South Sudanese forces have arrested the petroleum minister and several senior military officials allied with First Vice President Riek Machar as soldiers surrounded his home in the capital, Juba. Deputy army chief, General Gabriel Duop Lam, a Machar loyalist, was held on Tuesday, while Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol was arrested on Wednesday alongside his bodyguards and family. No reason was given for the arrests, which came after an armed group allied to Machar overran an army base in the country’s northern Upper Nile state.
Machar, whose political rivalry with President Salva Kiir has in the past exploded into civil war, said last month that the firing of several of his allies from posts in the government threatened a 2018 peace deal between him and Kiir.
The deal had ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people were killed. Water Minister Pal Mai Deng, spokesman for Machar’s SPLM-IO party, said Lam’s arrest “puts the entire peace agreement at risk”. “This action violates the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan and cripples the Joint Defence Board, a vital institution of the Agreement responsible for the command and control of all forces. This act puts the entire agreement at risk,” the statement by Deng said.
“We are also gravely concerned about the heavy deployment of SSPDF [South Sudan army troops] around the residence of … Machar,” he wrote. “These actions erode confidence and trust among the parties.”
Credit: ALJAZEERA