Oct 1, 2020(Nyamilepedia) — South Sudan’s Joint Defense Board has summoned the recently defected Maj. Gen. Moses Lokujo and the rival commanders of the SPLA-IO and SSPDF in Kajo-Keji to report to Juba without further delays.
Addressing the media after an emergency meeting in the capital, Juba, the Co-Chairs of the JDB have issued stricts warnings, calling on the warring commanders to stop fighting immediately and report to Juba to face justice for violating chapter two of the revitalized peace agreement.
“We are summoning the commanders in charge from both sides , from the SPLA-IO and the SSPDF. After ceasing the fire, they will come here to Juba to explain why the ceasefire broke in that area” Co-Chair, Lt. Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operation of the SPLA-IO said.
“Each party is responsible now to give orders. It is imperative that the military operations or offensives will not continue. It has to stop now, this evening. So tomorrow we do not want to hear another counter or revenge attacks.” Lt. Gen. Gabriel Duop continued.
Speaking to the media, the Chief of the South Sudan People Defense Force(SSPDF), Gen. JJ Okot, said his leadership does not condone indiscipline and insubordination, adding that defection is a violation of Chapter 2 of the revitalized peace agreement.
“While this is happening we need to be really disciplined. These forces who broke away from the SPLA-IO, we don’t condone criminalities, we don’t condone insubordinate behavior, we don’t condone people who take laws into their own hands.” Co-Chair, Gen. JJ Okot, warns
“We have structures, we have laws that govern our operation and if they are discontented with their former structure in Chapter 2 of the agreement, this exercise [defection] is silent” He added.
The Chief of defense forces reiterates that the JDB has all the mandatess to impose laws and orders in circumstances like what happened in Kajo-Keji and therefore the warring commanders must stop fighting.
“we the Joint Defense Board members have the orders and the rules to discipline and manage such occurrences” Gen. Okot said.
Gen. Okot call on all the forces in Kajo-Keji to stop moving to confront their opponents saying that there is no point in fighting.
“As the role and mandate of the JDB in control of the army, and in exercising the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement Chapter, we call upon all those forces that are involved in the security in the area of Kajo-Keji to stop moving more to confront themselves in an exercise that does not comply with the spirit of implementing the peace agreement” Gen. Okot said.
“As of now there is no any good reason that our forces can involve in confronting themselves while some of them are already in the training for reunification and those who are still outside will definitely have to go through the process of training” He continued.
The Co-Chairs called on all the trainees in other training camps not to panic over what happened in Moroto saying that it is an isolated incident.
“This is an indiscipline act within a category of officers that we are going to surmon. Tonight we want our intelligence officers, the JTCS officers who are responsible with the security to bring us all the updates that will enable us the board members to get down to Moroto and calm the situation” Gen. Okott hints.
“I also want to urge all our training centers that might be informed with what is happening in Moroto, this is an isolated case, it has nothing to do with Gorom, it has nothing to do with Rajaf, it has nothing to do with Awichnyibul, it has nothing to do with all our training centers including the cantonments.” Co-Chair Gen. JJ Okot said.
The Chief of Defense forces also called on the general population that the situation is getting controlled and therefore they shouldn’t cross the borders into neighboring Uganda with unknown COVID-19 status, and vice versa.
“We urge all our population that might have ran away in fear that the situation is getting controlled and we want them to come back and settle in their own location as soon as we prevail peace and calm in the area” Okott said.
“That convening which was organized by the JDB over the fighting that took place in Kajo-Keji county between the SPLA-IO forces and the SSPDF and the cause of the fighting was the defection of Maj.Gen. Moses Lokujo” He added.
According to Gen. Gabriel Duop, the emergency meeting of the JDB resolved to silent the guns effective immediately and later they will investigate and establish what really happened.
“The root causes will be investigated later why people fought in that area. The resolution of our meeting: our measures are (1) to cease fighting, from this hour, fighting must stop (2) the JDB will send a mission to the ground for fact finding and we are also call upon the CTSAMM to further also go on the road for facts finding” Gen. Gabriel Duop said.
In other reports, Maj. Gen. Moses Lokujo, who fought in Kajo-Keji yesterday, has arrived in Juba in response to the Joint Defense Board(JDB) orders.
