South Sudan’s CTSAMVM is not responsible for political detainees: government

October 30, 2018 (JUBA) - The S. Sudan government consider that the release of political detainees is not the responsibility of the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMVM) according to a report released on Tuesday.

On 24 October 2018, the CTSAMVM discussed the issue of political detainees in its third Technical Committee (CTC) meeting in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

The release of the "Prisoners of War (PoWs) and detainees" is provided in the second chapter on the permanent ceasefire and transitional security arrangements of the revitalized peace agreement, (article 2.1.6).

Nonetheless, the South Sudanese government representative in the meeting stated that the CTC should differentiate between political detainees and PoWs.

"He noted that the political detainees are not the responsibility of CTSAMVM and releasing them may be perceived as a compromise to their judiciary," stated the report.
The article 2.1.6 provides "Prisoners of War (PoWs) and detainees shall be released immediately under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)".

On Thursday 25 October 2018, the South Sudanese authorities released five political detainees without the supervision of the Red Cross.

Also, Juba still imprisons a number of political detainees including James Gatdet Dak, the spokesperson of the SPLM/A-IO leader.

The senior representative for the SPLM/A-IO "expressed a concern for political detainees and demanded their release," says the CTC in its report.

For his part, the representative for the FDs stated that all detainees should be released indiscriminately as a show of goodwill.

Also, the senior representative for the SSOA rejected the restrictive interpretation of the article 2.1.6 and stated this issue is related to security. Furthermore, he said willing to provide the names of those abducted by SPLM/A-IO.

(ST)