Under President Salva Kiir, South Sudan has become a ‘Republic of Silence,’ where dissent is not merely discouraged but systematically crushed. Kiir has entrenched an ethnically based autocracy by wielding the unchecked power of the National Security Service (NSS), which carries out political assassinations, orders arbitrary arrests, rewards ethnic patronage, and controls state institutions that thrive on fear and corruption. The result is a nation where opposition is dismantled, transitional justice is stalled, oil wealth is siphoned off to loyalists, and regional backers shield the regime from accountability. This systematic repression is not only eroding civil liberties but also undermining the 2018 revitalized peace agreement and pushing the country toward renewed conflict — a crisis demanding urgent response at the local, regional, and global levels.
The linchpin of Kiir’s repressive apparatus is the NSS. In 2024, an amendment to the NSS Act quietly became law—slipping into effect by default after the president deliberately declined to act. This change granted the NSS sweeping authority to arrest without legal warrants, detain indefinitely, and operate with complete immunity from judicial oversight. What had once been an intelligence agency was legally empowered to function as an unaccountable political police force, with unchecked power to detain, disappear, and silence on behalf of Kiir’s regime, resulting in far-reaching and devastating consequences. Authorities swiftly shut down media outlets, including the South Sudan Doctors’ Union assembly, under vague security pretenses, while journalists and activists were rounded up without explanation. By legalizing what had once been an extrajudicial practice, the NSS became the regime’s primary instrument for extinguishing organized dissent, making the press one of its earliest and most visible targets.
In August 2015, President Salva Kiir issued a chilling warning: “If anybody among them does not know that this country has killed people, we will demonstrate it one day, one time. Freedom of the press does not mean you work against the country.” Less than a week later, freelance journalist Peter Julius Moi was shot twice in the back near his home in Juba at around 8:00 p.m. He was among several media workers killed that year, and—as in so many such cases—the government remained conspicuously silent, steadfastly denied any involvement, and saw to it that no one was ever implicated or prosecuted.
The killing of Peter Julius was not an isolated act—it was part of a deadly pattern. In December 2012, political commentator Isaiah Ding Abraham Chan Awuol was shot dead. In January 2015, journalists Musa Mohammed, Boutros Martin, Dalia Marko, Randa George, and Adam Juma were gunned down in Western Bahr el Ghazal State. In May that year, reporter Pow James Reath was murdered. In July 2016, John Gatluak Manguet was executed in the capital, Juba. In August 2017, American journalist Christopher Allen was killed while covering a clash between government and rebel forces in Kaya, near South Sudan’s border with Uganda.
These killings, erasure of voices the regime deemed dangerous, sent a chilling message: in South Sudan, challenging the regime’s narrative can be fatal. Such impunity has gutted media independence: radio stations shuttered, articles pulled mid-print, and interviews with opposition figures branded subversive. According to press freedom monitors, the result is a press corps forced into exile or silence, ensuring the state’s narrative remains unchallenged. The assault on the press was only the beginning. The same tools of intimidation, disappearance, and legal manipulation are now being deployed against political opponents.
After clashes between the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the White Army in Nasir in early March 2025, Kiir’s security forces detained senior political and military leaders of the main opposition party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in-Opposition (SPLM/A-IO). Those detained included Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol and SPLA-IO Deputy Defence Chief for Operations Gabriel Duop Lam, among others. Many were taken without warrants, held in undisclosed locations, and denied access to family or lawyers. Salva Kiir also placed the First Vice President and leader of the SPLM/A-IO, Dr. Riek Machar, under house arrest, in an attempt to dismantle or neutralize the main opposition’s leadership and to derail Machar’s political influence in South Sudan. Human rights organizations and international media have documented these arrests as part of a broader pattern of enforced disappearances designed to dismantle political rivals outside the legal system. This strategy strikes at the heart of the 2018 peace agreement, sowing mistrust among factions and threatening the young nation with a return to full-scale war. In South Sudan, ballots are absent, courts are compromised, power is preserved through fear, and challengers are unilaterally removed.
Kiir’s regime is nothing short of an ethnic autocracy. Its driving strategy is to block the full realization of peace, tighten its grip on an already oppressive political order, silence opposition and critics, fortify the power of the JCE, and funnel South Sudan’s wealth to cronies bound by ethnic allegiance and linked to corrupt foreign networks. Time and again, Kiir has defied the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the African Union (AU), and the international community, blocking them from fulfilling their mandates in the peace process. This defiance—shaped by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who steers Kiir’s approach to peace—is not mere obstinacy but a calculated pillar of his authoritarian design.
