SPLA dismisses ‘propaganda’ claim that deputy commander dismissed
May 6, 2009 (JUBA) – The army of south Sudan dismissed as “propaganda of the highest order” a report by the Sudanese daily Al-Intibaha that had claimed the dismissal of the force’s Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Lt. General Paulino Matip Nhial.
Matip, the former commander of a significant militia in Bul Nuer territory which was often government-backed, also headed a loose coalition of militias known as the South Sudan Defence Forces. Having chosen to integrate into the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in a formal agreement signed on January 8, 2006, he now straddles a deep fissure within the SPLA.
The Arabic-language newspaper wrote April 20 that signs of division are emerging between SPLA figures and Matip’s loyalists in Central Equatoria State, stating that Matip is being replaced with one Major General Gong Gall – a name not known in the SPLA — who, according to their report, is a Nuer from Mayom County, Unity State, though also a Dinka loyalist.
Al-Intibaha insinuated that General Salva Mathok Gengdit, Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration, pushed for the new appointment in order to bolster “Dinka dominance” in the former rebel group. However, an SPLA official responded that “General Salva Mathok would not initiate the removal of one of his closest allies.”
Emphasizing matters of tribal loyalty, the article reported clashes on April 19, 2009 between the two factions in Juba town and another location, stirred up by discontent among Matip’s fellow tribesmen.
SPLA, in a statement issued by Col. Malaak Ayuen Ajok, Director of Information and Civil-Military Relations at the headquarters in Juba, outright denied that the Deputy Commander-in-Chief has been dismissed.
It also noted that since the historic Juba Declaration, General Matip no longer has his own forces, thus making any such supposed clashes impossible.
“We therefore find it unpalatable, unfathomable and offensive when agents of division in Khartoum, of which Al Intibaha is one, treat General Matip as a separate entity from the SPLA. To set the records straight, General Paulino Matip Nhial is the current Deputy Commander-in-Chief of SPLA. He does not have forces outside the SPLA in which he is the second-in-Command,” stated the SPLA representative.
Ajok affirmed “there is no tinge of truth in the propaganda that General Matip is being dismissed.”
“Unlike the North which has dishonoured too many agreements it signed with the South we in the South are bound to honour agreements we signed among ourselves,” he stated.
The SPLA spokesperson further added that Juba was calm on April 19, while residents went about their daily businesses: “There were no reports of insecurity or gun battles by any group, leave alone a massive gun battle between SPLA and the so-called Matip forces, in Juba and its environs.”
Then, moreover, the army spokesperson called it “surprising” and “mind-boggling” the extent to which Al Intibaha has forgone its journalistic ethics, questioning why the paper would “resort to manufacturing news, concocting non-existent events and incorporate them in their news stories.”
“We challenge the editorial team and management of Intibaha to prove beyond doubt that such incident occurred in Juba,” stated the SPLA spokesperson, also pointing out that Al-Intibaha does not have a single reporter or correspondent in Juba or Southern Sudan.
(ST)