Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit has given First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny an ultimatum to abandon his political organization, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) before it would be too late for him to return to the SPLM party.
This comes after First Vice President Machar who doubles as the chairman of the main armed opposition SPLM-IO slammed President Kiir for allegedly violating the Arusha reunification accord following his dismissal of Machar, who was the deputy chair of the party, and Pagan Amum, who was the secretary-general.
Machar’s office had claimed in a statement on Monday that President Kiir’s group has no powers to dismiss leaders of other factions from the party, saying the party had split into tiny pieces following the outbreak of conflict and has not yet reunited and as such none of the factional leaders has powers to dismiss the others from the party.
In a statement this afternoon, the SPLM-IG Acting Secretary-General Peter Lam Both said his group is not a faction unlike Machar’s party, saying Machar and Pagan Amum had left the party to form their own parties and have not been willing to come for reunification of the party since the signing of the Arusha reunification accord.
“First, SPLM is not a faction. It is the mother from which the splinter groups originated. Only such dissident organizations can be called factions SPLM doesn’t need legitimacy from its splinter groups to be itself,” the statement extended to Sudans Post reads in part.
“No legally competent organ of SPLM has ever changed the name from SPLM to ‘SPLM-IG.’ The negotiators came up with such nomenclature to help them differentiate those factions which refused to relinquish SPLM from their prefixes. Therefore, it is not the return of the children that will name the legally registered mother,” the statement added.
The statement stressed that the signing of the Arusha agreement has been seven years since its signing and none of its signatories beside the SPLM-IG has been willing for the reunification process as Machar stuck to his group and Pagan emerging with a new faction, the Real SPLM, and said that the Arusha agreement was to replace the IGAD peace talk which it claims focused largely on power division among the elites.
“Second, the SPLM would like to reiterate that it has been now seven (7) years since the signature of the Anisha Agreement on 21 January 2015. By such agreement, all the signatories were to come to Juba and implement the agreement. SPLM-FDs responded and Cde. Pa’gan Amum returned to Juba and was sworn-in as SPLM Secretary General on 23 June 2015; however, he decided to leave his party again and formed his ‘Real SPLM’,” the statement said.
“During that time, SPLM-IO made it clear that their priority was not the implementation of the Arusha Agreement, but the ARCSS being negotiated in Addis-Ababa and therefore, their leadership did not return to Juba for implementation of the Arusha Agreement,” it added.
It went on to mention that “the Arusha process was to replace the IGAD mediation which stuck on power-sharing arrangement in Addis-Ababa. It was then conceived by sisterly political parties of EPRDF, CCM and ANC that since the crisis was internal to SPLM, it would be easier to address the situation at the party level.
“What was agreed in Arusha took the SPLM back to its pre-crisis position and if it were implemented, IGAD mediation would have been rendered irrelevant. However, since Dr. Riek did not come to Juba for its implementation, we had ARCSS and now R-ARCSS implementation which has become the preoccupation rather than the implementation of the Arusha Agreement.
“It was only in May 2018 that the SPLM-IO faction led by Cde. Taban Deng Gai dissolved their faction and declared total unification with the SPLM. It was in such meeting of the NLC that Cde. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Chairman of NRM and President of Uganda, requested for 45 days for him to convince the SPLM-IO leadership and FDS to join the reunification of the party.”
The statement further reiterated the SPLM-IG’s commitment to the reunification process and urged the SPLM-IO among other factions to abandon their parties and return to the SPLM before the next meeting of the National Liberation Council (NLC) before it is too late for them to be allowed in once again.
“SPLM has been more than willing to unify with its splinter groups. If the SPLM wasn’t willing so implementation the Arusha Agreement (a) It couldn’t have waited for seven (7) years for return of people who have already established their own parties; (b) It couldn’t have incorporated the Anisha Agreement into the SPLM amended Constitution of 2016, and (c) it couldn’t have reinstated those who have returned to the party to their previous positions,” it said.
“However, the strategy for holding SPLM hostage for so many years while others organize their parties has now come to an end. Article 10 [(b) &(d)] of the Constitution on the grounds for the loss of membership in the party has now been invoked by the SPLM Political Bureau meeting held on 20th October 2022 to recommend to the forthcoming NLC meeting for dismissal of those who either joined or formed their own political parties.
“Once membership is lost, it goes without saying that the positions being held in various structures of the SPLM by such individuals would automatically be lost. If someone really wants to abandon his/her party, they better do so before the forthcoming meeting of the NLC. The 45 days of Cde. Museveni are over!”
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