Sudan’s army, SPLA form joint integrated units
Jan 23, 2007 (JUBA) — Sudan’s former foes have committed to finally integrating their armies, removing a major stumbling block to full implementation of a two-year-old north-south peace deal which ended Africa’s longest civil war.
The January 2005 accord formed separate northern and southern armies and stipulated that joint armed units should be deployed in major towns to keep the peace.
Observers say the failure to form these joint integrated units (JIU) has created tensions, culminating in heavy fighting in the town of Malakal in November, which killed 150 people.
“(A new military) doctrine will unify training and operations under one doctrine, so that the function of the JIUs will be unified on both sides,” Majzoub Rahma, spokesman of the Joint Defence Board (JDB) that monitors implementation of security protocols of the deal, said on Monday.
“Definitely at last they will stay together,” he added, without specifying a deadline for the integration of the units.
The JIUs were envisaged to help build trust between the northern army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) who fought a bitter civil war for more than two decades.
While soldiers from both armies have been designated for the JIUs, in reality none of the units are living or training in the same barracks and the troops still wear different uniforms.
In November, tensions between the former foes erupted into the heaviest fighting since the accord between the soldiers who should be working together in joint camps in Malakal, killing 150 and injuring hundreds.
The former U.N. top envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, said on his Web site (www.janpronk.nl) in December that the integration of the JIUs was vital to keep the peace deal alive.
“The JIUs, instead of functioning as a binding element in the country, tend to become a splitting force,” Pronk wrote, citing the Malakal clashes as an example.
“We are planning to hand over to the JIUs soon,” said spokesman Rahma, adding that both SAF and SPLA would withdraw from Malakal town leaving the joint forces in control.
The JIUs are paid by the central Khartoum-based government. But delays in payments of salaries led to a mutiny in December as soldiers ran rampant through the south Sudan capital Juba, killing three people.
Rahma said the JDB would this month ask the presidency in Khartoum to pay the arrears.
SPLA spokesman Kuol Deim Kuol said 124 JIU soldiers from the SPLA had been arrested for the December mutiny and may face court martial.
“This was wrong of them … it is an embarrassment to the SPLA … and the government of southern Sudan,” he said. “They were told to wait for their salaries but they chose to demonstrate in a violent way.”
(Reuters)