Top Machar official says Arusha accords is ‘dead’

JUBA – A senior member of South Sudan’s main armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny has said the Arusha Reunification Accords signed in 2015 by SPLM factions is dead and that the main armed opposition group has no interest in pursuing its implementation.

The agreement was signed in Arusha, Tanzania in January 2015 by various SPLM factions such as the SPLM-IG led by President Salva Kiir, SPLM-IO led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny, and the SPLM former detainees then led by former SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum Okiech.

The agreement was meant to reunite the SPLM factions whose disagreements in December 2013 led to the deadly conflict which has mostly been fought along ethnic lines, but lack of will from various political leaders to return to the part’s unity has paralyzed the agreement with some declaring that they won’t return to the party until when Kiir is no more.

Speaking to Sudans Post yesterday, Dut Majokdit, a senior SPLM-IO member and a close ally to First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar said the main armed opposition group is not in Juba to implement the Arusha agreement and is no longer interested in its implementation because it has been paralyzed.

“First of all we are not in Juba for the implementation of the Arusha reunification agreement because this is a dead agreement and it has been paralyzed by the enemies of peace and therefore the SPLM-IO is not interested in pursuing the implementation of this agreement because it won’t work,” he said in Juba.

“The agreement was also meant to be implemented with the 2015 peace agreement which was also destroyed by the enemies of peace when they attempted to assassinate the First Vice President, the Chairman and Commander in Chief of the SPLM/SPLA (IO) in July 2016,” he added.