Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon

A tentative step forward has been made with a political reunification deal signed in Arusha on 21 January between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his sacked Deputy Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon whose forces have been at war since December 2013 and Deng Alor Kuol for the former detainees (AC Vol 55 No 9 The third eleven enters the contest)...

Riek Machar's SPLA-in-Opposition is largely comprised of Nuer members of the armed forces thanks to the SPLA's absorption of pro-Khartoum militias from 2006...

The Khartoum government is yet to react to the circulation of what purport to be detailed minutes of a meeting on 31 August of top security and military officers in which they discuss arming Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's rebels in South Sudan supporting armed jihadists in Africa and the Middle East and destroying crops in South Kordofan to starve out rebel supporters...

If Khartoum's support for Riek Machar's forces is further confirmed that will complicate the tortuous peace negotiations with the Juba government and invite censure from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development which is mediating in the civil war (AC Vol 55 No 18 A deadline for the deadline)...

Unsurprisingly allies of Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon whose episodic alliances with the Khartoum regime have dented his credibility in South Sudan have dismissed the documents as a fake produced by President Salva Kiir Mayardit's government...

The balance of opinion in IGAD has tilted towards President Salva Kiir Mayardit's government and is more sceptical about Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's position...

Salva and those of the presidents of Djibouti Kenya and Uganda the Prime Minister of Somalia and the First Vice-President of Sudan but the space for Riek Machar remains blank...

Nuba particularly resent SPLA-IO leader Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon because his previous split with the SPLM/A in 1991 cut them off from the rest of the SPLA for over a decade almost leading to their defeat...

Blocking food deliveriesIn a bid to starve the rebels into submission the government's Sudan People's Liberation Army has blocked food deliveries to areas held by Commander Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's SPLA in Opposition and its allied militias...

In Brussels the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration Simon Henshaw told AC that the US was concerned that there hadn't been any movement from the two leaders – President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar – who were supposed to come to an agreement and work on a ceasefire...

The two men who bear greatest responsibility for the conflict President Salva Kiir Mayardit and former Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon held only proximity talks...

The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development now says its force is to protect the Monitoring and Verification Teams not the oilfields or other critical infrastructure which Riek Machar had warned could trigger a return to war...

' Over 1 000 kilometres to the south-west Salva's rival Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon was hosting a delegation of senior African and European officials at his redoubt near Nasir in Upper Nile State and site of his split from Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) leader John Garang de Mabior in 1991 (AC Vol 46 No 21 Gunmen or soldiers)...

Ethiopia's Mesfin who is the lead mediator in the military and political talks between the South Sudan government and Riek Machar's SPLM in Opposition said the configuration of forces was still under discussion...

The eleven who had all publicly agreed with Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's claims about Salva's increasingly dictatorial style were detained at the outbreak of fighting in Juba on 15 December (AC Vol 55 No 1 The political stakes on YouTube)...