Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The protracted rifts between the rival factions of the SPLM/A-IO have raised eyebrows as it may break the well-preserved ceasefire since the signing of the revitalised peace agreement.
On Sunday, the Director for Information and Public Relations in the office of the First Vice President Dr Riek Machar Teny, Pouk Both Baluang expressed the SPLM/A-IO’s willingness to dialogue over the impasse with the Kit Gwang declaration group.
However, he called for a need to initiate a dialogue that includes their leadership, saying they had not been involved anywhere in dialogue and therefore the issue about refusing mediation is misleading.
Pouk said they were concerned about the plight of citizens in Northern Upper Nile where the fighting had been taking place and called for urgent dialogue.
In recent weeks, the two factions have been exchanging offensives leading to a huge loss of lives of over 50 soldiers in Upper Nile State.
The Kit Gwang faction had claimed victory over SPLM/A-IO led by Dr Machar, saying seven of the latter’s 45 SPLM/A-IO generals have surrendered to the Sudanese army with their fighters.
However, the SPLM/A-IO dismissed the claims, arguing that no army can join an army from another country and that the deadlock within SPLM/A-IO could be addressed within the party itself.
Baluang said the last year’s talks held in Khartoum were between the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) and Kit Gwang and the SPLM/A-IO top leadership was not directly involved.
However, the factions have been trading accusations against each other.
Call for ceasefire
Last month, Mabior Garang de Mabior, who formerly served under SPLM/A-IO before switching allegiance to Kit Gwang in a statement, called on President Salva Kiir to initiate an ending to the deadlock.
He said the two factions should honour the 73rd Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Council of Ministers, which previously called for the SPLM-IO “to put their house in order.”
“A humble appeal to the President of the Republic of South Sudan, fellow South Sudanese, join me in this humble call on President Salva Kiir to intervene in the violent split within the SPLM-IO, which threatens to unravel the little semblance of an Agreement we have in our nascent Republic,” he said in his Facebook post.
“There is an opportunity to resolve this split peacefully. This opportunity comes in the form of the Communiqué of the 73rd Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Council of Ministers. The Communiqué calls -among other things-for the SPLM-IO ‘to put their house in order’’.
Mabior stressed that the existent tension within the SPLM/A-IO factions might worsen and spread like wildfire to engulf the whole nation.
“The mischief in the SPLM-IO has resulted in communal violence in Western Equatoria State. It also continues to cause communal violence in Greater Upper Nile Region. If these dark forces in our land are not stopped, this violence threatens to engulf the entire country in another cycle of senseless violence,” he stressed.
Khartoum talks
In September 2021, the Kit Gwang declaration expressed readiness to go for talks and called for the government to send a delegation to meet them.
The government then started the negotiations with the SPLM/A-IO Kit Gwang faction led by Simon Gatwech Dual in October 2021 to end the conflict within the SPLM/A-IO factions.
The delegation tasked with the mediation was led by the Presidential Security Advisor, Tut Gatluak, in Khartoum.
“We don’t want war again. We want to achieve peace, stability, and security in the Republic of South Sudan. We have come to inform you that we are ready for negotiation so that you prepare your team for us to begin negotiation, and to report to Sudan to play its role as the granter of [South Sudan] peace,” Gatluak said, as he approached Kit-Gwang faction delegates.
Gatwech accepted the talks, saying that it was what they were waiting for and thus appreciated the government for the initiative.
“I am 100 per cent for peace. Secondly, today the government of South Sudan has arrived [in Khartoum], I am very, very happy, and it is very important. This is the beginning, I have accepted the negotiation. I have my team, you come and negotiate with them,” said Gen. Gatwech.
In August, Gatwech and Johnson Olony, his deputy, announced that they had replaced Dr Riek Machar in his position as the Chairman and Commander-in-Chief of the SPLM/A-IO forces.
They cited nepotism within Machar-led SPLM/A-IO and failure to implement Chapter Two of the 2018 Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan.
Demanding positions
Gatwech’s team later called for negotiations over the positions occupied by SPLM/A-IO in the 2018 Revitalised agreement, according to media reports.
“SPLM/A-IO demands all the positions allocated to SPLM/A-IO: First vice president, presidential advisor, national ministers, MPs, members of the council of state, national commissions, governors, commissioners, state ministers and MPs, foreign mission and ambassadors.”
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