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South Sudan’s Kiir promotes aide, causes command protest

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has promoted an aide to a high military rank, causing mixed reactions and protest in the army command structures.

Kiir, in a note to the army Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Santino Deng Wol, promoted James Deng Wal Achien to Major General.

Achien currently serves as the Executive Director in the office of the South Sudanese leader.

Kiir later appeared next to the aide who was clad in military attire bearing his new rank, attracting him congratulatory messages from family members, relatives, friends as well as work colleagues.

It remains unclear how the South Sudanese leader decided to promote an aide, whose military background is being questioned.

Observers say Kiir’s close allies could have hatched a plan to have Achien promoted to pave way for the president’s son, Thiik Salva Kiir, who is deputy executive director in the president’s office.

However, while several army generals at the headquarters view it as an act undermining conventional practice, others have defended the president’s actions, saying it was his prerogative.

A South Sudanese army general told Sudan Tribune on Sunday that Kiir treats the army like a rebel movement operating without conventional practices on which institutional decisions are based.

“What has been happening since 2005 when Salva Kiir took the mantle of leadership is not only shocking and frustrating service men and women but the manner in which he makes his decisions these days are embarrassing and clearly demoralizing those who are still in service hoping things will someday improve”, said the military general, who preferred anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

He added, “I think the president still lives in this era because the way he does the things these days is exactly the way things were done back in the bush days of the liberation struggle”.

The general said appointments and deployments are now being politicised, citing the ways in which appointments they are made without involving relevant departments and institutional leadership.

“This has now politicized the deployment in the divisions and here at the general headquarters. Military assignments are now lobbied. I have never experienced this before, never in the history of the army that one will have to ask for a deployment to specific place. The command decides and deployment is rotated. Those eligible for deployment do not have to know,” stressed the general.

He added, “They are only informed. But today, people must know where they will be deployed and if they do not like they have to lobby where they would like to be deployed. This kills institutional spirit and undermine spirit of nationalism”.

Source: Sudan Tribune

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Sudanese Prime Minister, African leaders discuss regional conflicts

Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok who also chairs the East African bloc of the IGAD discussed with several African leaders ways to settle the disputes and bring peace in the region, according to a statement released on Monday.

Hamdok, last week, spoke by telephone with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh, South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

Hamdok’s office further said that Hamdok discussed the security situation in the region also with the U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman.

The Sudanese prime minister proposed that the IGAD mediates negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. (TPLF). Addis Ababa declined the offer pointing to the border dispute and GERD issue with Sudan.

However, Hamdok said he would continue to mobilize regional efforts to settle the conflict.

“The Prime Minister conveyed the Sudanese position on the region’s issues in his capacity as the head of IGAD,” said the statement.

Also, he listened to the ideas of his interlocutors including serious and practical proposals to settle the challenges affecting the region and the continent through an African approach, pinpointed the statement.

On Friday, South Sudanese Information Minister Michael Makuei told reporters that President Kiir would mediate between the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebels.

“It is worth mentioning that the visit of President (Kiir) to Ethiopia came as a request from Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok who is now the Chair of IGAD who requested President Kiir to go to Ethiopia believing that he is the right person to mediate in the Ethiopian conflict,” Makuei stressed.

Source: Sudan Tribune

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South Sudan President to mediate Ethiopian conflict

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has agreed to mediate the ongoing conflict between the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebels, a senior official disclosed.

South Sudan’s Minister of Information Michael Makuei Lueth said preparations are underway for Kiir to mediate the conflict between the Ethiopian government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigray regional government.

“It is worth mentioning that the visit of president (Kiir) to Ethiopia came as a request from Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok who is now the chair of IGAD [Intergovernmental Authority on Development] who requested President Kiir to go to Ethiopia believing that he is the right person to mediate in the Ethiopian conflict,” he told reporters in the capital, Juba on Friday.

According to the minister, when Kiir traveled to Ethiopia last month, he was received by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who accepted Kiir’s mediation offer and also requested that the latter mediates Ethiopia’s border disputes with Sudan.

“You know very well that Ethiopia had been at war with itself. The Tigray has been fighting the government, this is what they called Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). This was the body that was fighting the government,” he stressed.

According to official estimates, more than 2 million people have been internally displaced in Ethiopia, while tens of thousands have fled into neighboring Sudan.

Most of the displaced people, aid agencies say, are now being sheltered in squalid camps in neighboring Sudan which shares a border with Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which ruled Ethiopia for 27 years until 2018, have been fighting since November last year.

