NAIROBI -South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar is under arrest and will be investigated, the country’s information minister said on Friday, raising the risk that the rift between Machar and President Salva Kiir could plunge the nation back into war.
Reports that Machar was placed under house arrest on Wednesday sparked international alarm, with the United Nations warning of a relapse into conflict and Kenya sending former Prime Minister Raila Odinga to South Sudan as a special envoy to help defuse tensions.
Machar’s party said that his detention had effectively voided a 2018 peace deal that ended a five-year civil war between Kiir’s Dinka forces and Nuer fighters loyal to Machar.
Their fragile power-sharing government has been slow to adopt key provisions of the peace pact, such as national elections and the unification of their two forces into one army.
Information Minister and government spokesperson Michael Makuei said in a statement that “Machar and his anti-peace colleagues of the SPLM/A-IO, who are under arrest will be investigated and brought to book accordingly.”
He accused Machar of seeking to launch a rebellion against the government “with the aim of disrupting peace so that elections are not held and South Sudan goes back to war.”
“The Peace Agreement has not collapsed and shall not under any circumstances,” he added.
There was no immediate response from Machar or his party to the allegations.
Machar’s party has previously denied government accusations that it backs the White Army, an ethnic militia largely comprising Nuer youths, which clashed with the army in the northeastern town of Nasir this month, triggering the latest crisis.
In response to the fighting, Kiir’s forces rounded up several of Machar’s senior allies, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army.
There have been clashes in recent days between forces loyal to the two men outside Juba and elsewhere.
DE-ESCALATION EFFORTS
Kenyan President William Ruto, who chairs the East African Community bloc, said he had spoken to Kiir about Machar’s detention and was sending a special envoy to help de-escalate the situation and report back.
Odinga’s spokesperson, Dennis Onyango, confirmed the former prime minister was travelling to Juba on Friday. Kenyan television footage showed him disembarking from a plane in Juba.
Machar’s spokesperson, Puok Both Baluang, earlier said Odinga’s appointment was a welcome gesture “as long as it is in line with de-escalation of the situation”.
Machar’s party issued a statement urging all involved parties to resume dialogue, and said it was committed to staying in the unity government.
The vice president’s detention took South Sudan “one step closer to the edge of collapse into civil war”, a spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.
Western countries, including the United States, Britain and Germany have closed embassies or cut back operations in South Sudan.
Ruto said he had consulted Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who sent troops this month to South Sudan at the government’s request to help secure the capital, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, which has hosted South Sudan peace talks in the past.
Political analysts say Kiir has been attempting to shore up his position by arresting some of Machar’s most senior allies, inviting in the Ugandan army and naming adviser Benjamin Bol Mel as second vice president.
“The pretence of Riek Machar’s control over the White Army is a useful distraction for Juba’s actual political crisis— collapsing oil revenues and Salva Kiir’s contentious plan to install Bol Mel as his successor,” said Justin Lynch, managing director of Conflict Insights Group.
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