Gov’t issues new deadline for graduation of unified forces

JUBA – South Sudan government has issued another deadline for the graduation of the Necessary Unified Forces provided for in the revitalized peace agreement after almost three years into the signing of the 2018 peace agreement.

According to the revitalized peace agreement, the parties to the deal shall compose a 83,000-strong men drown from their rival forces to provide protection to the VIP, and important towns such as the capital Juba and the ten state capitals.

That arrangement should have been completed before the establishment of the Reconstituted Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGONU), but lack of will and resources – as government claims – has prevented the graduation of the forces.

The government has been contradicting itself over why the forces have not been graduated.

Opposition members of the government have argued that President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s group, the SPLM-IG, is not willing to graduate the forces and that there is enough money in the country that could be used for the security arrangements.

Kiir’s side has said on several occasions that the forces do not have guns to graduate, blaming the arms embargo imposed in 20118 by the United Nations prior to the signing of the peace deal a few months later.

The ministry of defense has in the past made several vows to graduate the forces, but could not happen given the arguments over lack of funds and guns.

Speaking during a press conference in Bilpam on Friday, the defense and veterans’ affairs minister Angelina Teny said the forces will be graduated before end of May empathizing the importance of graduating the forces.

“We can’t afford not to graduate these forces. I want to emphasize that it is the agreement itself and it is the future of stability of this country and it is what will give us lasting peace. We will see into it that these forces graduate before May 31^st,” Teny told reporters.

“This agreement is the only chance we have and the backbone of this agreement is the transitional security arrangement and the unification of the forces,” she stressed, adding that the forces “have stayed in training [camps] long enough and if you don’t graduate these forces, the consequences can only be negative not on one part but on all future of this peace agreement.”