A top official in South Sudan’s ruling SPLM party said he does not believe in the country’s 2018 peace agreement and declared that the party could “disown” the accord, amid growing controversy over proposed amendments to the deal.
The Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was signed in 2018 by President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar to end a five-year civil war. A transitional unity government was later formed in 2020.
“They say agreement, R-ARCSS. Me as Simon Kun, I don’t believe in the R-ARCSS, because SPLM is not part of the R-ARCSS. It is ITGoNU [Incumbent Transitional Government] that is there,” Simon Kun Puoch said at a ceremony organised in Juba over the weekend by the Lakes State community to thank Kiir for appointing their son, Akol Paul Kordit, as the SPLM secretary-general.
Simon Kun Puoch, the SPLM’s third deputy chairman, was appointed in May 2025 during a major reshuffle of the party leadership carried out by Kiir, who also heads the ruling SPLM.
“And I told the ambassadors of America and Britain, they came to me at the SPLM House, and I told them, we, SPLM, we can disown the R-ARCSS. Nobody can talk to us about it. We can disown it. From page one to the last page, there is no name SPLM there,” Kun said.
His remarks come as the transitional government has tabled controversial amendments to the 2018 peace agreement in parliament, seeking to amend three chapters and one annex of the accord, including provisions related to elections, constitutional reforms and the legal supremacy of the peace deal.
The tabling of the amendments was boycotted by a section of the opposition allied with Machar, who is currently detained in Juba and facing treason charges.
The proposed amendments have also been opposed by the peace monitoring body, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC), and several international partners, who say the process lacked inclusivity.
“I told them [Western envoys] that we have not even signed the agreement. We have not signed the agreement. Why are you coming here? You see? Even those who have not signed the agreement, they come and dictate to us here in this country. They have not signed the agreement, R-ARCSS. The Troika have not signed the agreement. The European Union have not signed the agreement. The Panel for IGAD, they have not signed this agreement,” he emphasised.
“Why? Why now? Why are they coming to us to pressure us for what now? Because they are benefiting from it. They are benefiting from it. We will go for elections,” he said.
Kun, a former governor of Upper Nile State who hails from Nasir County, said the government was now working on revising provisions of the agreement to pave the way for elections, adding that the idea to amend the accord originated within the SPLM party.
“Comrade Makuei Lueth is here and helped legally as a member of the SPLM and a member of the National Liberation Council. And he is doing that now. So if we have people like him, why do we look for a Western person? Why are we looking for a foreigner? And we have able people who can turn up and down our agreement and they can go through it. Why?”
Kun also warned members of the opposition SPLM-IO against calling for the release of Machar before a court ruling is issued, saying that if he is found innocent, he will be released, but if found guilty, he will be jailed like any other South Sudanese citizen.
Kun underscored that even President Kiir has no power to release Machar or halt the ongoing court proceedings before a court ruling is delivered.
“Nobody can release Riek Machar, it is only the court that can release Riek Machar,” he concluded.
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