Kiir’s office says citizens will boycott warmongering political leaders

JUBA – A senior South Sudan government official who is close to President Salva Kiir Mayardit is saying that the country’s citizens are tired of war and will definitely boycott few opposition leaders who he said are still mongering for war despite the peace deal that has been in place for two years.

Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the minister for presidential affairs and close ally of President Salva Kiir said the ongoing implementation of the revitalized peace agreement signed by President Salva Kiir Mayardit will undo the suffering of the people of South Sudan and none of the opposition leaders still fighting the government will successfully mobilize the people of South Sudan for continuation of the conflict.

“The people of South Sudan are telling their leadership that ‘look we are tired of war’ and nobody wants war anymore,'” Marial who was the country’s foreign minister when the country entered the deadly conflict in December 2013 told the Doha-based Al Jazeera channel.

“If there are some few political leaders who think that they will go and mobilize some of our citizens so that they go and fight because they want to be leaders of this country I don’t think they will get the audience from the public,” he added.

Marial made the comments on Friday after South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, marked ten years of independence. The country has been in an internal bloody conflict since 2013 and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the conflict that has largely been fought along ethnic lines.

A revitalized version of a 2015 peace agreement was signed by President Salva Kiir and his now first deputy Dr. Riek Machar Teny who led the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/SPLA-IO), a faction that broke away from the ruling group following disagreement over leadership issues in 2013.