The main opposition group in South Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement In-Opposition (SPLM-IO), has accused authorities of Jonglei State’s Twic East County of denying a delegation of its senior members who had intended to visit the county to open the group’s secretariat on Sunday landing rights.

The 12-member delegation was headed by a member of the national parliament, Anok Bol, and the county’s SPLM-IO chairperson, Anyang Kuol Akec. The others were members of the SPLM-IO Liberation Council at the national and state levels.

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, Michael Bol, the Jonglei State SPLM-IO Secretary-General, said heavily armed soldiers in a military pickup invaded Panyagoor Airstrip sending away a plane carrying the delegation.

“What happened on Sunday was that a plane carrying members of SPLM-IO was denied from landing at an airstrip in Panyagoor. The plane had left from Juba but on reaching Panyagoor while it was about to land, the pilot was denied permission to touch the ground,” he said.  “There were a lot of soldiers in military uniform and they had a pickup. Those SPLM-IO senior officials had wanted to officially open our offices there.”

The SPLM-IO official condemned the incident which he said was an act of intimidation and held that it aligns with his party’s position that the country was not ready for elections later this year.

“You got our position paper on the elections. What we know is that the sons and daughters of Twic East County who are with the SPLM Part in government were behind this act. What is unfortunate is that the national army which is supposed to be neutral is being used to execute these plans,” he stated. “It is partly for these reasons that we said the country is not ready for elections because there is no leveled political field.”

According to Bol, the denial of access to the SPLM-IO delegation is a vindication that there is a lack of political will to see the country transition to democracy.

For his part, Twic East County Commissioner Jacob Chol Tor admitted that the SPLM-IO delegation was denied landing rights because they did not seek prior permission to visit the county.

“SPLM-IO has been disorganized. They did not seek permission from the county authorities so that they are protected. At the time they wanted to visit on Sunday, there was a community meeting on how to address the humanitarian situation,” he said. “I told the SPLM-IO on Friday that they should schedule their visit after the community meeting because we cannot handle two separate events concurrently but they refused. Theirs is a political rally which requires protection because of insecurity.”

Commissioner Chol who belongs to the Other Political Parties (OPP) denied that they did not want SPLM-IO in Twic East County but said it was intended for the safety of the SPLM-IO delegation. He said they will be ready to host SPLM-Io again after the community meeting.