The government of South Sudan is willing to negotiate with former vice-president Riek Machar but it will not drop its investigation of the high-level politicians detained in connection with Machar’s alleged coup attempt, officials said.
Eleven politicians are being held in detention by the government since the outbreak of the fighting in Juba last week including many ex-ministers, a former deputy minister of defense, and the ousted ruling party secretary-general Pag’an Amum.
South Sudan has resisted pressure from foreign diplomats to release the high-level detainees, such as the IGAD ministerial delegation, which last week was declined permission to visit the group. Most of the politicians were initially held at the house of the inspector-general of police, but they are now said to be at a former minister’s house.
Opposition leader Riek Machar has also demanded the release of the detainees as a pre-condition for starting peace talks with the government. It is clear that he was a close political ally of several of the detainees, but the government has not yet clarified specifically what role it considers the detainees to have played in the plot that Machar allegedly masterminded.
Minister of Cabinet Affairs Martin Elia Lomoro announced today at a press conference after a session of the “extended council of ministers, advisers and generals” that the investigations of the detainees must continue. “There are processes that must be followed in order for us even to exonerate those who may not have been participants in this particular rebellion,” he said.
“They’re being treated in a very humane manner… all we want to do is be given the space to be able to investigate and separate between those who actually are participants and those who are not participants so that the law can take its course,” the minister added.
A committee of five lawyers headed by the presidential adviser for legal affairs Telar Riing Deng will compose the legal position of the government on the matter of the 11 detained politicians accused of participation in the coup,
The cabinet minister’s remarks today are consistent with those made by the information minister on Monday, who told Reuters news agency, “There is no way we will release anybody who is accused of a coup d’etat.”
No negotiations yet
South Sudan’s government has not yet accepted the proposal made by foreign diplomats to meet the former vice-president Riek Machar for peace talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The government expects Machar first to identify the name and composition of his movement before proceeding to negotiations. In remarks today the cabinet affairs minister suggested that the government wants the opposition leader to first openly declare himself in rebellion.
“As a government we need to know who we are going to negotiate with. Are we going to negotiate with Riek as an individual? Or negotiate with him as a rebel movement? If it is, what is the name of the movement? And has he got a constitution, has he got a constitution, manifesto, objectives, so that the people of south Sudan know that there is actually a rebellion,” said Lomoro.
File photo: Dr. Cirino Hiteng, former minsiter of culture, youth and sports, is among the detainees being investigated for involvement in the alleged coup plot led by Dr. Riek Machar.