South Sudan President Salva Kiir has entirely blamed Dr.Riek Machar for the violence that erupted in the country last year on December 15.
“We never expected to this violence to happen but Machar’s greed for power brought us to this situation” Kiir said.
Kiir who was appearing on Talk to Aljazeera revealed that the conflict started on December 15th and on December 16th he announced that he preferred the conflict to be solved through peaceful means. He added that it’s the rebels and not the government that violated the ceasefire deal.
He revealed that the conflict started in the ruling SPLM Party where Machar and his group tried to stage a military coup to unseat his government and when they were defeated they resorted to arms.
“This conflict was created by Riek Machar and his group who were hungry for power and instead of following the constitutional process they just wanted to jump into power overnight” Kiira said.
He added that after Machar was defeated he immediately begun mobilizing his tribesmen whom he named the White Army and tried to topple his government.
“What Machar wants is for me to resign and go so that he takes over government. This is his condition in the ongoing negotiations in Addis Ababa” he continued.
Kiir also dismissed reports that the conflict is being fought on ethnic basis. “If you go to Dinkaland you will find Machar’s Neur tribe residing there, they left their homes because their own people were threatening them” he continued.
Kiir also revealed that he had accepted the position of Prime Minister in the peace deal though it wasn’t provided for in the constitution.
“I have already accepted that we can have a Prime Minister but what we need to discuss are the powers the prime minister will hold” he stressed.
Kiir continued that South Sudan was supposed to hold elections in 2015 but because of the current crisis, they have been unable to review the current constitution in order to write a permanent one.
On the ongoing peace talks in Addis Ababa Kiir said that the talks had stalled because Riek Machar has been violating the ceasefire agreements. “If you want to know when south Sudan will get peace ask Riek Machar who doesn’t want peace in South Sudan. For me I am for peace” Kiir stressed.
Asked whether there was a possibility he would share power with Machar, he saw no possibility how he would share power with Machar.
“How do I share power with Machar? Sharing power between tribes or between SPLM it’self? South Sudan is a one party state and therefore we cannot share power” he noted.
He noted that South Sudan was losing a lot of oil money to corrupt government officials.
“After 50 years of fighting now there are people in South Sudan who have sharpened their appetite to grab something very quickly by swindling oil revenues” Kiir stressed.
“Part of the reasons why South Sudan descended into this crisis is because I was hurting down Machar and his group who have corruption cases to answer. As a result they wanted to stage a coup so that they would get into power to avoid being held accountable for their corruption cases.
