The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition have reported that one of their cabinet ministers in South Sudan’s two-month old power-sharing government was arrested from his hotel in Juba today and released shortly thereafter.
This comes two days after President Salva Kiir fired the deputy minister appointed by the SPLM Former Detainees, the third party to the peace agreement, and blocked the travel of Foreign Minister Deng Alor.
James Gatdet Dak, spokesman for Vice President Riek Machar, told Radio France International in a phone call today that Minister of Energy and Dams Dhieu Mathok Diing Wol was surrounded by government forces who intended to arrest him.
“As we were talking then I heard these people they were arresting him,” he said.
In a later Facebook post just after 3:30 he said, “It is confirmed that SPLM (IO) Secretary General and Minister of Energy, Dr. Dhieu Mathok Ding Wol, has been arrested after severely beaten.”
Shortly after 4:15, Dak updated again saying that Dhieu was reased but had been beaten, saying the SPLM-IO condemns the incident.
Dhieu is also the secretary general of the SPLM-IO and a native of the Bahr al Ghazal region, homeland of Salva Kiir and his chief of staff Paul Malong. This incident points to tensions within the Transitional Government of National Unity.
File photo: Dhieu Mathok