Africa-Press – South-Sudan. South Sudan’s main armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO) led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny has said that President Salva Kiir Mayardit will bear responsibility if the world’s youngest country return to conflict.
This comes a two days after President Kiir issued several republic decree allocating positions of the unified army command between the main signatories of the revitalized peace agreement in which the SPLA-IO was given the inspector general of SSPDF and deputy army chief for morale and orientation.
Machar has called the presidential decision a unilateral action that violates the security arrangements provided for in the revitalized peace agreement and urged the president to cancel his decree.
Speaking in an interview with the Juba-based NO. 1 Newspaper, SPLA-IO spokesman Col. Lam Paul Gabriel accusing some unnamed generals in Bilpam and J1 of believing that their positions are more important and powerful than the revitalized peace agreement.
“There are people who think that their position is more powerful than this peace agreement. We know that this unification of command which is supposed to happen but is not happening, because they don’t want their positions to be taken away from them,” Lam said.
The senior SPLA-IO officer further said that President Salva Kiir Mayardit will bear full responsibility if the world’s youngest country returns to conflict.
“We have been implementing peace since day one till now we are still for peace, if war breaks it’s not from the SPLA-IO it’s from them. We all want peace with all our hearts and that is why we are here and we are not going to leave until peace is implemented,” he stated.
“We want things to move forward but not war and this is the situation we are in. We are not going to go away from Juba. Being in Juba does not mean we surrender. If they think we are going to keep quiet while in Juba they will kill us they are wrong. We are here in Juba we are not leaving anywhere and if the SSPDF wants to kill us let them kill us here in Juba,” he added.
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