Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07KHARTOUM470
2007-03-25 13:48:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Khartoum
Cable title:  

SUDAN: SPLA CHIEF OF STAFF SAYS HE MIGHT BE

Tags:  PREL PGOV MARR SU UG 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO4796
OO RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #0470/01 0841348
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 251348Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6603
INFO RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 000470 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/25/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR SU UG
SUBJECT: SUDAN: SPLA CHIEF OF STAFF SAYS HE MIGHT BE
REPLACED

REF: A. A) KHARTOUM 0461

B. B) KHARTOUM 468

Classified By: DCM ROBERTO POWERS for reason 1.4 (b) and (d)

-------
Summary
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 000470

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/25/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR SU UG
SUBJECT: SUDAN: SPLA CHIEF OF STAFF SAYS HE MIGHT BE
REPLACED

REF: A. A) KHARTOUM 0461

B. B) KHARTOUM 468

Classified By: DCM ROBERTO POWERS for reason 1.4 (b) and (d)

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (C) Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) Chief of Staff
Lt. Gen. Oyai Deng has had a history of disagreement with
Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) President Salva Kiir, and
admits that Kiir may replace him. Deng blames Kiir for
inaction on problems facing the SPLA, and denies rumors that
he is plotting a coup. He admits, however, that the SPLA
senior command is riven by suspicion and mistrust. End
Summary.

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The President and the Chief of Staff
--------------


2. (C) "Everybody knows that we have had problems," Deng
said of his relations with GOSS President Kiir. "We have
disagreed on many things. There have even been times when I
have had to do things he did not want, which is not good for
a military--but it was necessary." Deng spoke to PolOff
March 23, amidst speculation that Kiir may replace Deng as
chief of staff.


3. (C) Deng said he is ready for anything. He was appointed
chief of staff by the late Dr. John Garang, Deng recounted.
Garang made the appointment after "consultations", but "I
don't know if Salva agreed." After Kiir took power, the
GOSS president offered Deng an appointment as Minister of
SPLA Affairs. "I told him it would be a promotion, and
everyone would like to be a minister," Deng recalled, "but I
would prefer to stay and help him reorganize the SPLA."


4. (C) Kiir let the matter drop for several months but
raised it again recently, Deng continued. "I said okay, I
could become a minister," Deng said. "I told him that I
recommended he appoint someone from within the senior ranks
of the army as the new chief of staff. I said it should come
from the deputies--someone like James," he continued,
referring to Maj. Gen. James Hoth Mai, the SPLA's deputy
chief of staff for logistics. The remaining deputy chiefs of
staff all have shortcomings, Deng said. Maj. Gen. Isaac

Mamur Mette ("Mobutu") is corrupt, Deng said, and was
suspended and placed under house arrest March 20 (Ref. A).
Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration Maj. Gen. Salva
Mathok has also misappropriated funds, Deng claimed. Deputy
Chief of Staff for Operations Maj. Gen. Bior Ajang "is a good
man," Deng added, but cannot "push things."


5. (C) "Salva told me that appointing the chief of staff is
his prerogative," Deng continued. "I told him I understood
that but I was obligated to give him my advice."
Subsequently Deng learned that the president would like to
appoint Domminic Diim Deng, a retired SPLA commander now
serving in the South Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA). Like
Kiir, Diim is from Warrap State in the Bahr-el-Ghazal region.
"Diim is from Salva's home area, which is not good," Deng
commented. "He has spent most of the last ten years in
London and other places. We need someone from within who
knows the army." Deng said he has no political ambitions and
that he remains reluctant to leave the command of the SPLA
and take up the post of Minister of SPLA Affairs
(effectively, the GOSS's defence minister). Eighteen months
after the GOSS was inaugurated, the portfolio has never been
filled.

--------------
No Coup
--------------


6. (C) Various figures, including two of his four deputy
chiefs of staff, have repeated rumors to the president that
Deng is plotting a coup, Deng said. He dismissed the rumors
as nonsense. The two deputies, Mamur and Mathok, are corrupt
and unreliable, Deng stressed. One rumor has it that Deng
wants to seize power and hand it to GOSS roads minister
Rebecca Garang, wife Sudan People's Liberation Movement
(SPLM) leader John Garang, who died in July 2005. "I told
the president, why would I do that?" Deng said. "Why would
anyone take power just to give to someone else?"

--------------
Corruption and Inaction
--------------


7. (C) Deng also provided an elaborate account of the

KHARTOUM 00000470 002 OF 002


circumstances that led to the arrest of Deputy Chief of Staff
for Political and Moral Orientation Maj. Gen. Isaac Mamur
Mette ("Mobutu"). Mamur's dismissal was an "administrative",
not political matter, Deng claimed. Mamur was given USD $13
million last year to provide food and other assistance to
thousands of members of the former South Sudan Defence Force
(SSDF) militia who had joined the SPLA. "The troops
complained they never saw the food," Deng alleged. When
Mamur was asked to provide an accounting of the funds, his
report was "rubbish". The SPLA then formed a committee to
review the issue and oversee future funding. Unchastened,
Mamur signed another contract for USD 20 million for more
food, Deng claimed.


8. (C) Deng learned of this contract only when he was
summoned to a meeting with President Kiir and the now-jailed
GOSS Minister of Finance, Arthur Akuein (Ref. B). At the
meeting, which took place about a month ago, Deng complained
that the finance ministry was not disbursing funds adequately
to the SPLA, creating problems in paying troops and vendors.
Akuein defended the ministry's actions, and claimed the SPLA
was overspending. As an example, he produced the USD 20
million food contract signed by Mamur. Deng had been
complaining about Mamur for months, he alleged. Yet when
Deng went to see the President privately, or at night, "I
often found him sitting with Mamur." When Akuein showed him
the contract, Deng said, he hit the roof. "I cannot continue
like this," Deng told the president in front of the finance
minister. "If this is the way we are doing business I am
ready to resign."


9. (C) Kiir subsequently directed Deng to arrest Mamur and
he did so, Deng said. Though Mamur was responsible for other
transgressions, including the dispatch of a platoon of 47
soldiers to Uganda for unauthorized training, Deng said that
financial misbehavior led to Mamur's arrest. The president
had known of these problems "for months" but took no action,
Deng complained. Similarly Kiir has dithered over other key
issues concerning the reorganization of the SPLA. On some
issues, such as the need for national rather than
regionally-based forces, Kiir had come to accept Deng's
advice. And though there are still points of friction,
Deng's relationship with Kiir "is okay now," Deng said
unconvincingly.

--------------
Comment
--------------


10. (C) The relationship between GOSS President Salva Kiir
and SPLA Chief of Staff Oyai Deng is clearly very troubled.
Though Deng provided only one side of the story, what he says
is obviously disturbing. The SPLA is the bedrock of GOSS's
authority. The SPLA senior command is currently riven with
suspicion and mistrust, and rivalries inside the army echo
the ethnic and political divisions of the larger society.
The ultimate responsibility for correcting this problem, and
forging a professional, inclusive and loyal army, rests with
Salva Kiir. We hope he is up to the task.
HUME