South Sudanese troops have deployed around the house of Vice President Riek Machar and arrested officials from his SPLA-IO party, marking one of the most serious threats yet to the peace deal that Machar’s group signed with President Salva Kiir in 2018. The arrests follow reports of clashes in northeastern Upper Nile state between the national army and the ethnic Nuer militia known as the White Army, which was allied to Marchar during the 2013-2018 civil war. Machar’s spokesperson said they do not know why their officials have been detained, but the information minister accused them of collaborating with the White Army. The International Crisis Groupâs senior analyst on South Sudan told Reuters that a delicate balance of power among political elites is now “at risk of collapsing,” while the UN and regional bodies warned of “widespread violence” in Upper Nile. Tensions have been mounting since the governmentâs decision last year to postpone long-overdue elections, a delay that critics called a failure to implement the 2018 agreementâwhich has itself been blamed for fuelling instability. Commanders and politicians compete for power in a transitional government based in the capital, Juba, by fighting local wars in the peripheries.
From The New Humanitarian, March 6
See our last report on the struggle in Upper Nile state.
Map: Perry-Castañeda Library
Machar arrest pushes South Sudan to the brink
South Sudan’s Vice President and former rebel leader Riek Machar has been arrested at his residence in Juba, a move his party, the SPLM-IO, claims has effectively collapsed the 2018 peace deal it signed with President Salva Kiir. The UN mission in South Sudan warned that the arrest signals the country is on the brink “of relapsing into widespread conflict” that could impact the broader region. Kiir accuses Machar of collaborating with the White Army, a militia group that overran an army base (seemingly in response to a troop build-up) earlier this month in the town of Nasir in Upper Nile state. Machar’s party and independent experts have denied the vice president was involved, yet many of the partyâs officials have been arrested, and government forces have attacked SPLM-IO bases outside of Juba, while barrel bombing civilians in Upper Nile with the support of the Ugandan army. Kiir has long used the peace deal, which ostensibly ended a five-year civil war, to strengthen his own position and weaken Machar by courting defections from his party and restricting his movements. (TNH)