Salva Kiir’s government has asked for an apology for remarks made by Mahboub Maalim, the executive secretary of IGAD, the East African regional organization mediating peace talks with South Sudan’s armed opposition led by Riek Machar.
South Sudan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin says the government has launched an investigation of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) over remarks by the senior IGAD official.
The remarks appeared in an article by AFP news agency headlined ‘South Sudan rivals are warmongers, mediators say.’ The article, dated 10 June, quoted Maalim as saying that the conflict was the responsibility of the two warring parties led by Kiir and Machar, and calling them ‘stupid’ for believing they could win the conflict militarily.
“Nobody else is to blame other than the parties themselves,” Maalim said. “If we want to apportion blame it’s theirs, I think sometimes they thought they could win on the ground militarily, something which is very stupid.”
Soon after these remarks were made the East African organization threatened ‘punitive’ sanctions against the warring factions led by Machar and Kiir, without specifying whether the sanctions would involve travel bans, asset freezes or other measures.
In response to the comments by the IGAD official, South Sudan’s government has prepared a formal complaint to the chair of IGAD, the Ethiopian prime minister, according to the foreign minister.
“Our president has sent an envoy, the Minister in the Office of the President, with a letter to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn, with regard to the unfortunate statement which was said by the executive secretary of IGAD in the press,” Marial said.
Speaking to journalists in his office on Tuesday, Marial said that this morning he also met with the IGAD Executive Secretary himself. “I asked him about the issue and he has expressed his position on what he said to the press in Addis Ababa,” said the foreign minister.
Asked whether the IGAD official had apologized or not, the South Sudanese foreign minister replied, “The apologies are not for us, but for President Kiir. But we are waiting for the response of the letter from the Ethiopian Prime Minister who also the IGAD chair.”
“We do not have any other things to add, we just listened to him – Mahboub – because he has to tell us exactly what has happened whether he said it or not,” Marial said.
Marial said he did not have further details about the contents of the letter sent to the Ethiopian prime minister. “We will wait until the envoy of the president comes back and we should see the reaction of the prime minister,” he said.
Photo: Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin, 14 June 2014
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