By Hannah McNeish - VOA
South Sudanese authorities have detained the Minister of Petroleum and several high-ranking military officials associated with First Vice President Riek Machar, as troops encircled his residence in the capital city of Juba.
General Gabriel Duop Lam, the deputy army chief and a supporter of Machar, was apprehended on Tuesday, while Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol was taken into custody on Wednesday, along with his bodyguards and family members. The rationale behind these arrests has not been disclosed, occurring shortly after an armed faction aligned with Machar seized control of a military base in the northern Upper Nile state.
Machar, whose longstanding political rivalry with President Salva Kiir has previously escalated into civil conflict, expressed last month that the dismissal of several of his associates from government positions jeopardized the peace agreement established in 2018 between himself and Kiir.
This agreement had concluded a five-year civil war that resulted in over 400,000 fatalities. Water Minister Pal Mai Deng, spokesperson for Machar’s SPLM-IO party, stated that Lam’s detention “endangers the entire peace accord.”
“This action contravenes the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan and undermines the Joint Defence Board, a crucial entity of the Agreement tasked with overseeing the command and control of all military forces. Such actions jeopardize the integrity of the entire agreement,” Deng’s statement asserted.
The heavy presence of SSPDF [South Sudan army troops] surrounding the residence of … Machar has raised significant concerns, as noted in a recent statement. Such actions undermine the confidence and trust between the involved parties.
In addition, Puok Both Baluang, a spokesperson for Machar, reported that several senior military officials aligned with Machar have been placed under house arrest. He indicated that no explanation has been provided regarding the reasons for the arrest or detention of these officials, as he communicated to the Reuters news agency.
Major-General Lul Ruai Koang, the spokesperson for the South Sudan army, refrained from commenting on the arrests or the military presence around Machar’s residence in a statement issued late on Tuesday.
The civil war, which erupted in December 2013 following President Kiir’s dismissal of Machar, has displaced over 2.5 million individuals and left nearly half of the nation’s 11 million people struggling to secure adequate food supplies.
Recent tensions appear to have been ignited by escalating concerns regarding unrest in Upper Nile. The SSPDF has accused Lam and his forces of collaborating with the so-called White Army rebels in the area, who primarily belong to the Nuer ethnic group.
Last month, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported an uptick in hostilities between the army and “armed youth” in Nasir County, Upper Nile, involving heavy weaponry that has reportedly led to civilian casualties as well as injuries among armed personnel.
The civil war commenced merely two years after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan, and the nation continues to grapple with poverty and violence. Ter Manyang Gatwich, the executive director of the Center for Peace and Advocacy, has urged for the immediate release of those detained to prevent further escalation of violence and to avert what he termed a “full-scale war.”
