Rebels allied to Riek Machar’s Sudan’s People’s Liberation Army-In Opposition (SPLA-IO) have warned that anyone who is with the armed opposition and dares to commit or is suspected of committing an act of betrayal against the SPLM/A-IO will be dealt with.

The new strategy, rebels claim, will allow the SPLA-IO and its intelligence branches to deal with any individual or group suspected of double-dealing.

“Anyone is free to defect or claim defection, but when we identified you, you will be swiftly dealt with,” a senior rebel officer said on Saturday in the SPLM/A-IO stronghold Pagak.

The warning was made in the wake of the killing of two Generals linked to a Juba sponsored rebel faction led by Dr. Lam Akol.

According to SPLA-IO intelligence, General Gabriel Gatwech Chan, who is also known as Tanginye, was killed in Amrah by the SPLA-IO under the overall command of Lt. Gen. Johnson Olony. The rebels also claim to have killed Tanginye’s deputy Yuanis Okiech.

Gen. Gatwech (Tanginye) was the Chief of Staff of Akol’s Juba-linked rebel movement, and the rebels said they killed him early this week after he refused to accept ‘options’ given to him by the SPLA-IO. The rebel military command also said that Okiech was killed along with his bodyguards in mountainous location after his communications and movements were intercepted by the SPLA-IO intelligence division.

The armed opposition says Gen. Tanginye’s soldiers first attacked one of its strategic locations in Upper Nile State in a move seen as a plan to clear the way for Juba to bring in a combined force from South Sudan’s government, Sudanese JEM rebel group and the SPLA-North.

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South Sudanese foreign minister has contested remarks attributed to Sudanese foreign minister saying that the disputed Abyei area is part of the Sudanese territory until a referendum is conducted.

“In which sense when someone says Abyei is a Sudanese territory”, asked, Deng Alor Kuol, foreign affairs minister in South Sudan? “These are issues the two presidents, President Salva and President Bashir have agreed to address, so that these misinterpretations are corrected”.

During his recent visit to Sudan, Minister Kuol, himself a native of Abyei told a newspaper in Khartoum that Abyei is a South Sudanese territory. His statement triggered a response from the Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour who pointed to Abyei Protocol in the 2005 peace agreement saying that the contested Abyei is part of the Sudanese territory until a referendum is run to determine its fate.

To organise the referendum, Khartoum and Juba had first to draw Abyei’s borders, the thorny issue was determined through the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July 2009. The second difference is about who is eligible to participate in the crucial vote. The two countries are still struggling to reach an agreement over this point.

In an interview, the South Sudanese top diplomat described his recent visit to Sudan as ‘successful’ saying he had three hours of frank discussions with Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir where they discussed a wide range of issues, including the need to resume discussions on Abyei so that the outstanding issues could be resolved amicably.

“President Salva Kiir was supposed to go but he delegated me because there were other commitments requiring his attention at home,” he said to explain the reason of his visit to Khartoum.

Kiir gave a special message to his brother al-Bashir, where he reiterated his commitment to the full implementation of the Cooperation Agreement and to resume discussions on all outstanding post CPA (comprehensive peace agreement) and the post secession issues.

“These issues include the issue of Abyei,” the minister stressed.

“So (al-Bashir) agreed to invite President Salva Kiir and they are working on it. I briefed President Salva upon my return and he is ready. If he receives the letter of invitation today, he will go the next day,” he said.

Sudanese officials used to say Juba didn’t implement the agreement of 27 September 2012 except the oil transit protocol because they need oil income, the only source of revenue for the landlocked country.

On the other hand they periodically repeat claims that Juba harbours and supports Sudanese rebel groups in the Two Areas and Darfur region. The distrust between the two capitals hampers progress in the discussions on the outstanding issues even if Juba has recently shown some flexibility to admit the presence of Sudanese armed groups in its territory and made public pledge to expel them.

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South Sudan president has issued an order removing a more than two decade youth leader, sparking questions on motives behind the move.

President Kiir, in his capacity as the chairman of the governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in government, removed Akol Paul Kordit from the post which he held over two decades as the head of the youth wing in the party.

He replaced him, according to another order, with Emmanuel Lubari Joseph as a provisional Chairperson of the SPLM Youth League.

The order Entitled as the SPLM Chairmanship Decree No.2 2017, did not say whether the new youth leader would assume the youth membership at the political bureau, the highest executive organ, according to the hierarchical structure of the party or he would wait until a new national convention is convened and fresh elections are held.

It is also unclear whether the former chairperson would continue to remain the youth at the political bureau.

Observers believe the new person would assume all the rights including taking the membership at the political bureau as it was the basis on which Kordit uses to participate at the decision making discussions in the party leadership as the representative of the youth.

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A top South Sudanese rebel commander has been killed after squabbles erupted over the allegiance and the objective of the armed struggle.

Gabriel Tanginye was killed during a clash in which more than 20 others lost lives. The exact circumstances under which the attack took place remain unclear, with military sources and relatives providing conflicting accounts surrounding the incident.

Military spokespersons representing two rebel leaders, Lam Akol and Riek Machar, confirmed his death in separate statements without elaborating the circumstances under the attack was carried out and which sides initiated it.

Tanginye was one of the senior rebel commanders who switched side from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition under the overall command and leadership of the former vice president, Riek Machar before the signing of the 2015 peace agreement.

He remained one of the holdout rebel commanders and did not join Machar when the new conflict resumed.

He opted to remain at South Sudan-Sudanese border as independent commander until Lam Akol resigned from the unity government in which he served as the minister of agriculture and formed his own rebel movement.

Sources say Akol later recruited Tanginye as one of his commanders. Others refute the reports of having joined Akol, saying Tanginye was only in the area under the control of Akol’s commander Yohanis Okech, whose headquarters came under attack on Wednesday by a group allied to Machar, resulting in the clash in which several lives, including Tanginye and his son were lost.

“As far I know, I don’t think Tanginye was one of the commanders under Lam Akol. He was only in the area preparing to go to Fangak area, where he wanted to carry out his own recruitment.

His mission to the area took sometimes due to logistics and so he decided to stay with Yohanis Okech, who is the commander of the forces under Lam Akol. He was there because of personal relations between the two men. They are friends”, a source with the direct knowledge of the situation said.

The source explained Tanginye became the victim of an internal conflict between Okech and Johnson Olony, who is the commander, allied to Riek Machar forces in the area.

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