Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon

The Forum organised by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is supposed to resurrect the peace pact that President Salva Kiir Mayardit and rebel leader Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon signed in 2015 but which collapsed spectacularly last July when Riek was forced out of the country amid heavy bloodshed (AC Vol 57 No 17 Pax Salvatica)...

While the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) of Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon has suffered major losses in the country's north-east since July 2016 in Equatoria the rebels have taken swathes of territory and are containing government forces to key towns and roadways...

In a country beset by misinformation and disinformation the anniversary was further overshadowed by (inaccurate) rumours that the SPLA had been officially renamed the South Sudan Liberation Army the very name used by rebel-in-chief and ex-Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon for his Sudan-allied militia during the liberation war...

BTP also advised and lobbied on behalf of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit against his opponent Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon in 2016...

Around 100 000 people are on the verge of starvation (significantly most in Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's home area of Leer near the currently non-operational Unity State oilfields) one million children are suffering acute malnutrition half the population need food aid before the harvest and over three million have been displaced by fighting half of them abroad...

Africa Confidential now understands that Schulman and Amalo have also been involved in attempts to sell aircraft to South Sudan's former Vice-President Riek Machar now exiled in South Africa...

The existing strategy is to isolate exiled Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition leader Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon who is marooned in South Africa after Congo-Kinshasa Sudan and Ethiopia all refused to let him return to cause trouble along the borders and we hear after US pressure...

Raising further concern was a statement in early December by a South Sudanese rebel group claiming affiliation to the Sudan People's Liberation Army-in-Opposition led by Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon that it had captured two ex-M23 fighters in a raid on an SPLA-IO convoy near the Congolese border in Ituri Province...

Meanwhile showing the link between corruption and conflict the Sentry project released on 12 September is a no-holds-barred forensic audit of some of the assets of General Salva former Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon and a general from each of their factions of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)...

After disappearing for nearly five weeks First Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon resurfaced last week with UN peacekeepers in Congo-Kinshasa then re-emerged in Khartoum in intensive care...