South Sudan’s First Vice President, Riek Machar Teny, currently being detained by government security agencies. |File Photo|.
The Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) expressed deep concern about the widely reported detention of the First Vice President, Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon, chairman of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army In-Opposition (SPLM/A-IO).
Machar was arrested by the government security organs allegedly on President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s orders, as claimed by Machar’s SPLM-IO group. The SPLM-IO said Machar’s arrest abrogates the revitalized peace agreement and called on the IGAD, AU, and the international community to push for Machar’s release from detention.
Several other members of the SPLM-IO were also arrested, including Machar’s wife, Angelina Jany Teny, the minister of interior.
This action amounts to a breach of the 2018 revitalized peace agreement and puts its ongoing implementation in serious jeopardy, RJMEC said.
RJMEC reminded South Sudan’s leaders of the solemn promises they made in the preamble of the revitalized peace agreement, in which they declared that they were determined to compensate the people of South Sudan by recommitting themselves to peace and constitutionalism and not to repeat mistakes of the past.
The gains of the past six-and-a-half years since the revitalized peace agreement was signed are too numerous simply to be discarded, the peace monitoring body added.
As such, RJMEC called on the parties to urgently de-escalate tensions and engage in constructive dialogue to address this crisis.
It further appealed to the parties to uphold their repeated pledges not to return the country to war.
