South Sudan to demobilize 25,000 soldiers

August 8, 2007 (JUBA) — South Sudan will begin to demobilize some 25,021 soldiers, but full support packages for former combatants are not assured yet because of U.N. funding delays, a southern official said on Tuesday.

Under a north-south peace deal signed in January 2005 that ended Africa’s longest civil war, separate north and south Sudan armies were created. Both agreed to reduce their troop counts.

Arop Moyak Monytoc, head of south Sudan’s Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) commission, said they had been relying on the United Nations to provide packages including seeds and tools to help soldiers reintegrate into society.

“The serious issue is reintegration. What is going to be their livelihood?” said Monytoc.

The soldiers to be demobilized cost the semi-autonomous southern government $5 million a month in salaries.

In June, the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) integrated 31,000 former militia members which analysts said strained the army’s budget.

The SPLA currently has some 170,000 soldiers, an army official said. To date, only children had been demobilized from the SPLA.

Monytoc said registration of the soldiers to be demobilized would begin whether or not the U.N. DDR body, which had promised support packages, is ready to assist, but he criticized them for being too slow.

“We are starting without them,” said Monytoc. “They can join us when they’re ready… They are too slow, too much bureaucracy, everything must go to New York.”

A senior U.N. official in south Sudan declined to comment.

Monytoc said it was still unclear what the minimum demobilization package would be for the demobilized soldiers, as the commission had been relying on the U.N. packages.

SPLA spokesman Kuol Diem Kuol said the extra soldiers were blocking modernization of the army.

“Instead of buying equipment to make us a modern army we are paying these soldiers,” he said.

(Reuters)