Aug 30, 2022 — South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, in a controversial undertone, pleads to the newly graduated unified forces to begin recognizing him as their commander-in-chief and the President of the Republic of South Sudan.
Speaking at the graduation of the first batch of the unified forces, President Salva Kiir cautioned the newly graduated forces that their former Commander-in-Chief that include Dr. Riek Machar Teny, the leader of the SPLM/A-IO, Hussein Abdall-Baggi Ayii Akol and others, “are no more” and as such they must follow his instructions.
“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.” President Kiir cautioned the first batch of NUF.
In addition to following his instructions, president Kiir pleads to the Unified Forces to be prepared to defend his leadership from power hungry politicians who may try to overthrow him to grab power.
“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.” President Kiir said.
President Kiir further emphasized that they must no longer be loyal to political parties like SPLM-IO and neither must they be loyal to their ethnic groups or tribesmen.
“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.” Kiir said.
“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.” He added.
The president also made it clear that those who will be found to discriminate against some people in the country will be dismissed from the army and punished.
“Those who will be found to discriminate against some of our people, will be dismissed and face the full force of the law.” President Kiir said.
Despite some bitterness, president Kiir assured the citizens that he will never take the country back to war and calls on his peace partners to join him in the mission to preach peace and for them to accept democracy as the only way to get into presidency.
“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.” President Kiir said.
According to the peace agreement, South Sudan was to train and graduate 83, 000 forces starting from within six months of the D day, September 12, 2018; however, the first batch was graduated 4 years later and the leadership hope to graduate only 52, 000 forces, 31,000 less the agreed numbers.
“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.”
