Addis Ababa — South Sudanese rebels have protested against the recent acquisition of more weapons from China by the South Sudanese government, describing it as a preparation for more violence to further destroy the country.
The armed opposition faction of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM) under the leadership of the former vice-president, Riek Machar, was reacting to the recent documented revelation in which the South Sudanese government had received a shipment of huge quantity of missiles, grenade launchers, machine guns and ammunition worth $38 million from the Asian nation.
South Sudanese defence minister Kuol Manyang Juuk has also confirmed to Bloomberg news agency the purchase of the weapons, which the China North Industries Group Corp., the nation's biggest arms manufacturer known as NORINCO, shipped through Port Mombassa of Kenya last month.
"My role is to defend the nation," Juuk said. "That means I have to arm my army. The army has to be equipped," he said.
The rebels, however, accused the government of preparing for more war at the expense of the nation's welfare.
"Well, our leadership sees this unfortunate development as a preparation for more violence by the regime," Machar's spokesperson, James Gatdet Dak, told Sudan Tribune when contacted on Tuesday to comment on how the leadership of the opposition group received the news.
"The regime has unfortunately prioritized hiring foreign mercenaries and acquiring weaponry to defend dictatorship at the expense of welfare of the citizens."
"Instead of trying to correct their failures and deliver the badly needed basic services to the suffering South Sudanese people, the leadership in Juba is bent to further destroy the country," he added.
Dak questioned the rationale behind the spending of hundreds of millions of US dollars more to acquire weapons and hiring and sustaining foreign army and mercenaries on an alleged deal which he said costs 3 million dollars a day "simply to fight against democratic political opponents while hundreds of citizens are dying every day because of hunger and curable diseases."
"This is the reason why our leadership has always expressed the need to suspend the oil operations in South Sudan; or alternatively establish a special account through a trusted third party which should be inaccessible to the regime. This can deny president Salva Kiir's government from using the oil revenues to finance the war," he added
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