Gatwech urges SPLM-IO members who boycotted Machar’s leadership to return ‘without conditions’ 

JUBA – South Sudan’s self-imposed main armed opposition leader General Simon Gatwech Dual has called on all members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) who defected as results of differences with First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny to return.

Gatwech made the announcement in a statement in which he removed Machar as the SPLM-IO leader and reiterated his intention to continue with the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement if other signatories to the deal, especially the government, are to recommit to its implementation.

In the statement, General Gatwech urged all SPLM-IO members who are in Juba and “assigned to all peace mechanisms to report to (Kitgwang) Magenis for further consultation effective from the date of the announcement.”

He also urged “all SPLM/A-(IO) cadres who absconded, decamped or might have formed parties of their own over frustrations, dissatisfactions and/or mismanagement of the movement to return and join the national movement without condition.”

The opposition chief further called “for the unity of all ethnic groups, political parties, youth groups, faith based groups, women groups to support the integrity of the nation of South Sudan.”