Source: Sudan Tribune

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Arms Flown to Sudan from Ethiopia were Legal, Says Ministry

Sudan’s interior ministry said on Monday that more than 70 boxes of weapons seized by authorities had turned out to be part of a legal cargo imported by a licensed arms trader.

Sudanese authorities had confiscated the weapons after they arrived by air from neighboring Ethiopia on suspicion that were destined for use in “crimes against the state,” state news agency SUNA reported.

The boxes included night-vision goggles and arrived on an Ethiopian Airlines commercial flight on Saturday night, SUNA reported.

On Monday, Sudan’s interior ministry said the shipment, which included 290 rifles and belonged to a licensed trader, Wael Shams Eldin, had been checked and found to be legitimate.

Ethiopian Airlines said the weapons were hunting guns that were part of a verified shipment.

Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia have been running high due to a spillover of the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and Ethiopia’s construction of a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile.

The Tigray conflict has sent tens of thousands of refugees into eastern Sudan and triggered military skirmishes in an area of contested farmland along the border between the two countries.

Source: Voice of America

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UNITAMS head, officials discuss donor support to transition in Sudan

The head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan (UNITAMS) discussed with the Sudanese officials peace implementation and donors support to the transitional process.

Volker Perthes on Sunday discussed the implementation of the Juba peace agreement with the Head of the Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Council’s member Yasir al-Atta as he prepares to brief the Security Council on 14 September.

Speaking after his meeting with al-Burhan, he stated the meeting discussed the implementation of the security arrangements under the Juba Peace Agreement, the Empowerment Removal Committee and issued related to the development in Sudan.

Volcker added that the meeting also touched on the coordination between the Sudanese government and donor countries to support the transitional period.

In a report to the Security Council on the first of September, the UN Secretary-General said concerned by the security situation in Darfur and the rising tribal clashes.

“The transitional government and its peace partners should fully implement the National Plan for the Protection of Civilians, accelerate the implementation of the Juba Peace Agreement and establish the joint security keeping force in Darfur for the purpose of protecting civilians,” reads the report which is drafted by UNITAMS.

After his meeting with al-Atta, the Sovereign Council said the meeting dealt with the UNIATAMS’s support to the transitional government including the implementation of the peace agreement, security arrangements, human rights, protection of civilians.

Also, they discussed ways to mobilizing the international community, regional and international financial and economic institutions to achieve these goals.

In a separate development, Perthes participated Sunday at the Technical Consultative MeetingFor Operationalizing the Darfur Permanent Ceasefire Committee of the Juba

Agreement for Peace in Sudan.

In his speech before the meeting, he said UNITAMS has started preparatory meetings with the Sudanese military, the armed groups signatories, civil society, women’s protection networks to hear their concerns and needs and how they can contribute to the successful implementation of the permanent ceasefire.

Source: Sudan Tribune

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UNISFA concerned over relocation of UN troops, closure of sites

The United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) has expressed grave concern over the forced relocations of UN troops as well as closure of Kiir Adem and Abar team site in Aweil North and Aweil East counties of Northern Bahr el Ghazal state.

This comes after petitioners, on 11 August 2021, demanded the withdrawal of UNISFA troops gathered outside Sector 1 HQ in Gok Machar and forcibly entered the camp. This resulted in the destruction and looting of UN assets.

Similarly, on 13 August, petitioners with identical demands gathered outside War Abar (TS 12) team site but to prevent escalation of the situation, UNISFA was forced to relocate from TS 11 and TS 12 to Sector HQ in Gok Machar.

The community of Aweil North County also demanded complete withdrawal of UN peacekeepers in Abyei and the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM) team from Sector HQ in Gok Machar “within 48 hours”.

There were also several threats of violence against UNISFA and the JBVMM team, with communities accusing UNISFA of “biased patrolling” in the SBDZ and siding with Sudan “to annex part of their territory.”

In September 2012, Sudan and South Sudan agreed to the establishment of the SBDZ to be monitored by the JBVMM.

UNISFA said it has regularly engaged with the Government of South Sudan on this matter and requested for sensitization of local authorities and communities on JBVMM’s mandate and the rationale for its presence in the team sites.

This engagement, it noted, was either through face-to-face meetings with Government representatives on 28 July and on 11 August 2021, or through formal written communications on 23 July and 11, 15, 19 and 23 August 2021.

UNISFA was established in 2011 by the UN Security Council to monitor the Abyei border. It is mainly composed of Ethiopian forces of around 4,200 troops and 50 police personnel.

Source: Sudan Tribune