883 former SPLA combatants graduate as prison personnel
November 21, 2007 (JUBA) – Over 800 ex-fighters from Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) graduated from the Prisons Service of Southern Sudan today including 101 females.
The graduation ceremony at Juba Football Stadium was attended by officials from South Sudan government and UN representatives as well a large numbers of citizens.
The Director General of Southern Sudan Prison Service, Major General Agasio Tong addressed the graduates saying that “One of the functions of the prison service is to build the capacity of our staff through effective recruitment, training and development to increase skills, abilities and standards.”
The UN Development Program (UNDP) announced last September the inauguration of the Lologo Regional Training Center at a ceremony that also saw the launch of the Prison Service training programme for 550 SPLA soldiers who were being transferred from the army to join the Prison Service.
The UNDP estimates that the Prison Service will receive up to 1,500 former combatants over the next six months.
The center has been constructed under UNDP’s Foundational Support to the Prisons Services of Southern Sudan Project and is jointly funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) of the Government of Canada and the UNDP. Training will be implemented by trainers from the Prison Service and the UNMIS Rule of Law/Corrections team.
The 2005 peace agreement brokered by the US and other western countries ended two decades of civil war between the Arab and Muslim-dominated north and the mainly Christian and animist black southerners.
In 2011, southerners will be asked to vote in a referendum on whether they want to be independent or remain part of Sudan.
(ST)