3 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The first vice president and leader of the main opposition party in South Sudan, Riek Machar, has called on the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to intervene to address the rise in tensions over the decision of the president, Salva Kiir, to replace the South Sudanese Defense Minister.
Machar’s party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO), last week branded Kiir’s decision to appoint a member of his party as a new minister as “flagrant violation of the peace agreement”. of Defense, replacing Angelina Teny, who is also the wife of the former rebel leader.
Machar has transferred by letter to the IGAD countries and other actors who mediated in the 2018 peace agreement that the president “has unexpectedly interrupted the negotiations” on this point through the appointment of Chol Thon Balok as the new head of Defense portfolio.
“Given this situation, I ask for the intervention of IGAD to resolve these serious violations, which endanger the peace agreement,” said the leader of the SPLM-IO, as reported by Radio Tamazuj.
Machar’s ‘number two’, Oyet Nathaniel, stated on Sunday that the crisis must be resolved as soon as possible in order to move forward with the application of the peace agreement and stressed that the party wants the guarantors of the text to “intervene” in order to move forward.
Kiir announced on Thursday the appointment of Chol Thon Balok at the head of the Defense portfolio, a position in which he replaces Teny, dismissed on March 3, when she was appointed Interior Minister, in a change that gave the president’s party this ministry in exchange for the aforementioned portfolio, which passed into the hands of the SPLM-IO.
South Sudan has a unity government that came into being after the 2018 agreement materialized. Kiir assured on March 22 that the unity government agreed upon after the 2018 peace agreement is prepared to organize the elections and that “it will not there will be more extensions” of the mandate of this Executive, after several postponements due to problems in the application of various clauses of the pact.
Despite the decrease in violence due to the political conflict, the country has registered an increase in inter-community confrontations, mainly motivated by the theft of cattle and disputes between herders and farmers in the most fertile areas of the country, especially due to the increase in desertification and displacement of populations.
