South Sudanese ousted vice president, Dr Riek Machar, is increasingly becoming a pariah in the region with Ethiopia now declining to give him asylum, while Sudan is restricting his political activities. Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, in a media interview on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this week, said that Addis Ababa “does not need someone who is leading an armed struggle on its soil.”
https://youtu.be/v0h5rUOKNtc
By FRED OLUOCH, September 23 2016
South Sudanese ousted vice president, Dr Riek Machar, is increasingly becoming a pariah in the region with Ethiopia now declining to give him asylum, while Sudan is restricting his political activities.
Dr Machar — who is currently in Khartoum after fleeing Juba on July 11— has been denied asylum in Ethiopia where he had hoped to take refuge after completing treatment in the Sudanese capital.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, in a media interview on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this week, said that Addis Ababa “does not need someone who is leading an armed struggle on its soil.”
After the civil war broke out in Juba in December 2013, Ethiopia had hosted Dr Machar for most of the two-and-a-half years of the peace negotiations led by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad). But Addis Ababa is now bowing to pressure from Juba and the dynamics of the deployment of the UN-backed regional protection force.
Ethiopia was supposed to provide the bulk of the 4,000 troops and this was going to complicate their participation if the country gave asylum to Dr Machar.
In Juba, Dr Machar has since been replaced as the vice-president by his former lead negotiator, Taban Deng Gai.
No political activities
Dr Machar suffered another blow on Thursday when the Sudanese government stopped him from holding a press conference in Khartoum after holding a week-long SPLM-IO leadership meeting to discuss the ongoing political crisis in South Sudan.
Information Minister and government spokesperson, Ahmed Bilal Osman, announced that Dr Machar was in Khartoum for treatment only and is therefore not allowed to conduct political activities. Mr Bilal said that the Khartoum was waiting for the implementation of the security arrangements so that Dr Machar could return to South Sudan.
However, Dr Machar maintains that he can only return to Juba after the deployment of the regional protection force, which Juba appears to be reluctant to have more troops join the current 12,000 under the UN Mission in South Sudan.
According to the UN Security Council Resolution, the protection force is supposed to act as a buffer between President Salva Kiir’s soldiers and those of Dr Machar, and to secure humanitarian supply lines and key installations.
The government of South Sudan had protested to Sudan for hosting Dr Machar but Khartoum has maintained that they are hosting the ousted leader —who arrived in Khartoum in August from northeastern DR Congo — on “humanitarian” grounds.
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UN: South Sudan’s opposition figure ‘not dead politically’
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS
South Sudan’s exiled opposition figure Riek Machar “is not dead politically,” United Nations peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said on Friday as the country’s vice president accused Machar of attempting to overthrow President Salva Kiir in July.
Political rivalry between Kiir and Machar sparked a civil war in 2013 and, while the pair signed a shaky peace deal a year ago, fighting has continued and Machar fled the country after the eruption of violence in July. He is now in Khartoum.
Senior diplomats met to discuss South Sudan on Friday on the sidelines of the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders. The United States, China, Britain and Norway were among those at the meeting hosted by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson.
“Clearly (Machar) is, I think somebody said in the meeting just now, he is not dead politically by a long way, he’s there, I mean he’s out of the country, but he does represent a very important element of the South Sudanese community,” Ladsous told reporters.
Last month Kiir fired six ministers allied to Machar. A U.N. statement summarizing Friday’s meeting stressed the need for inclusivity in the South Sudanese political process.
The United States has said it does not believe that Machar, who was vice president until he fled, should return to his former position in the government given the continuing instability in the country.
During a visit by the U.N. Security Council to South Sudan earlier this month, diplomats said Kiir told them that Machar was welcome to return to the country if he wanted to run for office during elections in 2018.
After Machar fled the country, Kiir replaced him with Taban Deng Gai, who broke ranks with Machar said he was taking over the opposition SPLM-IO. A former minister of mining, Deng Gai was a chief negotiator on behalf of the SPLM-IO in the talks that led to last year’s peace deal.
Deng Gai addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Friday and said South Sudan was “steadily implementing” the peace deal. He accused Machar of attempting to overthrow Kiir during deadly violence in the capital Juba in July.
Ladsous said the South Sudanese government had not yet improved cooperation with the world body on the deployment of more peacekeepers.
In the wake of the fighting in July, the 15-member Security Council last month authorized a regional protection force as part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission and threatened to consider an arms embargo if Kiir’s government did not cooperate or stop hindering the movement of peacekeepers.
“There have been contacts at various levels with the government, with the authorities of South Sudan but this has not really translated into significant progress on the ground,” Ladsous told reporters.
Deng Gai told the General Assembly that the government needed to “engage more with the U.N. on the details.”
“This is in order to avoid derailing national healing and reconciliation. External intervention often affects negatively internal reconciliation,” he said.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Stuart Grudgings.)
About Post Author
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PaanLuel Wël is the founder and editor-in-chief of PaanLuel Wël Media Ltd, a news website that covers news, opinions, analysis, history, culture and literature of South Sudan and the world. Founded in July 2011 by PaanLuel Wël to create a platform for free expression and constructive dialogue, the website features articles from various contributors, including columnists, commentators, poets, authors, activists and academics. PaanLuel Wël believes that media can play a vital role in informing, educating and empowering the people to participate in nation-building and social transformation. He also believes that media can foster a culture of dialogue, tolerance and diversity among different communities and groups, and hopes to inspire and mentor the next generation of South Sudanese writers and journalists.
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