General Gatwech Dual ‘angry’ at Machar, to reorganize IO leadership – security sources  

JUBA – Senior opposition security sources close to the SPLA-IO Chief of General Staff General Simon Gatwech Dual are telling Sudans Post that the top opposition commander is angry at South Sudan’s First Vice President and the group’s leader Dr. Riek Machar Teny over his most recent decision to replace General Johnson Olony Thabo as the SPLM-IO nominee for Upper Nile state governor and for not visiting him over the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.

In recent months, General Gatwech and other senior opposition commanders including the group’s police chief General John Jock, have grown critical of Machar blaming him for accepting return to Juba without the implementation of the provisions of the revitalized peace agreement and accusing Machar and the opposition-nominated defense minister Angelina Teny of watching while SPLA-IO forces were being attacked and killed by government forces.

This unfolding kind of relationship has reached another level last week when Machar decided to replace General Olony as the group’s nominee for Upper Nile state after eight-month standoff with President Salva Kiir who has insisted that Olony must be replaced because he poses a danger to the security of Upper Nile state as he accuses him of being a “warmonger.”

A week earlier, Machar called Olony and asked him to either return to Juba or be replaced with another nominee of his choice. General Johnson Olony and close associates from the defunct opposition Fashoda Federal state responded with rejection of Machar’s call and threatened in a statement that they won’t accept to be “used as scapegoat for this failure” in the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.

Speaking to Sudans Post on Monday evening, two senior opposition commanders in Khartoum said a meeting was being prepared for the end of the week or next week and will discuss the entire implementation of the revitalized peace agreement as well as to discuss if the political SPLM-IO leadership would need to be changed.

“There will be a meeting in the next few days either by the end of the week or next week in the begging or in the end and the main agenda will be the developments regarding the implementation the so called ‘revitalized peace agreement’ and the political leadership itself because there is a lack of will to implement the deal from the regime of Salva [Kiir] on one side, and leadership gap within the SPLM/SPLA-IO on the other,” the senior opposition official who requested not to be named said from the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

A senior opposition security source said General Simon Gatwech was furious against Machar because he hasn’t yet responded to their call for him to visit the forces saying the absence of Machar has created mistrust among the SPLM-IO political and military leadership.

“It was in September that General Gatwech called Dr. Riek to ask him to come to Juba. Dr. Riek said he was not being allowed to move, but when IGAD released him after we wrote to the IGAD, Dr. Riek didn’t come, so how long are we going to stay without organizing ourselves?” the security source said.

“General Gatwech is angry about this really,” he added.