The principal parties to the revitalised peace agreement have broken the political deadlock over the Command Structure.
Since the establishment of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) there have been political disputes and disagreements between the two main signatories to the agreement over how to implement the security arrangement that has resulted in the split of the SPLM/A-IO.
Addressing the media on Saturday in Juba, Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro said the SPLM, SPLM-IO, and other armed opposition parties had agreed on power-sharing of the command structure.
“Now that we have agreed on the sharing of the command structure, we can expeditiously move on to graduate the unified forces so that they can be deployed,” Dr. Martin said.
In May 2021, the Security Council extended the arms embargo on South Sudan on the mandate of expert panel adopting resolution 2577 under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter by a vote of 13 in favour to none against, with two abstentions (India and Kenya). The Council decided to renew until May 31, 2022, the arms embargo imposed by paragraph 4 of resolution 2428 (2018) which prohibited the supply, sale or transfer of weapons, as well as the provision of technical assistance, training and other military assistance, to the territory of South Sudan.
Reassurance
However, despite the previous complaints by the government over the lack of weapons, the government said it will graduate the forces even without guns.
“Even if we cannot provide them with guns because of the arms embargo we feel duty-bound to graduate them to show the commitment of the government of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) to implement the agreement,” Dr. Martin stated.
The Cabinet Affairs Minister said there were many factors that led to the delay of the graduation of forces but added the most hindering factor was the lack of agreement between the parties on the sharing of the command structure.
Dr. Martin said the revitalised peace agreement did not give details on how to share the command structure as it does with the responsibility sharing for the establishment of the state governments
“There was a dispute over the sharing of the command structure but I can tell you that this difference was due to interpretation of sharing of the agreement by the opposition and particularly the SPLM/A-IO. They were eyeing for 50/50 per cent but that is not in the agreement and they used the wrong parameters in interpretation citing presidency, citing presentation in the National Transitional Committee (NTC), and citing presentation in the Revitalized Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC),” he explained.
“We have now come to the correct approach and it is agreed that we will now do the share of 60/40 per cent for the opposing because there is no unified opposition; this is just partners to the agreement. So the opposition will have their 40 per cent and they will divide among themselves,” Dr. Martin stressed.
He described the consensus over the unification of forces as the most important achievement, saying there was no single country that has two armies, two national securities, two police two VIP protection.
“This is abnormal and it is not acceptable because it causes polarisation so our drive is to create one unified security sector that will be dedicated to the people of South Sudan rather than to a political party or a political group because this is where people get a feeling of rebellion,” Dr. Martin said.
“They feel they have an army but if you have a national army that belongs to the people of South Sudan that means you are protected from anybody who wants to invade your country externally,” he stated.