S. Sudanese rebels deny members are sheltering in UN compounds
November 25, 2014 (ADDIS ABABA) – The rebel faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – SPLM (opposition) – has dismissed as “ill-intentions” claims that they have armed members inside civilian protection sites, which are being manned across the country by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
Dak was responding on Tuesday to the renewed allegations by president Salva Kiir’s government that rebels were taking refuge in the UNMISS protection sites and asked the UN body to return their guns to the government.
The rebels spokesperson said the allegations were unfounded but acknowledged there were individuals who quit the army since December and decided to enter UN compounds for safety reasons.
He also said the overwhelming majority who have sought refuge are civilians including elderly, women and children.
“Of course we don’t deny that there are individuals who are former soldiers. They decided to quit the army and sought refuge in the UNMISS compounds. Some did it because of discontent or fear for their lives. They didn’t want to continue to be part of the army that has turned against its own citizens, massacring them in thousands on ethnic grounds,” Dak further explained.
“They are victims. Many of them lost their family members, murdered by their own colleagues,” Dak added.
He, however, said nobody entered the UN compounds with a gun, adding that some of them left their guns in the barracks while others were disarmed by the UN body before allowing such individuals enter their compounds.
Dak also said “it wouldn’t be surprising” if majority of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the UN compounds were supporting the cause of the “freedom fighters”, adding they were “survivors from Kiir’s massacre.”
He further argued that a similar situation applied to soldiers loyal to president Kiir.
“But this is not a one-sided occurrence. Whenever our forces captured a major town such as Bentiu, Bor or Malakal, they would report to us having spotted Salva Kiir’s soldiers entering the UN protection sites for safety reasons. We never complained to the UN to hand them over to us. We understood the UN would disarm them,” he further explained.
The new UNMISS chief, Margrette Ellen Loej, in her comments also acknowledged sheltering some former soldiers in UN compounds, but said they didn’t possess weapons. She further added the UN would always destroys their collected guns and not hand them over to government.
KIIR RENEWS ACCUSATIONS
President Kiir, however, renewed accusations against UNMISS, saying the UN body had been friendly to his former deputy Machar, who now fights against his government.
While addressing the government’s one day consultative conference on the peace process on Monday in Juba, Kiir angrily responded to the request by UNMISS to allow the transportation of rebel commanders to attend a rebel consultative conference on the peace process in Pagak near the Ethiopian border.
UNMISS would pick senior rebel commanders from various locations particularly in Greater Upper Nile region’s states of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei.
President Kiir told the consultative conference that he would not approve the request by UNMISS to transport the rebel commanders.
He also renewed allegations that UNMISS under the leadership of it former chief, Hilde Johnson, whom he described as Machar’s “best friend”, in December aided Machar’s escape from Juba, a claim both Machar and Johnson earlier dismissed as untrue.
“These are the people he [Machar] has been using. The first woman who was here was the best friend of Riek Machar and was the one who took Riek Machar away from Juba. For the current one, I don’t have any comment about her because so far we have not proved that she is following the steps of her predecessor,” Kiir said on Monday.
However, a senior official at the ministry of foreign affairs distanced the government from president Kiir’s comments, describing them as a “slip of the tongue.”
The undersecretary in the ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Abdun Terkoc, reportedly advised journalists not to report the president’s comments.
“It is not everything which is said or heard is what should be reported. There are things which you people in the media need to understand the context first,” said the diplomat.
“You also need to understand that the president is a human like any one of us to slide from the focus. So what happened yesterday was a slip of the tongue,” said Terkoc.
Some 100,000 people, mainly from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, have been sheltered in various UN compounds across the country.
The war, which erupted on 15 December between presidential guards, is pitting president Kiir’s ruling Dinka ethnic group and their allies against the Nuer.
Tens of thousands of people have died, 1.8 million displaced and 4 million others threatened by hunger and diseases.
Regional bloc of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which has been mediating a peace process, has given the two warring parties extendable 15 days to make consultations with their constituencies in order to seal a deal on power-sharing arrangements.
(ST)