VP Igga responsible for attack on U.S diplomat vehicle: Malong
February 4, 2018 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s Vice President, James Wani Igga should he held liable for the 2014 attack on a United State diplomat’s car in the capital, Juba, the country’s former military chief of staff, General Paul Malong Awan said.
“After US ambassador came to my office to inform about the shooting, I took the matter of investigating the incident personally; luckily, I quickly found out that the Vice President convoy has shot the car of the US ambassador. I told the vice president that your convoy has shot the car of the US ambassador the responsibility lies under your hand,” he wrote, adding that the Vice President blamed the incident on unknown gunmen “when the entirety is well known”.
Malong accused the Juba government of shielding “unknown” gunmen, whose activities are a nightmare to the country’s citizens.
“The moral is that the government of South Sudan is masking as the unknown gunman to its own citizens and the world at large just like the case of the US ambassador’s car,” stated the former army chief.
Malong claimed some “elites” in the government especially in the national security services, military intelligence and other operational security sects are using state apparatuses as tools for their own benefits.
“This intellectual extermination is a clear recipe for a failed state and a state failing the future by the elites through the immune killings of intellectuals,” said Malong in a letter his wife, Lucy Ayak Malek sent.
In November 2014, a US embassy vehicle carrying its envoy to South Sudan was shot at while moving in a convoy in Juba. Two bullets hit the car leaving two big holes, although the bullets could not penetrate the embassy vehicle.
The incident was then interpreted by analysts as a diplomatic blow to a country the US helped to secede from neighbouring Sudan in 2011.
(ST)