By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The fragile peace in South Sudan is under severe threat as President Salva Kiir announces the sacking of the governor of northeastern Upper Nile, the state where clashes continue between government troops and the ethnic militia White Army, believed to be loyal to his rival and Vice President Riek Machar.
The dismissal of Upper Nile Governor James Odhok Oyay was announced in a decree read on state TV late on Wednesday.
Tensions between Kiir and Machar escalated after the White Army militia forced government troops to withdraw from the flashpoint town of Nasir, near the Ethiopian border.
In response, Kiir arrested and detained several officials from Machar’s party, SPLM-IO, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army.
The sacked Upper Nile governor is also a member of Machar’s SPLM-IO. The opposition claims the arrest of its officials violates the existing peace deal.
The deteriorating relations have fuelled fears that the world’s newest nation could again descend into conflict, despite the 2018 peace deal that ended a civil war which killed hundreds of thousands.
Kiir’s administration has replaced the sacked governor with James Koang Chuol, a lieutenant general from Nasir.
Oyay’s removal has angered the SPLM-IO opposition camp, which has already partially withdrawn from the seven-year-old peace agreement in protest against the arrest of its members.
The sacking of Oyay “constitutes another unilateral action and a severe violation of the Revitalised Peace Agreement,” Machar’s spokesperson Puok Both Baluang said in a statement, referring to the 2018 pact.
Information Minister Michael Makuei, in turn, accused Machar’s party of jeopardising the peace deal and told Reuters that Oyay was “sacked in order to bring peace” to Upper Nile state.
The government has accused the SPLM-IO of links with the White Army, which mostly comprises armed ethnic Nuer youths who fought alongside Machar’s forces in the 2013–2018 war against predominantly ethnic Dinka troops loyal to Kiir. The party denies the allegations.
Fighting around Nasir has already displaced 50,000 people since late February, according to the United Nations, which warned this week that the country was “on the brink of relapse into civil war.”
