Gen Malong: I do not hold President Kiir to ransom

South Sudan’s Chief of General Staff, Gen Paul Malong Awan, is a man under intense focus both locally and internationally following a series of defections of senior military commanders from the national army.

Gen Malong —who took over the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLA) leadership in April 2014— is perceived as the “real” power behind President Salva Kiir by working closely with the Jieng Council of Elders, the Dinka cultural association, to control the government and thereby alienate other communities from the country’s leadership.