South Sudan: Bishop Carlassare Directs Daily Prayers for Peace

“As we witness rising tensions in South Sudan, I invite our parishes to pray everyday for peace,” Bishop Christian Carlassare writes in a Wednesday, March 26 note that ACI Africa obtained. The Local Ordinary of Bentiu Catholic Diocese in South Sudan, who also serves as the Apostolic Administrator of the country’s Catholic Diocese of Rumbek directs that “the prayer for peace in South Sudan” be said “at the end of the Mass” and that there be, in Parishes, “a weekly initiative for peace - either Eucharistic adoration or the Way of the Cross.”

Hours after Bishop Carlassare’s directive on daily prayers for peace in South Sudan, reports emerged of the arrest of the Dr. Machar. “South Sudanese security forces placed First Vice President and opposition leader Dr. Riek Machar under house arrest in Juba on Wednesday night amid escalating political tensions, raising fears of a return to civil war,” Radio Tamazuj, an independent daily news service covering current affairs in Sudan and South Sudan, has reported on March 26.

According to a March 26 Reuters report, Dr. Machar’s party, the South Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO), is “trying to locate him after the defence minister and chief of national security ‘forcefully entered’ his residence and delivered an arrest warrant.”

The Reuters report cites a statement from Dr. Machar's SPLM-IO party condemning "a blatant violation of the Constitution and the Revitalized Peace Agreement," the latter being the the September 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) that ended a 2013-2018 civil war between armed forces loyal to Dr. Machar and those aligned to South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir. “The house arrest of Dr. Riek Machar is widely seen as jeopardizing the peace agreement,” Radio Tamazuj has reported. The news service quotes Reath Muoch Tang, the Acting Chairperson of the SPLM-IO’s Committee on Foreign Relations, sharing details of Dr. Machar’s house arrest. 

“The security forces came and chased everyone away from the compound, and the minister of defence left, but many security vehicles remained in the compound,” Mr. Muoch Tang is quoted as telling Radio Tamazuj, adding, “Technically, Dr. Machar is under house arrest, but the security officials initially tried to take him away.”

In a statement ACI Africa obtained, the official spokesperson of SPLM-IO, Pal Mai Deng, confirms “with grave concern” that Dr. Machar “has been placed under house arrest.”

“This is an unfortunate move, and this violates the revitalized peace agreement,” Mr. Mai Deng says. “For the sake of South Sudan's future nationhood and nation building, the physical security of Dr. Riek Machar is paramount,” the SPLM-IO spokesperson, who serves as South Sudan’s Minister of Water and Irrigation under the power-sharing agreement says, and adds, “The region and the international community have the obligation to ensure his safety.”

According to Reuters, foreign governments have cautioned against an renewed civil war in South Sudan “following weeks of escalating tensions that originated in fighting between government troops and a militia that has historically been close to Machar's forces.”

Earlier, in a media briefing on Monday, March 24, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for South Sudan and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Nicholas Haysom, described the security situation in South Sudan as “dire”. For him, efforts to realize lasting peace in the East-Central African nation can only succeed if the country’s President and his First Vice President, Dr. Machar, have the well to engage and especially to “put the interests of their people ahead of their own.”

Meanwhile, in his directive on daily prayers for peace in South Sudan, the Catholic Bishop of Bentiu is considering “the possibility to have a more participated public prayer for peace.”

ACI Africa