SPLA-In Opposition chief negotiator Taban Deng Gai and South Sudanese government spokesperson Michael Makuei Lueth on Wednesday blamed the international community for not paying to transport rebel forces to Juba.
The rebels were supposed to send 1370 troops to Juba last Monday to secure the city for the arrival of rebel leader Riek Machar. However, the troops failed to do so amid uncertainty as to where the troops would come from. Some soldiers were meant to come from Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal but now they are said to be coming from Upper Nile instead.
Speaking to the press after the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) meeting in Juba, Taban said the Troika of US, UK, and Norway, the EU, and other donors are not willing to provide transportation to some SPLA-IO forces.
Taban said the donors are only willing to pay to transport soldiers with light weapons such as AK-47, but have declined to move soldiers carrying light machine guns like PKM.
“The public should know if these forces did not arrive, this is not our choice, it is the problem from the donors that they cannot transport these forces with their weapons,” Taban told reporters. “If you can transport people, you don’t transport their arms, practically it means that these forces are stranded and have nobody to transport them to Juba.”
The high ranking rebel official denied that the SPLA-IO is refusing to send its forces to Juba. He said the forces are ready to come to Juba and are waiting in a place south of Malakal in Upper Nile state.
Taban urged the international community not only to pay for transportation of his side’s soldiers to Juba, but also to provide services for those soldiers once they arrive.
For his part, Makuei said without the arrival of the SPLA-IO soldiers in Juba the peace process cannot move forward.
“Our partners didn’t transport these people [to Juba] and such Dr Riek Machar didn’t come and so it is not possible for us to establish the government of national unity up to this moment,” Makuei said.
Makuei said the government will transport the rebel soldiers by river from their current location to Malakal, but it is up to the donors to move them by air from Malakal to Juba.
International donors have spent more than two billion dollars over the last two years of war on humanitarian relief for civilians affected by the conflict and to pay for hotel bills and other costs for rebel and government negotiators who attended lengthy peace talks in Ethiopia.