South Sudanese security agents at Juba International Airport blocked the chairman of the United Democratic Front (UDF) party from boarding an airplane to travel to Addis Ababa, where a symposium involving civil society groups and political parties is being chaired by peace mediators.

Even after a meeting with the Minister of National Security the next day the politician’s passport is still held and he has not been notified of why he was denied to participate in the talks.

IGAD, the East African regional organization facilitating the talks, has sought to make them ‘inclusive’ and invited up to 150 representatives of different groups. The talks were set to start yesterday but the kick-off was delayed until today.

Peter Abdelhman Sule, the chairman of UDF said that on Wednesday two from his party were stopped from boarding an Ethiopian Airlines airplane that was charted to take all the civil society stakeholders and political party representatives to Addis Ababa.  

“We were invited by the IGAD – not at the government’s pleasure. So we were surprised when a high government official said it is not the government who stopped us, they said it is the immigration officer who stopped us from getting to the plane because we do not have a document,” Sule noted.

He said up to now the security organ refused to give them back their passports. These remarks were made at a press conference in the UDF party office in Juba on Friday.

Sule, who chairs the opposition political party United Democratic Front (UDF), has previously had probems with the government security. In November 2011 he was arrested by SPLA in Western Equatoria State on allegations that he was forming a rebel group against the South Sudan government.

“Suddenly our passports were taken, and when the time came for us to board the plane, we were asked to go and see the chief of security in the airport. We found the major and he told us that had (prior) orders to the effect that if I appeared to the airport, I should be stopped from travelling,” narrated Sule.

The politician noted that the major-general then told him to go to meet the minister of National Security. “I asked him to give me back my passport but he refused,” he said.

Sule said that they later managed to meet the minister over the matter. “We informed him – Obuto Mamur – and he acted surprised, saying he had not been informed about it and after he told us he will immediately going to meet the vice president about the matter.”

“He also asked me to leave my telephone number behind, which I did and I wait until today nothing happened,” Sule added.

The politican said that this step is a violation both of his rights and of the agreement signed last month between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar that committed the two sides to incluse dialogue with political parties in the peace talks.

For his part, the government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth denied that the security agency blocked the group from traveling. “These people, none of them were stopped by the security from going as some claimed, but they were returned from the airport simply because of migration procedures,” he said. 

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Addis symposium kicks off 'inclusive' phase of South Sudan peace talks (4 June)