South Sudan to graduate 50,000 unified forces

By Viola Kiden Elias  

The decision to graduate 50,000 forces follows a meeting in Juba on Wednesday chaired by President Salva Kiir and all vice presidents, the defense minister, and top military generals of the parties to the peace agreement. 

Under the 2018 revitalized peace deal, South Sudan was supposed to train and graduate 83,000 unified personnel to take charge of security during the ongoing transitional period. The troops are comprised of police officers, army soldiers, intelligence officers, and members of the prison services. 

The transitional unity government, formed in February 2020, has cited financial constraints for the delay in the graduation of unified forces. 

Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lumoro said during the meeting, President Kiir ordered the Joint Defense Board – the body charged with unifying forces of the various parties – to revisit some cantonment sites, especially in Masna Bara in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal state to verify the number of forces before they graduate over the next few days. 

The leaders agreed to give parties to the peace deal seven days to conclude the representation of opposition forces in the command of the army. 

“We are going now to sit on the proposal that has been advanced by Sudan to sit over it and then we conclude within seven days so that these forces are graduated.”

“We are happy that the comment particularly from the (SPLM) IO leader Riek Machar with regards to the report was very positive. His only concern is for us to agree finally on exactly how to share the top command of the army and not necessarily the command structure.” Lomuro said.

Graduating the unified forces is a key aspect of the transitional security arrangements spelled out in the peace deal. Civil society activist Rajab Mohandis, a signatory to the peace deal and former member of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, questions whether the decision to graduate the forces will meet the primary objective of creating a disciplined and professional army. 

“We are just going to have so many of different militias pulled together and having them affiliated to their parties is a receipt for another disaster,” Mohandis warned, saying the process should have been taken in a manner that helps to create the national army required out of these various forces. Unfortunately, this has not been adequately realized. 

Activist Edmond Yakani embraces the decision to graduate from the unified forces.

“it’s better late than never, Yakani said

In her previous pressers, Angelina Teny, the minister of defense said most of the soldiers had disserted the training sites. So to avoid graduating thousands of civilians alongside the trained soldiers, Yakani said there’s a need for screening.

 “Civilians may find themselves graduating in uniform if we don’t have a proper track down of who exactly we are graduating. Yakani said.

To graduate the integrated forces is a requirement of the peace agreement. If security arrangements are carried out, the peace agreement can be a success. 

“This is the beginning that the people of South Sudan would be able to know that we now have one national army of which we all know in 2016 what brought the second phase of civil war is because we did not have one army, we have parallel armies which were not at peace with each other, and so it is a new beginning and is giving new hope to citizens of South Sudan.” advocate Reech Malaul said.