Deputy leader of military arrested, endangering peace agreement, says South Sudan’s vice president’s spokesperson

A 2018 peace agreement that put an end to a civil war is under peril after South Sudanese soldiers detained a top military official who was close to First Vice President Riek Machar and stationed troops outside Machar’s home, according to his spokesperson.

Although a five-year battle between Machar and President Salva Kiir that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives was officially halted in 2018 by an agreement, violence between rival communities still breaks out often in South Sudan.

While security personnel encircled Machar’s home on Tuesday, Machar’s spokesperson, Pal Mai Deng, stated in a statement late on Tuesday that General Paul Nang, the commander of South Sudan’s defense forces, had arrested one of his deputies, Lieutenant General Gabriel Doup Lam.

“This action cripples the Joint Defence Board, a crucial institution of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan that is in charge of commanding and controlling all forces, and therefore contradicts the Agreement itself. The statement continued, “This action jeopardizes the entire agreement.”

“We are also gravely concerned about the heavy deployment of SSPDF (South Sudan army troops) around the residence of… Machar,” he stated in his letter. “These actions erode confidence and trust among the parties.”

Deng gave no explanation for Lam’s detention.

The South Sudan army spokeswoman, Major General Lul Ruai Koang, said late Tuesday that he would not comment on the arrest or the troops around Machar’s home.

Requests for comment were not immediately answered by Michael Makuei, the minister of information.

After Kiir ousted Machar in December 2013, a civil war broke out, resulting in the estimated deaths of 400,000 people, the forced relocation of over 2.5 million people, and the shortage of food for about half of the country’s 11 million inhabitants.

A key source of income for the poor country, oil output, also declined.

Tanks, assault helicopters, and anti-aircraft weapons were used in a five-day battle between Kiir and Machar’s loyalists in the capital in July 2016. Both leaders denied initiating the violence and called for calm as it went on.