South Sudan’s Lakes state offers salary to frontline troops
April 20, 2012 (RUMBEK) – The governor of Lakes state, Chol Tong Mayay, announced to a group of new South Sudan army (SPLA) recruits that he will give his salary for one month and a portion of the salaries of the state’s constitutional post holders, to support troops on the frontline of the conflict with the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF).
Chol said that Juba does not want war with Khartoum, but that it had been “imposed on us” and that now the only option was for “action on the front line”.
Lakes State’s Legislative Assembly will sit on Saturday to decide what proportion of their wages will be sent to support the troops.
Chol encouraged the state’s citizens to donate dura (cooked maize or millet), groundnuts and cattle to the “liberation of the border”.
Thousands of Lakes State’s Muslim community attended, praying for peace between the two nations.
Rumbek’s Muslim leader, Osman Makur, said that “prayer for peace between the two Sudans must be done – we need peace – war is bad and we are not ready to see the past history coming back to us once again”.
Chol urged the state’s citizens to respect “very innocent” people of North Sudanese descent living in their communities, saying that their gripe is with the Khartoum’s president Omer Hassan al-Bashir and his defence minister Abdel- Rahim Mohamed Hussein.
South Sudanese MPs recently voted to donate 10 percent of their salaries to the military.
(ST)