South Sudan president ‘not happy’ with Ethiopian-led IGAD

JUBA – South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit has said that he is not happy about the way the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) handled the crisis in South Sudan saying he had warned regional leaders that war can also broke out in any country of the region pointing to the Tigray Crisis.

Kiir who was speaking in an interview over the weekend with Kenyan journalist Jeff Koinange said he had warned regional leaders that crisis similar to what was happening in South Sudan could break out in the region and pointed to the ongoing crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as prove to what he said.

The South Sudanese president said the regional body under the Ethiopian leadership was not straightforward when it mediated the revitalized peace agreement and said he had called Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia to remind him of what he said over the Tigray crisis.

“Of course IGAD in the middle was not straightforward and I am not happy with the IGAD leaders the way they handle the situation in South Sudan. I was telling them in J1 where we met the other time that the situation I am in in South Sudan will not remain in South Sudan. Anyone of you will witness it tomorrow,” Kiir said when asked if he is not happy of the IGAD.

“When it happened in Ethiopia, I call Prime Minister Abiy what did I tell you and your people the other time? And the people who were very hard on me were the people who fought him in Ethiopia,” he added.

Kiir further expressed his strong discontent with Kenya’s president who he said had lobbied out opposition leaders who were being detained in Juba in the aftermath of the December 2013 outbreak of war saying for allegations of coup plotting.

“I am not happy with Kenya because after the coup of 2013, President Uhuru took the lead coming to take the leaders that I had apprehended [in the aftermath] of the coup. I told him ‘my brother, I cannot give you these people, they have to answer the charges, what role did they play in the coup,'” he said.

“But President Uhuru put himself in front of me that he will not allow them to talk a single political sentence and that he will keep them safe in his house until when you are convinced that they did not do anything and so will release them to you,” he added.

“I said ‘ok’. He sent his foreign minister, at that time, it was Amina Mohamed. She came in a special flight to collect the South Sudanese….leaders of the SPLM. I gave them to her and she repeated what was said by President Uhuru that these people will never appear in any political forum.

“In the evening, I opened the Kenyan TV, I saw President Uhuru receiving these people with a red carpet, those who were supposed to be detainees, and he received them in a red carpet. I said look at President Uhuru, tomorrow if I reject whatever he says, what will he tell me?

“That was their release, they were given travel documents. Those who wanted to go to Addis Ababa went, those who wanted to go to Europe, America, and they all went. I told him that what you did was not good and that was not what we agreed.”