same party, might be the reasons for his dismissal.
It further remains unknown whether the president will give Gen, Dual position given the demand by Kit-Gwang for both military and political provisions in the incumbent coalition government.
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