Machar’s SPLM-IO picks green as group’s political colour

JUBA/KHARTOUM – South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLM-IO, has chosen the green as the group’s political colour, a member of the SPLM-IO’s National Committee for Information and Public Relations has told Sudans Post.

SPLM-IO is an armed political group established as consequence of the December 2013 Juba crisis which triggered the post-independence South Sudan’s most deadly civil war that has killed thousands and displaced millions.

Since its establishment in 2014, the group has never had colour. It has however maintained the SPLM party logo as over 90% of its membership split from the SPLM party following the 2013 anti-Nuer pogroms in Juba.

Speaking to Sudans Post this morning, Kalany Mamuon, the social media director at the SPLM-IO National Committee for Information and Public Relations said the First Vice-President Dr. Riek Machar Teny who is also the SPLM-IO chairman made the decision officially yesterday after a group of SPLM-IO students’ league members visited him at his residence in Juba.

“The decision was official made yesterday by the chairman and commander-in-chief, H.E the First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny.  We in Khartoum had proposed the green colour and it wasn’t officially our colour until when the chairman gave it a go-ahead yesterday,” Mamoun said.

Asked about what would the green colour mean for the people of South Sudan, the SPLM-IO official said it would mean “The Mother Nature of our Land South Sudan.”