Oil minister and deputy army chief arrested as soldiers surround Vice President Riek Machar’s home in the capital in latest threat to 2018 peace deal.
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.”
Another Machar spokesman, Puok Both Baluang, said other senior military officials allied with Machar have been placed under house arrest.
“As of now, there’s not any reason provided to us that led to the arrest or the detention of [these] officials,” Baluang told the Reuters news agency.
Major-General Lul Ruai Koang, the South Sudan army spokesperson, said in a statement late on Tuesday that he would not comment on the arrest or the troops surrounding Machar’s residence.
The civil war that broke out in December 2013 after Kiir sacked Machar also drove more than 2.5 million people from their homes and left almost half the nation of 11 million struggling to find enough food.
The tensions appear to have been sparked by growing concern over unrest in Upper Nile.
The SSPDF has accused Lam and his troops of working with the so-called White Army rebels in the region, who are predominantly from the same ethnic Nuer community.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan last month reported increased fighting between the army and “armed youth” in Nasir County in Upper Nile, involving “heavy weaponry which has, reportedly, resulted in deaths and injuries to civilians as well as armed personnel”.
The civil war began just two years after South Sudan became independent from Sudan. The country remains mired in poverty and violence.
Ter Manyang Gatwich, executive director of the Center for Peace and Advocacy, called for the immediate release of those arrested to avert further escalation of violence and further bloodshed from degenerating into what he called a “full-scale war”.