RJMEC calls for urgent release of opposition detainees
JUBA – The South Sudan’s Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) has called for the release of detained political and military officials from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO).
In a quarterly report released Monday on the status of the implementation of the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), the peace-monitoring bodies under the interim chairmanship of Maj. Gen. (rtd) George Aggrey Owinow urged the Kiir administration to honour the outcome of the 43rd Extraordinary Summit of IGAD Heads of State.
“Pursuant to the Communiqué of the 43rd Extraordinary Summit of IGAD Heads of State and Government on the Situation in the Republic of South Sudan, immediately release the SPLM/A-IO leaders and military officials currently in detention, unless credible evidence warrants legal proceedings conducted transparently and in accordance with due process,” the report partly read.
According to Human Rights Watch, about 17 political and military personnel remain incarcerated in the capital, Juba, without trial. The detainees include Dr. Riek Machar, the First Vice President and SPLM-IO Chairman, Gabriel Duop Lam, the Lt. Gen. Deputy Chief of Staff of the Unified Army Structures and Acting Chief of Staff for SPLA-IO.
Puot Kang Chol, the Petroleum Minister, Mam Pal Dhuor, a member of SPLA-IO, and Camilo Gatmach, a friend of Puot Kang Chol, remain in detention. Kang’s bodyguards Nelson Malou, Kun Tut, and Peter Magong are among those detained without charges.
Other detainees include Kang’s family members, Koang Puk, Biluny Puk, and Buay Thiechuong, with five unidentified bodyguards of Duop. The government equivocally insists they were “in conflict with the law”.
However, the peace monitors described the arbitrary arrest and detention of opposition figures as one of the factors which have significantly held back the progress of the agreement implementation.
“During the quarter, implementation of the Agreement ground to a halt, as the Parties engaged in repeated violations and the political and security environment markedly worsened,” says RJMEC.
“In scenes not seen since the signing of the R-ARCSS over six years ago, armed conflict and violence erupted across the country, several high-ranking opposition members and Parliamentarians were detained and imprisoned, and the First Vice President Dr Riek Machar Teny was put under house arrest,” the report reiterates.
The 2025 quarterly report also noted that some ministerial positions at the state and national levels and those within the Presidency were reshuffled, and portfolios within some agreement institutions and mechanisms were abandoned.
Since political tensions began in early March, several members of the SPLM-IO have fled the country for safety. Among the high-profile officials is Mr Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament and the party’s Deputy Chairman.
sudanspost.com