South Sudan: Machar Aims to 'Liberate Nation From Dictatorship'

Former South Sudan Vice President Riek Machar says his newly created SPLM/SPLA resistance movement will work to move the young country from the path toward dictatorship that President Salva Kiir has set it on, onto one leading to democracy and equality.

"South Sudan needs to be liberated from the current dictatorship being established by Salva Kiir," Machar told VOA in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location.

The new movement he has set up would "dedicate our time to the liberation of South Sudan so that we have a democratic, peaceful, prosperous natIon where elections would not be rigged, where people would not be intimidated, where there would be no one group trying to control others," he said.

Riek Machar on his new resistance movement

Machar last year accused Kiir of having "dictatorial tendencies" after the vice president and the rest of the presidential cabinet were fired in July.

The former vice president has been in hiding since mid-December when South Sudan plunged into violence that Kiir said was triggered by a failed coup led by Machar.

Machar has denied having anything to do with a coup bid. He and others in the ruling SPLM party have said they were pressing for democratic reform in the SPLM and for economic benefits to be shared more equitably among South Sudanese but were shut out by Kiir.

The SPLM is currently the only viable party in South Sudan. While many other parties exist, most have tiny membership numbers.

Machar said creating a multi-party system would be a key step towards installing a democratic system of government in South Sudan.

"I want the international community and the people of the region and our own country to understand that for this country to be viable it must be committed to democratic multipartism, it must be a country where good governance prevails, a country where there is tolerance," Machar said.

"It must be a country where everyone has a share of the cake, where one ethnic group does not try to impose its will on others," Machar said.