Mabior Garang blasts SPLM-IO officials for ‘excessive propaganda’

JUBA – Former Chairperson of SPLM-IO National Committee for Information and Public Relations Mabior Garang De Mabior has lamented what he calls an excessive propaganda by members of the main armed opposition group in Juba who he says are accusing the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction led by General Simon Gatwech Dual of betrayal just for seeking peace with the government of President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

On Sunday, senior SPLM-IO member and close ally of First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny, Dut Majokdit, said the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction led by Gatwech was now dead as ‘predicted’ after the controversial opposition commander met in the Sudanese capital Khartoum a high-level delegation led by South Sudan Presidential Advisor on Security Affairs Tut Gatluak in which Gatwech and the government delegation discussed ways to restore peace in the country.

“The Kitgwang declaration is dead at arrival. We knew it in the beginning, this project was designed by the spoilers of peace ….They have ended in the pocket of the big man. It’s very cheap argument to negotiate yourselves to the SPLM while accusing Dr. Riek Machar and the SPLM-IO of surrendering to Juba and we are here in Juba for peace,” he said in a brief social media statement on Sunday.

In reaction, Mabior said “The propaganda of Dut Majongdit has become excessive over the years” and that he was “trying to prove by all means to the gatekeepers of the Luak that he is worthy of their trust. He is working double over time spreading confusion on Facebook. He now claims that they knew all along we would talk to the government – to him this is our betrayal.”

“If we want peace, we must talk to those who have the capacity to deliver peace. If we were simply looking for food we would have chosen the ‘IO-In Juba’ to talk to. Among the leadership of Kit Gwang we have Comrades who have rejected empty positions. These people in Juba have sold their last shred of dignity chasing the wind,” he added.

Garang who is now a member of the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction said “betrayal is when our people are still languishing in abject poverty three years after those who claim to represent them went to Juba and have since abandoned the reform agenda. It is because of their fake call for reform that our people are displaced today- over half our civil population.”

“If betrayal is calling for implementation of the provisions the ‘IO-In Juba’ have failed to implement – because they have a hand in the theft of funds for security arrangements, then I am proudly a ‘traitor’. I am sure they are now panicking because the Kit Gwang Declaration will expose that they have eaten this money while our people continue to suffer in subhuman conditions in the PoC, refugee camps and cantonment sites – three long years after the formation of the unity government,” he wrote.