Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 22:11:48 +0200
<http://www.tesfanews.net/six-spla-brigadier-generals-defects-to-join-rebel-
forces/> Six SPLA Brigadier Generals Defects to Join Rebel Forces
Posted on 28 April 2014.
Explosions and sustained heavy gunfire were heard in South Sudan's Western
Bahr el Ghazal state capital of Wau on Saturday (26) after senior government
military officers and troops have defected and fled into the bush to join
rebel forces led by Riek Machar.
Nuer generals began to defect in Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states in
response to alleged ethnic-based killings in the capital. However, several
Nuer generals and troops have remained loyal to president Kiir and are in
charge of military units in the South Sudanese army (SPLA), which is
fighting against rebels.
By <http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article50801> Sudan Tribune,
SENIOR army officers who mutinied on Saturday in Western Bahr el Ghazal
state capital Wau said their defection to opposition forces led by former
vice-president, Riek Machar came after they were targeted based on their
ethnicity in the aftermath of an alleged massacre in which 192 unarmed Nuer
trainee soldiers were killed in Mapel, east of Wau town.
In an exclusive interview with Sudan Tribune on Sunday, Brigadier General
Gatwech Gach Makuach, one of the generals who defected, said government
forces had attacked residents in Wau following the Mapel incident, prompting
them to defend themselves, after which they marched out of town.
"We thought we were part of the army and the system fighting against the
rebels. Some of the Nuer senior officers taken from Wau recently came back
wounded as they fought for the government in Unity state, Upper Nile and
Jonglei states. Yet our colleagues from the Dinka tribe wanted to kill us
too," Makuach told Sudan Tribune by phone from near Wau town.
"We didn't want to cause harm to the civil population or destruction to
their properties, so we had to march out," he added.
He also condemned what he said was the massacre of unarmed Nuer soldiers at
a Mapel training camp, describing the incident as premeditated mass murder
based on ethnicity.
"The government lied that it was an internal mutiny within the army in
Mapel. This is not true," said the senior officer.
"Brig General Baak (a Dinka) separated the Dinka trainees and took them away
from the training centre, and the next day hundreds of armed Dinka came back
and attacked the training centre, shooting at everybody, including women and
children who were families of the trainees," he further explained.
According to Makuach, the incident occurred as the attackers beat to death
an unarmed Nuer soldier found in the market near the training centre after
which the "assailants quickly moved to the camp shouting at Nuer [tribesmen]
and started shooting indiscriminately".
"They only exchanged gunfire with [a] few bodyguards of Brig Gen. James
Ochan Puot, who himself was on leave in Wau town. The few bodyguards were
overwhelmed as the rest of the trainees had no guns," he added.
Makuach said he and other five brigadier generals, including Puot, the
officer previously in charge of the training centre, had defected with a
sizeable number of troops and are in the proximity of Wau town.
Fighting erupted in South Sudan in mid-December last year when president
Salva Kiir, who hails from the Dinka tribe, allegedly ordered the
disarmament of soldiers from the Nuer ethnic group, sparking clashes among
the presidential guards in the capital, Juba.
Kiir accused Machar, a Nuer, of allegedly plotting a military coup to remove
him from power.
Machar dismissed the claims, saying the president fabricated the matter in
order to get rid of his political opponents amid heated debate at the time
over the future direction of the ruling party (SPLM).
Kiir's newly recruited, armed loyalists, believed to have come from his home
region of Bahr el Ghazal, were largely blamed for allegedly carrying out
targeted killings of Nuer civilians in Juba in the days following the
clashes.
Nuer generals began to defect in Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states in
response to alleged ethnic-based killings in the capital. However, several
Nuer generals and troops have remained loyal to president Kiir and are in
charge of military units in the South Sudanese army (SPLA), which is
fighting against rebels.
<http://www.tesfanews.net/six-spla-brigadier-generals-defects-to-join-rebel-
forces/spla-army-defection/> Nuer generals began to defect in Jonglei, Unity
and Upper Nile states in response to alleged ethnic-based killings in the
capital.
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