Gen. Gatwech accuses unnamed ‘enemies’ of forging alleged position paper

JUBA – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition led by former opposition chief of staff Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual has distanced itself from a position paper posted online, accusing unnamed people it said are enemies of the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction which broke away from the SPLM-IO led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny in August.

In the alleged position paper dated October 4, Gen. Gatwech purportedly said the implementation of the “security arrangements are central to political stability in our nascent republic” and that the SPLM-IO faction he leads “aspires to restore the dignity of the South Sudanese people by addressing the problem of political violence in our land.”

He said the revitalized peace agreement “was the hope and still the hope for a lasting peace in South Sudan” but then said the “the non-implementation of many of its important previsions, especially the provision of security arrangements, which is the backbone of the agreement, has led many to lose hope in the R-ARCSS and that’s the main reason behind the Kitgwang Declaration.”

However, in a statement on Monday, Mabior Garang De Mabior, a senior member of the Kitgwang faction political wing, disputed the authenticity of the paper, saying the documents circulating on Facebook and even widely shared by supporters of General Simon Gatwech Dual was fake and was forged by political enemies of the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction.

General Gatwech also allegedly called for Amnesty from President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s government.

“The Defunct National Committee for Information and Public Relations would like to caution the public not to pay attention to a fake document forged by the enemies of Kit Gwang,” he said, adding that the “the real position paper … will be made public tomorrow.”

He said the group’s “negotiating position is categorically, Security Arrangements. We are not calling for the renegotiation of the Agreement.”