Sudanese army begins to absorb southern militias

KHARTOUM, Jan 5 (AFP) — Sudan began integrating southern militias into the ranks of its armed forces Wednesday, fearing that their presence in parts of south could undermine the prospects for real peace in the country.

The process got underway with the integration of 182 officers and soldiers from the pro-government South Sudan Defense Forces in a ceremony in Khartoum, which included the taking of the oath of allegiance.

Many of them got promotions, with a few becoming generals.

The SSDF splintered from the rebel Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement in the mid-1990s and was later recruited and armed by the government to fight alongside its regular forces against the SPLM.

The move toward integration was “in the context of the new situation created by the peace agreement,” Sudanese Defense Minister Bekri Hassan Salih said during the ceremony.

Khartoum and the SPLM are to sign a peace agreement on Sunday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to end Africa’s longest-running conflict, after two years of intensive negotiations.

The 21-year war left an estimated 1.5 million people dead, most of them from disease and starvation, and displaced four million.

It erupted in 1983 when the southern rebels rose up against Khartoum to end Arab and Muslim domination and marginalisation of the black, animist or Christian south.

SSDF commander Paulino Matep also addressed the event, telling the officers to “defend the peace agreement and its provisions.”

Under the protocol, there will be only two armies in Sudan during a six-year interim period agreed to by the government and the SPLM.

It calls on the various militias that emerged in the south, many of them SPLM splinter groups, either to join the army or the SPLM within a year of the signing of a final peace deal.