President Salva Kiir has failed the country by causing deep divisions between South Sudanese communities. In an already fragile nation, his leadership—backed by the notorious Jieng Council of Elders (JCE) tribal group—resembles organized crime rule more than the constitutional mandate of a president, where power rests on oil-funded loyalty and fear enforced by armed enforcers. Decisions resemble underworld tactics, eliminating rivals through detention, disappearance, or death, while the state’s institutions are hollowed out into tools for the boss’s survival. In Kiir’s South Sudan, governance is not a public service but a permanent purge, where cunning replaces the constitution and dissent can amount to a death sentence.
Fear alone does not sustain Kiir’s grip; it is reinforced by a political economy built on nepotism, loyalty, tribalism, and exclusion. South Sudan’s oil wealth, the country’s primary source of revenue, is managed through opaque procurement systems, with inflated payrolls due to ghost employees. These resources are not used to build the country’s infrastructure or to strengthen national institutions; they are used to feed circles of favoritism that reward ethnic allies and silence dissenters. Since independence in 2011, elections have been promised, then postponed repeatedly. Each delay extends Kiir’s rule without a public mandate, while corruption and ethnic favoritism deepen the divide between rulers and the citizens of South Sudan. Opposition movements are not only repressed by security forces, but they are also systematically starved of the resources and legitimacy needed to survive.
Even the mechanisms meant to address South Sudan’s past atrocities have been dismantled or left to stall. For example, political and security reforms are deliberately impeded by Kiir; the hybrid court promised under the 2018 peace deal remains unestablished. Though some transitional justice laws exist, the court remains inactive. The reconciliation commission and compensation authority have been reduced to little more than names on paper. Those accused of war crimes retain positions of authority, shielded by the same networks that perpetuate current abuses.
In South Sudan, the collapse of accountability sends a clear message: the law serves power, not the people. Victims of human rights violations, massacres, and present-day arbitrary detentions are denied both justice and recognition. As long as impunity remains the regime’s governing principle, cycles of violence will continue, eroding any hope for lasting peace.
The evidence of Salva Kiir’s record is overwhelming, yet one unavoidable question remains: How can any reasonable South Sudanese still place their faith in Kiir’s leadership? This is the man who, on the eve of December 15, 2013, ordered Dinka members of his Presidential Guard to disarm their Nuer colleagues—a move that paved the way for his security forces to conduct door-to-door searches and kill thousands of Nuer civilians in Juba. He is also the man overseeing the ongoing joint South Sudan–Uganda bombings in Nuer-majority areas—such as Nasir, Longechuk, Mayom, Akobo, and beyond—since March 2025. Is this not the same man who has the blood of nearly 400,000 South Sudanese on his hands because of his fabricated December 2013 coup claim, and who secretly glorifies ethnic domination at night while embracing togetherness during the day? These questions are for readers to answer for themselves.
The suffocation of dissent in South Sudan is no longer just a human rights issue; it is the architecture of Kiir’s rule, reinforced by tribal patronage, the looting of national resources, and the dismantling of mechanisms meant to deliver justice. If left unchecked, this machinery of repression will not only silence the present—it will shatter the country’s future, entrench authoritarian rule, and reignite the very violence the world struggled so hard to end. The international community still has tools to alter this course: targeted sanctions on those who orchestrate abuses, strategic punitive measures against Uganda and any country complicit in this over eleven years of conflict, robust support for independent media and civil society, and binding timelines for credible elections. Without decisive action, the ‘Republic of Silence’ will harden into permanence—and the dream of a democratic South Sudan will survive only in the memories of the silenced.
Duop Chak Wuol is an analyst, writer, and former editor-in-chief of the South Sudan News Agency. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he specializes in security and geopolitics in South Sudan and the broader East African region. His work has appeared in respected local, regional, and international outlets, including AllAfrica, Radio Tamazuj, The Independent (Uganda), The Arab Weekly, The Standard (Kenya), The Chronicle (Ghana), Sudan Tribune, and Addis Standard (Ethiopia), among others. In August 2017, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) featured him following the publication of his article, “Prime Minister Meles Zenawi: An African Icon Gone Too Soon,” which praised the late Ethiopian leader’s pivotal role in driving the nation’s economic transformation. He can be reached at duop282@gmail.com.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.