Mabior Garang accuses president Kiir’s government of ‘reckless adventurism’

December 11, 2015 (ADDIS ABABA) – Mabior Garang de Mabior, the eldest son of late John Garang, the founding father of the South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party, has accused the government of president Salva Kiir of running the country illegally in a reckless adventure without a mandate.

In a press statement he issued on Thursday and extended to Sudan Tribune, Mabior, who chairs the national committee for information and public relations in the armed opposition faction of the SPLM-IO led by former vice-president, Riek Machar, said his movement was also alarmed by negative hardliners within Kiir’s inner circles.

“The leadership of the SPLM/SPLA (IO) is deeply alarmed by the negative propaganda being encouraged by hardliners within the Salva Kiir Administration. These are dangerous machinations by these hardliners intended to forestall the impending peace. This situation must be resisted. The leadership of the SPLM/SPLA (IO) takes this opportunity to dissuade these hardliners in the Salva Kiir Administration from this reckless adventurism which can only have a negative impact on the peace process,” Mabior said in the statement.

He also said president Kiir’s government had lost legitimacy since there was no renewed mandate which would have been possible if the peace agreement signed in August between the two warring parties had been implemented per the schedule.

“The Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict In South Sudan (ARCISS) signed on the 17th of August (and by the Salva Kiir Administration on the 26th of August, 2015), Chapter 1. Article 1. Section 1. Subsection 1.2 states: “The Transitional Period shall commence 90 days after the signing of the Agreement…”This effectively means that there is a power vacuum and the Administration of Salva Kiir is ruling without a mandate, as that expired effective of the November 25, 2015,” he said.

He said the leadership of the SPLM/SPLA would therefore take the opportunity to encourage partners in peace to remove all the stumbling blocks being laid by these hardliners.

“The continued procrastination by the Salva Kiir Administration is currently precipitating more rebellion as has been witnessed in Eastern and Western Equatoria States respectively. It is only through the rapid implementation of the ARCISS that this situation can be arrested and reversed,” he further stressed.

He however assured that the opposition faction was still committed to the implementation of the peace agreement, adding “this is demonstrated by the presence of a coordination committee which is already in Juba coordinating the logistics for the arrival of the advanced team of the SPLM (IO).”

Mabior further reminded that the peace agreement was the only way to restore peace to the country and for the people of South Sudan to participate in an all-inclusive national dialogue in which “the people shall determine their social and political future.”

Mabior joined the armed opposition in January 2014, a month after the war broke out on 15 December 2013, and participated as delegate to the peace talks in Addis Ababa before he was later on appointed to head the information and public relations committee.

His mother, Rebecca Nyandeng, maintained a decree of neutrality from the armed opposition faction and was instead closer to another anti-government group, known as former detainees.

Nyandeng however returned to Juba last month with the rest of former detainees to participate in the reunification process of the SPLM factions and the implementation of the peace agreement.

She was reportedly abused at a Emmanuel Jieng Parish church in Juba by a pro-government women two days after her return, blamed for being vocal against president Kiir’s government which she accused in the media of dictatorship and massacring thousands from the Nuer ethnic group in Juba, sparking the war.

The abuser demanded that Nyandeng brought back to Juba her son, Mabior, an attack which was also condemned by a group of Twic East community members in the diaspora, who published a condemnation article alleging the attack from the Bor community woman was not only directed to Nyandeng, but to the Twic East community in general.

However, officials of the Emmanuel Jieng Parish downplayed the seriousness of the attack on Nyandeng inside the church, saying it was exaggerated and did not constitute the level of the attack which was reported by eyewitnesses to include an attempt to slap her after “disrespectful” insults.

(ST)