South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar has been charged with treason and crimes against humanity after deadly militia attack in Nasir. Image credit: Polity.org
(The Post News) – South Sudan’s fragile peace is given its toughest test in years after its Vice President Riek Machar was indicted for murder, treason, and crimes against humanity. The announcement was made by the Ministry of Justice on Thursday, linking Machar to a deadly March attack in Nasir, where more than 250 soldiers died.
Minister of Justice Joseph Geng Akech said the charges follow an attack by the White Army, a militia comprising primarily fighters from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group. The militia assaulted a military base in northeast South Sudan, killing top officers, including a general, and destroying military hardware. A peacekeeping helicopter was fired on during a rescue mission by the UN, and one of the pilots was killed.
“These indictments convey a clear message: those who commit atrocities against the people of South Sudan, our soldiers, and humanitarian actors will be brought to justice, no matter their position or political influence,” Akech told a news conference in Juba.
Kiir Moves Swiftly After Indictment
Hours after the charges were announced, President Salva Kiir signed a decree suspending Machar from his post as first vice president. State radio also reported the suspension of Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol, another high-ranking Machar ally indicted in the case.
Machar has been under house arrest since March, with troops and tanks sealing off the road to his residence in the capital. The suspension is the most dramatic collapse in the fragile power-sharing agreement that has kept South Sudan’s political enemies in the same government since 2020.
Machar’s camp strongly denied the charges. His spokesperson, Puok Both Baluang, dismissed the charges as a “political witch-hunt,” blaming the government for manipulating the courts to annihilate the 2018 peace deal that concluded South Sudan’s devastating civil war.
“The judiciary in South Sudan is not independent. These are politically managed courts to benefit President Kiir and his allies,” said Baluang in a statement.
International observers like the United Nations, African Union, and regional bloc IGAD have called for Machar’s release, warning that his detention risks reigniting the kind of ethnic violence that tore the country apart between 2013 and 2018.
Fragile Peace at Stake
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war two years later when Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, removed Machar, a Nuer, as vice president. The conflict killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced millions.
The 2018 peace agreement sought to reunite the two leaders by reappointing Machar as first vice president. But the agreement was never implemented, and intermittent fighting between Kiir’s Dinka-dominated military and Machar’s Nuer loyalists has persisted.
Experts say charging Machar would shatter the tenuous peace process. Civil society groups have appealed for restraint, urging the government to guarantee a transparent legal process.
Edmund Yakani, executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, said in a statement that he hoped the court hearing Machar’s case would be “a competent court of law, not a kangaroo court of law.”
Besides Machar, 20 others have been charged, including senior government officials and military officers. Seven are in custody, and 13 remain at large. The offences range from treason and conspiracy, terrorism, murder, and destruction of public property.
The arrests have escalated tensions in South Sudan’s coalition government. Suspending Machar and his allies from the government risks alienating Nuer communities whose backing was crucial in propping up the faltering power-sharing agreement, analysts say.
International Concern Mounts
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) warned that the March attack represented “a concerning step backwards that could undo years of painful progress.” Diplomats in Juba fear the indictment could push Machar’s loyalists back into combat, undoing the fragile progress since the 2018 deal.
With Machar suspended, tanks still blocking the roads to his home, and top allies now behind bars, the political marriage between Kiir and Machar appears closer than ever to collapse.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, stands perilously at the crossroads. Whether the charges lead to justice or reignite civil war will determine the fate of a nation that has known little peace since its founding in 2011.
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