S. Sudan rebel commander says no peace without executive prime minister

January 13, 2015 (KAMPALA) – A top South Sudanese rebel commander from South Sudanese says peace will never be restored in the country unless an executive prime minister is appointed and a separate army formed.

In an interview with Sudan Tribune by satellite phone from an undisclosed location, James Koang Chuol accused president Salva Kiir of dividing the country along ethnic lines following the outbreak of violence in December 2013.

Chuol said Kiir and his allies were also responsible for ethnic cleansing in the nation’s capital, Juba, between 16 and 19 December 2013.

Chuol called on the government to agree on the appointment of an executive prime minister and two separate in order to restore peace and trust among the South Sudanese people.

“[An] executive prime minister and the separate army for two-and-a-half years; that will [help] bring peace to South Sudan,” he said.

He said as the aggressor, the government is responsible for ending the current conflict, which was triggered by an internal political crisis within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

In the wake of the crisis, Kiir accused rebel leader and former vice-president Riek Machar and his supporters of staging a coup, claims that have repeatedly been denied by the opposition group.

Nearly 1.8 million people have been displaced by the conflict, which reignited tribal tensions and brought South Sudan to the brink of famine.

The fighting has pitted troops loyal to Kiir, a Dinka, against pro-Machar rebels, mostly of Nuer ethnicity.

Kiir has also been accused of being complicit in the alleged massacre of thousands of Nuer civilians in Juba after government-allied militia went door-to-door in search of Nuer residents at the start of the conflict.

Chuol has called on the government to reconsider the conditions set out by the rebel faction’s leadership at the Pagak conference in December last year.

“It is not our side; the side of the government [that] is the one to bring peace,” he added.

“I think the government is the one to bring peace in South Sudan because they are the one starting the war, telling people rubbish, exaggerating the situation that there was a coup,” he said.

The rebel commander has accused some government officials of making verbal threats against rebel forces, describing them as “merely propaganda”.

He says most officials within the government had no military experience and had not taken part in the protracted Sudanese civil war that raged between the Arab north and the Predominently Christian South for more than two decades.

“We have been hearing that they (the government) will pursuit us in our location, which will never happen. These are wishful thinking from such officials who have no knowledge of how to use [the] barrel of guns against any combatant,” he said.

Chuol also accused some officials of using the war for their own benefit and to embezzle South Sudanese resources and assets.

(ST)