The SPLM Former Detainees have rejected President Salva Kiir’s decision to remove Cirino Hiteng from his post as deputy foreign minister.
Kiir issued a decree on Tuesday evening to remove Hiteng from his post.
Hiteng was appointed to his post according to the August peace deal, under which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to be given to the former detainees.
Kiir has no right to removed him from his position, Hiteng told Radio Tamazuj.
“He has basically violated the peace agreement” Hiteng said. “He has no right to do that because this is the coalition government and I have my group. We should discuss the issue, and if the Former Detainees are convinced, than it is up to us to look for a replacement.”
The peace deal signed last August in Addis Ababa does not give the president the power to remove a minister appointed by one of the other peace signatories. SPLM Former Detainees is a non-armed group of politicians that were the third main signatory to the deal besides SPLM-IO and SPLM-Juba.
Chapter 1, Article 10.5.4 says, “Deputy Ministers shall be appointed by the Party holding the respective Ministry,” while 10.6.1 says, “Each party may remove its representatives in the Council of Ministers and nominate replacements by notifying the President and the First Vice President, with at least fourteen (14) days notice.”
Ateny Wek, Presidential Spokesperson, said that Hiteng was removed because he attended the recent IGAD Council of Ministers meeting without being delegated by the government. He said the decision to remove Hiteng was made at a meeting of the Council of the Minsters on Tuesday, during which Deng Alor, the head for the Former Detainees, was present.
But Hiteng said the Alor disagreed with the decision. “Most of people who are committed to implement the peace agreement have now been frustrated due lack of seriousness from some of individuals in the government,” Hiteng said.
“We took the view that violence has no incentives, and therefore we maintain our position to negotiate differently but not to use the barrels of guns because that will mess up the country,” Hiteng said. He urged the country’s leaders to forget their personal ambitions. “Put the country first, so that we can reconcile the people so that we came out of this mess.”
Separately, a top UN official yesterday called the removal of Cirino Hiteng “a breach of the peace agreement.”
Hervé Ladsous, the Head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, told the UN Security Council in a written statement, “The Deputy Foreign Minister, you will recall, was an appointee of the Former Detainees party to the Peace Agreement. The President’s unilateral dismissal of the deputy minister is a breach of the peace agreement In itself.”
He added, “If this is a forewarning of what is yet to come, only a strong political and coordinated approach can salvage the peace process.”