Main southern militia joins SPLA
Jan 10, 2006 (NAIROBI) — South Sudan’s largest militia group has announced that it will join the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), formerly a rebel group and now a partner in Sudan’s national unity government.
Under the agreement, called the Juba Declaration of Unity and Integration, the armed forces of the two groups will merge, reducing the number of disparate armed groups in the south that have caused much insecurity.
The leader of the South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF), Paulino Matip, and Sudan’s First Vice-President, Salva Kiir, confirmed they had reached an agreement during a ceremony in the southern capital of Juba on Monday, where they were marking the first anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan’s 21 year civil war.
“…The two parties have agreed to immediately integrate their forces to form one unified, non-partitioned army under the name of the SPLA,” Kiir said, according to the news agency Sudan Tribune.
Under the CPA, signed between the SPLA and the former Sudanese government on 9 January 2005, militia groups in southern Sudan were required to disband or join the Sudanese national army or the SPLA within a year.
A political analyst in Juba who declined to be named said that after the SPLA, the SSDF was both politically and militarily the largest movement in the south, and called the Juba Declaration, “a big step forward”.
“It will encourage other splinter-groups and militias who have remained at the side-line to make up their minds, as this alliance really weakens their position,” he said.
Matip, who swapped sides several times in the course of the civil war, has a large following among the Nuer, the second largest ethnic group in southern Sudan.
The SSDF was considered a major threat to peace and stability in the south, as the militia group controlled large, oil-rich territories in the Upper Nile region, and was supported by the Sudanese armed forces.
The analyst added it was unlikely that the agreement would immediately result in the complete absorption of all SSDF troops in a unified army as some of the low rank SSDF commanders might hold out for a better deal.
“The agreement still seems quite fragile and prone to be manipulated,” he added. “It needs protection and nurturing and it needs to be followed up in the near future.”
He warned that there were “very strong indications” that elements within the Sudanese security forces were still trying to create chaos, particularly in Upper Nile.
“There are many stories about assassinations of chiefs and the supplying of weapons to southern militias. Even if only a fraction of these stories are true, it is very worrying,” he noted.
(Reuters)