Machar dispatches high-level parliamentary delegation to Sudan

JUBA – South Sudan’s First Vice President and leader of the main armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition Dr. Riek Machar Teny has dispatched a high-level delegation of lawmakers to neighboring Sudan.

Puok Both Baluang, the Acting Press Secretary in the office of the First Vice President and SPLM-IO Director of Information and Public Relations said the delegation was sent to Sudan to brief South Sudanese refugees there about the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement and how to keep their unity.

“Their mission is to brief the SPLM/A (IO) members in Khartoum and the refugees camp across Sudan on the process of Implementation of the Revitalized Agreement and also to encourage them to unite themselves and to also address with them the speculations surrounding the implementation of the 2018 peace deal,” Baluang said this morning from Juba.

The senior opposition figure further said the SPLM-IO parliamentary delegation is led by the group’s head of SPLM-IO caucus in parliament Kuong Dak Wei and comprises eleven (11) members of the two house of the national legislature.

“The Delegation is led by the chair of the SPLM (IO) parliamentary caucus Dr. Kuong Dak Wei. Those who were dispatched to Khartoum are about 11 members from the both houses,” he said.

Machar and Kiir signed the revitalized peace agreement three years ago, but little has been done for its implementation as the security arrangements, which is the most important part of the entire agreement, remains not implemented with parties exchanging blames and also government conditioning the unification of forces with the lifting of the United Nations arms embargo.

The SPLM-IO parliamentary delegation is also expected to mobilize the SPLM-IO public in Khartoum against joining the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction led by former SPLA-IO military chief of staff General Simon Gatwech Dual who attempted in early August to remove Machar as the leader of the main armed opposition group.