Sep 20, 2021 — The military leaders of Kitgwang Declaration are ready to join president Kiir government and ask politicians led by Hon. Henry Odwar and others to find their own means to fight their war to dispose President Salva Kiir from power if they wish to claim his seat through the barrels of guns.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj, Lt. Gen. Johnson Olony announced that the military leaders have suspended Kitgwang leadership conference that was to be organized in Magenis until further notice and instead they called on president Salva Kiir to send his delegation to Magenis to negotiate their re-integration into the army.
“We told our chairman yesterday that this conference should be suspended and we follow the route of peace implementation. We don’t want to engage Malong, Thomas, or anybody else. These individuals are fighting for the seat of the president. We only need the full implementation of the security arrangements and we form a national army and all of us will become SPLA (SSPDF). We don’t want to look back again.” Gen. Johnson Olony said.
“If Malong wanted to continue to fight Salva, let him go to Bahr El Ghazal, there is IO there. If Thomas Cirillo wanted to fight with Kiir, let him go to Central Equatoria, the same applied to Henry Odwar, let him go to Imatong and fight the president. But we don’t want to see any renewed fighting in the Shilluk Kingdom. We will agree with the government because we don’t want to keep on creating insecurity every now and then.” Olony continued.
According to Gen. Olony their intention was misunderstood when they announced their defection from Dr. Machar camp saying their intention was never to take South Sudan back to war but to urge the president to implement the security arrangement in letter and spirit.
“When we announced the Kit Gwang Declaration the intention was not against anyone, but we declared ourselves so that people could understand us and tell the public that the implementation of the peace agreement is not going on well. So we wanted to ask President Kiir and his First Vice President Riek Machar why the peace is not being implemented? They left us here in the bush for so long and we have kids that are not going to school. Machar has gone to Juba, assumed his position and he has not been in communication with us.” Olony said.
“We intended to draw their attention to this and the full implementation of the peace agreement so that if something is missing, we can sit once again and allow us (military leaders) to join the government.” He further emphasized.
According to Gen. Olony, the leaders of Kitgwang have decided to engage President Kiir through the Sudanese government; however, their decision did not settle well with Machar’s forces who started attacking them.
“Shortly after our declaration, forces of Riek Machar launched several attacks on our position and we are still maintaining our defensive position because we are standing with the peace.” Gen. Olony said.
“So, we want our South Sudanese citizens to know that we are in support of peace. We don’t want to see our country go back to war again. We need our people who are in the camps to return to their homes and get ready for the elections.” He continued.
Despite that the situation is calmed in and around Magenis, the Kitgwang group do not want to renegotiate the peace agreement with president Kiir. Instead they just want to be re-integrated with assurances that their forces will get into the SSPDF ranks and files.
“We don’t want to engage in a new peace negotiation but we need to revisit the revitalized peace agreement. After our declaration, President Kiir sent us a delegation from Juba headed by Abbot and Jockino to Khartoum and we told them clearly that we are for peace. So we are still waiting for the government so that we can sit and discuss how to go about the implementation of the peace agreement through the supervision of Sudan.” Gen. Olony said.
Gen. Olony believes that their demand will not be an issue given that the government is in support of any effort for peace in the country.
“The government is in support of any efforts for peace, of course. They say we should continue negotiating. But since then, we have not seen anybody from Juba as well. We want President Kiir to send us a delegation to come to us in Magenis or Khartoum and we finalize everything. We don’t want to go to Addis Ababa or Rome for peace negotiations. We are military commanders so it makes it easy to reach an agreement.” He further emphasized.
The Kitgwangs are hoping for president Kiir to listen to their concerns and agree to implement the security arrangements for the country to have the long awaited unified force.
“If they are fully committed to the implementation of the security arrangement we will have a united force and we will all go back under the umbrella of the SPLA (SSPDF), including Riek, Gatwech Dual, and all of us in South Sudan, we are SPLA. We don’t have any major disagreement with President Kiir. It is Riek that is fighting for the position of Kiir but the rest of us are military officials.” Gen. Olony continued.
