SPLA-IO urges SSPDF to end cycle of violence

JUBA – South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLA-IO, led by First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar Teny is calling on South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) to end cycle of violence against its forces.

The call came days after a contingent of South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) reportedly launched an attack against SPLA-IO at a training centre in the country’s oil-rich Upper Nile state’s Maban that left two civilians dead.

Speaking to Sudans Post in an exclusive on Tuesday in Juba, deputy SPLA-IO military spokesperson Col. Lam Paul Gabriel stressed the need to end violence and embrace peace.

“We should not continue pointing fingers here and there, it is not going to help, what will help is for us to be able to take responsibilities, and realize that we are all South Sudanese. We can’t continue killing ourselves just because we want to impart that we are stronger than each other,”   Paul said.

Col. Lam. who is also the Press Secretary in the office of South Sudan’s minister of defense, Angelina Teny, believed that there is no need for the people of the same country to continue fighting each other.

“The way forward is for the people to start realizing that we are people of the same country. We need to stop this cycle of violence as individuals. You need to feel in your heart that I am already to fight and I am not going to fight,” Lam said.

“You can take a side, and be used to go and fight. What are you achieving by killing innocent South Sudanese at the moment, and displacing civilians at the moment? What is the gain?” he asked.

“If you are given money that money will finish but will you be the person you will still be. We are just causing problems from time to time to children who are losing their parents, and to wives who are losing their husbands, to families who are losing their beloved one. What is the gain?” he added.