Opposition governor of Raja call for the unconditional release of Machar

April 3rd 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s opposition governor of the rebel’s Raja Federal State, Maj. Gen. Salah Mumigi  Mamiri Koum, calls for the unconditional release of the main opposition (SPLM-IO) leader Riek Machar Teny from the detention in South Africa.

In a press statement extended to the Nyamilepedia, the spokesman of the governor’s office, Saied Bandas, said a cabinet meeting chaired by the governor discussed the recent IGAD decision to release the SPLM-IO Chairman Riek Machar and the governor, as resolved in the cabinet meeting, has called on the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to unconditionally release the Chairman and commander in Chief of the SPLM/SPLA-IO Riek Machar Teny and called on the regional body to nullify plans to relocate him to any other country as to this will dismiss IGAD’s promise to release him.

“The Governor said the house arrest must be lifted without any preconditions and he [Machar] can not be relocated from South Africa to another country for another house arrest. We in the Raja Federal State government call upon the IGAD, the UN, the AU, the Troika (United States, Norway and the United Kingdom) to release Dr. Riek Machar Teny so that he, like any other leader, should  take part in the third round of the High Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) in Addis Ababa due for late this month,” the statement said.

The statement added that the governor directed his cabinet ministers to prepare a quarter plan, which will be discussed at the next meeting on May 15 adding that the governor set up a fund to support and rebuild the state.

However, the statement did mentioned the where the meeting took place.

Last month, the IGAD, the regional bloc mediating peace between several opposition group and the government, decided to lift Machar’s detention in South Africa but conditioned that the body will decide where Machar would go saying he shall not go to any country bordering South Sudan.