Ugandan President hosts SPLM factions meeting

May 25, 2017 (JUBA) – Between 25 and 26 May 2017, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni the President of Uganda, is hosting a meeting aimed at the reunification of the different factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

According to several officials from the different factions of the fragmented ruling party, the meeting will be held in Kampala and moderated by the Ugandan leader.

Each faction is represented by the top official in the capacity of the secretary general and a senior member.

President Salva Kiir’s SPLM faction is represented by its acting Secretary General Jemma Nunu Kumba, Presidential Advisor Daniel Awet Akot and military figure Simon Kun Puoch.

The SPLM-IO faction allied to the First Vice President Taban Deng Gai is represented by a delegation including Dhieu Mathok Diing, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth and Michael Chiangjiek Gaey.

Pagan Amum Okiech, Deng Alor Kuol and Kosti Manibe Ngai are representing the former political detainees at the meeting. However, no officials have appeared to represent the armed opposition faction under the overall leadership of the SPLM in Opposition of the former First Vice President, Riek Machar.

The agenda of the meeting remains unclear, however, sources with direct knowledge of the arrangements say the representatives are responding to the invitations of President Museveni who is responding to the request of President Salva Kiir to mediate the reunification.

South Africa and Tanzania had already tried to resolve the South Sudanese crisis through the reunification of the different SPLM factions, saying the conflict started by an internal rift within it.

The fractured SPLM factions signed reunification agreement in Arusha, Tanzania on 21 January 2015, but it didn’t help to end the conflict

(ST)