SPLA budget, a cause for celebration
Editorial, Khartoum Monitor
May 19, 2006 — Reports from Juba indicating that the south Sudan parliament has voted to allocate 40 per cent of the 1.3bn dollar budget for South Sudan for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) are a cause for celebration. Our boys in uniform laboured hard to get us where we are today. They sacrificed their education and often their lives so that we can get the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and live in dignity.
During the war era, they could not ask for anything by way of compensation or payment for work done. Now we are in peace and we have to respond to their needs. Our inability to provide them with their requirements had made them ragtag soldiers, lacking in discipline and being unable to fight theLord Resistance Army (LRA) force of killers.
The LRA continues to maim our people and have warned that if we continue to allow Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) into our territories, they will go on hitting us . It is as if we have no control over our own land and it is them who are now in charge.
There are many in political circles in Khartoum who are hostile to the CPA. They are echoing what their religious mate, Ussama Bin-Ladin said the other day, that the CPA was just ink on paper.
There are also some in the army, who may want to grab power and deny the Sudanese people the chance to enjoy the fruits of the CPA.
The SPLM must be well trained, well equipped and well fed to deal with Kony’s terrorists. They must be agile and be able to pursue Kony in the thick forests of Western Equatoria or wherever he may be making his evil war plans.
Our boys of the SPLA must also be able to abort any plans in Khartoum to halt the ongoing search for peace. It must move swiftly to put out of action, any adventurous soldier who may feel that he can seize power and undo the CPA by simply rolling his tank into the Presidential palace, army HQs or radio Omdurman. Such arrogance must be terminated. All this cannot be done unless the SPLA is given the tools it needs to be able to perform. The allocation of 40 per cent of south Sudan budget to the SPLA is just one step. The second step is to ensure that the money actually goes to the most needy in the SPLA. The third is to ensure that the SPLA becomes a professional army which protects us, our borders and the gains of the CPA.