South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar said he could return to the turbulent country as early as next month, even if he has to enter the way he fled — on foot.
He has begun speaking out again after a long silence, during which he trekked 40 days through the bush into neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) as South Sudan’s capital erupted in renewed fighting.
In an interview on Thursday night in South Africa, Machar said his country’s peace deal had “collapsed” and a new political process is needed to revive it.
However, he did not commit to rejoining the peace deal on the same terms.
According to the agreement signed last year that sought to end a bloody two-year civil war, he had been vice president in a fragile national unity government under his rival, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir.
Machar said he has the right to be president and that he has enough forces to “liberate” the capital, Juba.
He called for his supporters to “wage a popular armed resistance against the authoritarian and racist regime” in his first public comments in exile last month.
On Thursday, he backed away from that call to arms, saying his statement was “resisting the war being forced on us.”
Machar fled South Sudan in July when fighting erupted among security forces and he last spoke with Kiir on July 15, less than a week after the gunfire began.
The government quickly replaced him as vice president. Fighting has continued in several parts of South Sudan since then.
In one of his first interviews in exile, Machar warned of coming atrocities by the South Sudanese government, including possible genocide.
On Wednesday, Kiir announced that tribalism had become a growing factor in the conflict and that the army supporting him was mostly his fellow Dinka.
“What is that going to do?” asked Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
MORE ATTACKS?
He said he is afraid South Sudan will see more attacks like the one by South Sudanese soldiers in July on the Terrain compound popular with foreigners, where Americans were singled out and aid workers and others were raped, forced to watch a local journalist be shot dead and subjected to mock executions.
“If South Sudan’s government can do that to foreigners from powerful countries, what does the world think it will do to its own people?” Machar asked.
Machar also described how he fled the country in July in a 804km march through the bush into DR Congo.
There, he said, the UN peacekeeping force extracted him, even as South Sudanese helicopter gunships continued to target him beyond their border.
“I went through an ordeal,” Machar said, describing an epic, zig-zagging hike in which he and supporters were reduced to eating wild fruit and snails.
Five of his soldiers died, he said, likely from poisoning after eating raw cassava.
Now Machar is in a hit-and-miss pursuit of world leaders for talks on how to revive South Sudan’s peace deal.
After a stay in Sudan, where he failed to meet Sudanese President Omar Bashir, he hopes to meet South African President Jacob Zuma.
During his time in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, Machar said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni requested a meeting to discuss a political process.
Museveni asked if Machar would participate in a dialogue.
“I said I would,” he added.
South Sudan’s government has given contradictory statements over whether it would allow Machar back or negotiate with him.
On Thursday, South Sudanese government spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said he would not be allowed in South Sudan “as a political leader,” saying he has lost support among some in the opposition.
EXILE REJECTED
Analysts said some diplomats have tried to get Machar to accept exile, but he rejected the idea.
“Why would I?” Machar asked, saying he had a responsibility to return home.
Machar said he would support a UN-imposed arms embargo on South Sudan, saying that “it is the government that is buying arms.”
He would not say whether his forces are getting arms from outside.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in