JUBA – South Sudan’s First Vice President and leader of the main armed opposition group Dr. Riek Machar Teny has decided to sit back and will not conduct media interviews for the time being, a senior opposition official has said.
This comes after social media users were outraged by last week’s interview in which President Salva Kiir berated Machar despite being the main partner in the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement describing him at some point as ‘unpredictable’ person.
Social media users suggested that the Kenyan journalist who interviewed President Kiir should also give the same airtime credit to Machar to be able to respond to some of the accusations made against him by Kiir including the unfounded killing of 10,000 people in 1991.
Speaking to Sudans Post on Sunday, Acting Press Secretary in the Office of the First Vice President and SPLM-IO Director of Information and Public Relations Puok Both Baluang said “Dr. Machar has postponed conducting interviews for the time being.”
He dismissed as “untrue” a widely believed social media speculation that Machar was still under detention and as such could not speak to the media. He said he will in some time to come back to engaging the media.