- Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni President of the Republic of Uganda.
- President Abdall Fatah Al-Burhan President of the Sovereign Council of Sudan and the Chairperson of IGAD
- Hon. Major General Albert Murasira, Minister of Defense and Head of Delegation of the Republic of Rwanda.
- Hon. Dr. Abraham Belay, Minister of Defense and Head of Delegation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
- Gen. Sedki Sobhi Sayed Ahmed: Assistant to the President on Defense Affairs and Head of Delegation of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
- Ambassador Dr. John Stephen: Tanzanian Ambassador to South Sudan
- Excellency Dr. Riek Machar Teny, First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan
- Excellencies Vice Presidents of the Republic of South Sudan
- Right Honorable Speaker of the Revitalized Transitional National Legislative Assembly.
- Right Honorable Speaker of the Revitalized Council of States.
- Chief Justice of the Judiciary of the Republic of South Sudan.
- Presidential Advisors
- Representatives of the African Union, IGAD, R-JMEC, UMISS and Diplomatic Corps.
- The Peoples of our Country wherever they may be.
- Ladies and Gentlemen
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
On this very important day, in our history of building South Sudan as a new Country, I would first want to welcome and appreciate our High-level guests and delegations from our friendly regional countries. I welcome President Abdall Fatah Al-Burhan, President of the Sovereign Council of Sudan and the Chairperson of IGAD; Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda; Hon. Major General Albert Murasira, Minister of Defense and Head of Delegation of the Republic of Rwanda;
Hon. Dr. Abraham Belay, Minister of Defense and Head of Delegation of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia; Hon. Major General Khaled Megawer and Head of Delegation of the Arab Republic of Egypt. You are all welcome and thank you very much for honoring our invitation for this important event.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
It is almost four (4) years since we signed the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). Out of all the Chapters of the Agreement, the graduation of the Unified forces under Chapter-2 has been the most challenging and yet the most important. The cadets we are going to graduate in phases are fifty-two Thousand (52,000) in total. We are graduating them in phases because the training Centers are wide spread across the country and it is difficult to access some of them because of the floods.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
The batch we are graduating now are the cadets in Training Centers in parts of the Greater Equatoria. The graduation of the other cadets in Greater Bahr-el-Ghazal and Greater Upper Nile, respectively, will follow. I take this opportunity to thank the Cadets who are being graduated today and those who will subsequently be graduated.
I know that you have suffered for over two (2) years waiting for graduation.
But I thank you for your patience and tolerance. What you have gone through is part of the struggle for the freedom and independence of our people and country. I hope that your sufferings have also strengthened your resolve to defend your country and protect your people.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
Getting freedom for our people and Independence for South Sudan has been very difficult and expensive. Generations and generations of our people started the struggle as early as 1947.
I am one of those who survived it all, joining the Any-nya-I movement in 1967 right through the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) to this day. Only our generation managed to finish the aspiration of our people for freedom and independence on 9th July 2011, through the exercise of the Right for Self-determination, which was contained in the CPA-2005.
Unfortunately, we lost track of this important mission by engaging in unnecessary internal conflict in December 2013 and July 2016.
That mistake has caused us dearly, including economic distraction to the extent that we could not pay for some critical needs to implement the agreement. Now that we have realized our mistake, signed the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) in September 2018 and the Roadmap for peaceful and democratic end to the Transitional Period of the agreement on 3rd August 2022, we must commit to help our people by working hard and honestly to establish our country and provide services to our long-suffering people.
On that note, I thank the Parties to the agreement for their cooperation and for building trust amongst us. Reducing the trust-Deficit after such a brutal internal war has never been easy. But I thank God we have slowly been able to work on it and we have made substantial improvement.
It is our ability to reduce the trust gap that has brought us to this day. Once again, my brothers and sister, I thank you all and I encourage all of us to continue with that spirit.
The Graduating Cadets, Fellow Countrymen and Women,
To the Cadets, from today you are not a military-wing of any of the Parties to the Conflict. You are now the first National Security Sector Organs of the Republic of South Sudan. As the President of the Republic, I am your Commander-in-Chief. If your Commander-in-Chief was the Chairperson of the SPLM/A-IO Dr. Riek Machar Teny, Hussein Abdall-Baggi Ayii Akol or another unknown Commander-in-Chief, they are no more. I am the only Commander-in-Chief and you take instructions from me.
Now you belong to the Republic of South Sudan and its people. You must refrain from being a member of any Political Party and you must never consider yourself a soldier of any ethnic group. It is your duty to treat all South Sudanese equally, in justice and equality.
Those who will be found to discriminate against some of our people, will be dismissed and face the full force of the law.
The army is there to defend South Sudan from external aggression; the National Security is to collect intelligence to ensure that there is no danger against South Sudan.
Those in the Police are there to protect our people and their properties. The Prison, Wildlife and Civil Defense are there to carry out their duty in accordance with their relevant laws, rules and regulation. Whilst we are graduating you, we have in mind the Disarmament, Demobilization and Rehabilitation Commission (DDRC). It is an important Commission and we are going to make sure it is empowered so that it performs its duties according to the strategic plan.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
We will work with our brothers and sisters in the Region and the Continent for you to be properly trained and become professional in your work. A professional security sector will make South Sudan a standard UN member state that has the attributes of a secured environment for its people, realizing socio-economic development, efficient delivery of services to its people, respect for Human Rights and engaging in infra-structure development nation-wide. We want our people to elect their leaders twenty-four (24) months from now as defined in the roadmap for peaceful and democratic elections.
That cannot happen if our security sector is not professional. All of you must take note of what I have mentioned in this paragraph because these are critical points.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
I know that some of our Partners have lost trust in us because we have not met the deadlines in the agreement.
People judge us without taking stock of the underlying reality that has made us delay in the implementation of some of the provisions of the agreement. Nevertheless, I want to say here that we are determined to implement the remaining parts of the agreement through the roadmap, which was agreed to by the Parties to the agreement on 3rd August 2022. We want our people to elect their leaders and transform South Sudan into a secure, peaceful and democratic country.
I have said many times that I will never take South Sudan back to war again. I call upon my brothers and sisters to join me in this mission and to accept democracy as the only way to get power. Our people have suffered enough and we must never make it worse for them than it is already.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
For you, the graduating cadets, it is your duty to defend South Sudan against anybody who wants to take power from the people by force in contradiction of the constitution and the law. It is your responsibility to defend the flag of our country with all its colors and the meaning attached to each of them. That is why you must never be a member of any political party and you must consider yourself a South Sudanese in carrying out your duty, not a soldier of an ethnic group.
I call upon the holdouts groups to return home and join us in the peace process. We do not want rebels in our country. We want to disarm our civilians so that we combat community violence, eradicate cattle rustling, improve local security, end Gender Based Sexual Violence (GBSV) and inter-communal fighting. There is nothing, which we cannot solve.
We are committed to the Sant ‘Egidio Rome framework and we encourage all of you to also take it seriously so that all of us participate in building our country together as people of one nation.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guest, Ladies and Gentlemen
To conclude, allow me to appreciate Hon. Tut Gatluak in his capacity as the Chairperson of the Peace Implementation High-Level Standing Committee, Dr. Martin Elia Lomurö, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Secretary General of the Committee and all the members of the committee for their dedication to implement the agreement and for exercising collective responsibility.
Finally, let me again, welcome our high-level delegation from different countries of the region and thank you all for listening. I wish those of you who will return to their capitals a safe journey and those who stay with us overnight a joyful stay. Thank you once more and God bless South Sudan.
__________ End of Speech ___________
