South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his first deputy, Dr. Riek Machar Teny, have failed their people by refusing to follow the 2018 peace agreement, according to a US senator.
Patrick Leahy, a US Senator, blasted Kiir and Machar for prolonging “unpopular dictatorial leadership” for three years without the approval of the people of South Sudan.
“It is no secret that President Kiir and his Deputy Machar have made the circumstances for conducting free and fair elections impossible, for all of the reasons previously stated,” Leahy said in a statement seen by NCMP on Sunday.
According to Leahy, the country’s authorities have done little to prepare for elections, preferring to keep power by default.
“By inciting civil unrest and violence, as well as intimidating and detaining their opponents, they have rendered the peace deal useless,” Leahy stated.
He said that Kiir and Machar’s administration had given the nation “dictatorship, corruption, bloodshed, and suffering.”
“The sad fact is that, after winning independence from Sudan, the South Sudanese people remain slaves of the same cruel and unscrupulous warlords who caused so much ethnic strife, carnage, and suffering during the civil war and who have not been held responsible.”
“They just rebuilt themselves as political leaders, with international legitimacy, while continuing to operate like the warlords they have always been.”
According to a US senator, the two leaders showed little interest in carrying out the 2018 peace agreement, which intends to end more than six years of civil conflict.
He went on to say that the leaders were unconcerned about the well-being of their people. He said they were just interested in retaining power, evading punishment, and enriching themselves.
“The ethnic and political violence, displacements, and destruction of communities and food stockpiles against South Sudanese population in various regions of the nation, including by troops loyal to them, must end.”
“Irregular arrests, sexual assaults, and rape, forced disappearances, and assassinations of religious, civil society and political leaders must end, and justice must be served to the victims.”
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