Gabriel Yoal Dok, part of a group of rebels from the Federal Democratic Party-South Sudan Armed Forces, denied Tuesday joining Salva Kiir’s government and said they remain part of the FDP-SSAF.
Dok’s team, dispatched by SSAF General Gathoth Gatkuoth, are dissidents of the FDP-SSAF, a group which last year broke off from Riek Machar’s SPLM/A-In Opposition rebellion. Prominent FDP-SSAF members also include Gabriel Changson Chang and Peter Gatdet Yak.
Yoal said recent media reports that he and his team of dissidents were dismissed by Changson are misleading. He said Changson, who sees himself as the political leader of the Federal Democratic Party, lacks the mandate to remove them from their posts, and expressed surprise at Changson’s statement to the press disowning them.
“This is a work of someone who has no authority to make such a decision,” Yoal said of their alleged dismissal. “It was a personal decision and cannot therefore be taken an official statement of the movement because the view one person does not represent the view of the entire leadership of the movement.”
Yoal stressed that his side has not joined Kiir but has come to Juba to deliver a position paper accepting to enter into negotiations with the government. He said they agreed to come to Juba in response to an initiative of the president who Yoal said wants to include everybody in the peace process.
“We have not come to join the government because up to now there is no agreement which we have reached with the government. We have only signed a memorandum of understanding to begin negotiation process,” he said.
Yoal said their return to Juba was not an individual decision but a mission given by the leadership of the FDP-SSAF
Yoal was reacting to a 4 January statement bearing Changson’s name which read: “The Federal Democratic Party and South Sudan Armed Force leadership dissociates itself from the notion of sending any advance team to Juba before reaching any agreement with the government of the republic of South Sudan. The FDP forthwith disowns all those persons who are in the advance team and cease to enjoy any membership in FDP.” The statement continued: “whoever authorizes the advance team to go to Juba is also disowned because he did it without the approval of the leadership.”
Yoal said he and his colleagues were received at Juba airport by presidential adviser on security affairs Tut Gatluak, director general for internal security bureau Akol Koor Kuc, director general for external security bureau Thomas Duoth and his deputy Paul Nang Majok, as well as health minister Riek Gai Kok and the governors of Upper Nile and Unity states.
File photo: FDP-SSAF members in talks with a government delegation in Nairobi