Machar lauds South Sudan abstention from condemning Russia at UN over Ukraine invasion

JUBA – South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLM-IO, led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny, has welcomed the decision by South Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations to abstain from voting for a resolution condemning Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Last week, Russia launched air, sea and land invasion of Ukraine, a European democracy of around 44 million people, claiming that the eastern European country poses threat to its very existence and that it has committed genocide against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country.

The government and the West strongly dismiss this as propaganda as Russia tries to justify its invasion of a sovereign nation.

The invasion has led to isolation of Russia at the global stage as more than half of the world’s nations voted in a resolution condemning its invasion of Ukraine, but South Sudan and few other African counties abstained from voting in the resolution.

In a statement, Dut Majokdit, a senior member of the SPLM-IO and close ally to First Vice President Machar, said he welcomes the decision by the R-TGONU to abstain from voting in the anti-Russia resolution.

“I applaud the R-TGONU for abstaining from voting at the UN General Assembly in New York against Russia for the said invasion of Ukraine as reported by the media,” Majokdit said in the statement extended to Sudans Post.

“We have to build our military capacity and we can’t do that without a unified military force to defend our territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Majokdit added.

He said “should one of the Eastern countries decided to come to South Sudan territories, we should then fight for self-defense instead of wasting our time on the Russia and Ukraine war in Eastern Europe.”