Machar dismisses Odwar from SPLM-IO over support for Kitgwang faction

JUBA — South Sudan’s main armed opposition leader and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny has said that his deputy Henry Odwar who resigned as minister of mining and subsequently declared support for the Kitgwang faction has lost membership of the SPLM-IO.

This week, Henry Odwar resigned in a brief letter to President Salva Kiir Mayardit and then declared his support for the break away faction of SPLM-IO Kitgwang led by former SPLM-IO chief of staff General Simon Gatwech Dual saying PLM-IO has ceased to be an opposition group under Machar and has instead surrendered to the regime in Juba.

In a communique following a meeting of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition’s Political Bureau, Machar said Odwar and other senior opposition figures who joined the Kitgwang faction have automatically lost their member of the SPLM-IO.

The communique said the Political Bureau “Accepted the resignation of Hon. Henry D. Odwar as Minister of Mining for health reasons [and] acknowledged the decision of those members including Mr. Henry D. Odwar, Mr. Goi Jooyul, Mr. Manasseh Zindo and others who supported the Kit Gwang Declaration and as such they have lost their membership per the SPLM (IO) Constitution.”

It further said that the meeting resolved to encourage “the continuation of peaceful contacts with the Kit Gwang group.”