South Sudan’s information minister on Friday insisted that they have resolved the dispute over the sacking of defense minister and swapping of ministries.
This came after the opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) said on Thursday that its dispute with President Salva Kiir over the firing of the defense minister and swapping of ministries has not yet been resolved.
On 29 March, President Salva Kiir appointed a member of his SPLM party as defense minister, breaching a peace agreement in which the role should be selected by the SPLM-IO party of First Vice President Riek Machar.
Defense Minister Angelina Teny, who is also Machar’s wife, was fired, alongside the interior minister on 3 March, reigniting longstanding disputes over how the two leaders share power.
In March’s decree, Kiir handed the defense ministry to his party, a role which, under the terms of the agreement, is meant to be appointed by Machar’s party. In exchange, the president gave Machar’s party the interior ministry.
Kiir, Machar and other political leaders signed a peace agreement in 2018 that ended five years of civil war. Implementation of the peace deal has been slow.
Speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting in Juba on Friday, Minister Michael Makuei, a leading member of Kiir’s SPLM party, said the dispute has already been resolved and that they are just waiting for the appointment of a new minister of interior and a new deputy minister of defense.
“What we know is that we are waiting for the minister of interior to be appointed and deputy minister of defense is appointed and deputy minister of interior to be relieved and another minister to be appointed in his place. This is what I know, and if there is anything as such, I have no knowledge about it and we will see until it is brought to us officially, we don’t react to what happened on social media,” Makuei said.
Makuei, who is also the government spokesperson, said they have not yet received an official objection regarding the agreement the two leaders reached over the ministerial position.
“That is the official communiqué and whatever people are saying here that it is not true that is another thing. So far, we have not received an official objection to what was said. The parties sat and they agreed and if anybody is saying that is not true then they should come to us and say what we agreed upon last time is not in place,” he said.
A communiqué of the 14th Ordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government attended by President Salva Kiir praised the two leaders for resolving the matter amicably.
“[IGAD] lauded H.E. President Salva Kiir Mayardit and First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar, for their statesmanship and wisdom in amicably resolving the dispute that arose over changes in the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs and the Ministry of Interior,” the communiqué reads in part.
The UN Mission chief, Nicholas Haysom, also cited the IGAD communique in the UN Security Council and said: “We are informed by the recent IGAD communique that the political impasse over the removal of the Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs has apparently been resolved, but not acknowledged as such,” Nicholas stated.
However, Machar’s press secretary, Puok Both Baluang: said:” The deadlock over the sacking of the defense minister and swapping of the two ministries have not yet been resolved. Before the conflict erupted in Sudan, we wrote a letter to the IGAD to resolve the matter. So there is no agreement and what Minister Makuei is saying is untrue, and he is free to say whatever he wants to say.”
When asked why the SPLM-IO did not object to the IGAD communique, Puok said: “We were not present in the IGAD summit so we do not know where IGAD got that information from. Our position is very clear, there is no agreement.”