SPLA-IO spokesman Gen. Gatjiath flees Juba after attempts to ‘torture and kill me’  

JUBA – The spokesman of South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLA-IO, General William Gatjiath Deng, who has been in Juba for more than three weeks, has on Tuesday morning fled the South Sudanese capital and returned to Khartoum claiming that close allies of First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny “attempted to torture and kill me” in Juba.

Speaking to Sudans Post moments ago from the SPLA-IO headquarters in Magenis, General Gatjiath said senior opposition officers who are in Juba for peace implementation conspired to detain, torture and kill him because of their claims that he and General Simon Gatwech Dual, the SPLA-IO military chief, attempted a coup against Machar.

“When I arrived in Juba, I met Dr. Riek after several days. I have been in Juba for at least 25 days, until Tuesday when I fled yesterday. They wanted to kill me because I was definitely in detention. Duop Lam told Dr. Riek to have me killed because he sees me as a mastermind of what they call a coup led by Chief [of Staff] General Gatwech Dual,” Gatjiath told Sudans Post from Magenis just now.

The senior opposition commander traveled to Juba in early June following disagreements between General Simon Gatwech Dual and Machar over General Gatwech’s decision to suspend SPLA-IO director of intelligence Dhiling Keah Chuol over suspicions that he was building up a parallel military administration without the knowledge of General Gatwech.

General Gatjiath who has been communicating the changes made by General Gatwech has mostly been seen as the architect of the disagreements between the SPLM/SPLA (IO) Chairman and Commander in Chief Machar and his General Chief of Staff General Simon Gatwech Dual.

“General Duop Lam wanted to have me gone anyway because he thinks that I stood with General Simon Gatwech Dual during the quarrel that was caused by General Dhiling Keah who is the architect of all the problems that are going on in the SPLM/SPLA (IO) today,” General Gatjiath said.

“I came to brief the chief of staff on the mission to Juba and what was discussed between me and Dr. Riek Machar in Juba and after we complete all those things, we will then see what we can do next because there are a lot of things that I have understood when I went to Juba. There is no peace, everyone is scrambling on how he can get a car even those whose children are still in refugee camps,” he added.