June 8th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – Kenyan former Prime Minister and peace envoy, Raila Odinga, today, Friday, met the South Sudan’s former First Vice-President and SPLM-IO leader Riek Machar at the later’s house where he has been detained since late 2016 and discuss South Sudan’s peace process, sources from Pretoria attached to the former First Vice-President told the Nyamilepedia on Friday.
The two leaders, according to one source, discussed the results of the previous round of the High-Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) and the planned face-to-face meeting between Machar himself and the country’s incumbent President, Salva Kiir Mayardiit.
“Comrade Chairman met with the former Kenyan Prime Minister, H.E Raila Odinga and discussed many issues regarding the South Sudan peace process and the planned Machar-Kiir face-to-face meeting which is due for late this month,” one source attached to Machar told the Nyamilepedia on the condition of anonymity.
Another source in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa told the Nyamilepedia that Raila Odinga and Machar discussed the possible return of the South Sudan’s rebel leader to the Ethiopian capital where South Sudan’s peace process have been going on since January 2013.
“Machar was told by Odinga that he would participate personally in the upcoming round of talks due in mid July in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa,” the source said.
The Kenyan foreign minister traveled on Wednesday to South Africa to meet the rebel leader, Riek Machar and the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in an efforts he personally spearheaded to try to bring together South Sudan’s President and the rebel leader.
Last month, Odinga met the South Sudanese President where he reportedly told Kiir that Machar have to return to the country for a genuine and a meaningful peace to come to South Sudan.
Machar has been under house arrest in South Africa after a 2015 peace agreement signed by him and the South Sudanese leader collapsed in July 2016. The regional community reportedly were responsible for his arrest in hope to prevent him from going back to South Sudan in order to stop the war.
With the IGAD and the regional community’s initiative to release him, his detention didn’t work.
