{{ South Sudan\u2019s former vice-president Riek Machar, now a wanted rebel leader, has reiterated calls for the release of the country\u2019s four remaining political detainees, saying there was no reason for their continued stay in detention.}}<\/p>\n
This comes days after South Sudan government released seven of the 11 senior members of the ruling party (SPLM) detained in connection with an alleged coup attempt in the capital, Juba on 15 December. Authorities also slapped treason charges against four politicians, including Machar and two others still at large.<\/p>\n
Machar, whom President Salva Kiir accused of an attempted coup after the 15 December violence, instead accused the latter of falsely maligning him and his group in order to silence opposition in the SPLM ahead of its national convention and 2015 elections.<\/p>\n
Sources say the president had ordered the commander of the presidential guards units to disarm Nuer soldiers within the force, triggering the violence along tribal lines fitting the Dinka; Kiir\u2019s ethnic group against the Machar\u2019s Nuer community.<\/p>\n
The ex-vice president has, however, admitted he launched a rebellion \u201cforced on him\u201d to fight for free and fair democratic reforms allegedly denied by President Kiir, dismissing earlier claims of a coup attempt while accusing the president of instigating the violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was never a coup plot in the first place. And the 7 SPLM party leaders recently released and those that are still in detention in Juba have not taken part in the new rebellion I am leading,\u201d Machar told Sudan Tribune by phone from his secret location in Jonglei state.<\/p>\n
He said the detained leaders were his colleagues pushing for peaceful democratic reform within the party, but were not part of the armed struggle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t count them as part of the emerged armed rebellion,\u201d he said, while referring to the 11 initially detained leaders, adding that it was only him, former Unity state governor Taban Deng Gai, and ex-environment minister Alfred Lado Gore who were up in arms against government.<\/p>\n
The rebel leader, who currently leads the SPLM\/A In Opposition, said his group was ready for the peace talks scheduled for 7 February in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, but added that his group were yet to be contacted on its preparations.<\/p>\n
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