![Chairman of South Sudan's Democratic Change (DC) Party Onyoti Adigo Nyikwec [Photo via Juba Monitor]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sudanspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Capture.jpg?ssl=1)
This, Onyoti Adigo – South Sudan’s minister of livestock – said, has made armed youth in different parts of the country to be heavily armed than government security agencies making it difficult for the agencies to remove guns from civilians’ hands.
“Cattle keepers [have] become notorious because they move with their arms, making it very difficult to control them. Some of them are more powerful than the army. It’s not easy to disarm them unless the army has powerful weapons,” Onyoti told an agriculture advocacy and lobby meeting that brought together cattle keepers and farmers yesterday.
“The cattle keepers are carrying more sophisticated weapons than the government because these cattle belong to the big people. Some people can be notorious because they are looking after the cattle of big people in government,” Onyoti stressed.
The senior government official further reiterated the commitment of the parties to the revitalized peace agreement to achieving permanent peace in the country and said the United Nations Security Council should remove the arms embargo.
“The leaders who are signatories to the agreement have started working together, and they have no idea of returning to war. The main challenge now remains is how the government can remove the guns from the armed civil population,” he said.
In August last year, an attempt by the government in Juba to disarm civilians in Warrap and Lakes states sparked deadly fighting that resulted in unimagined losses for the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) as gun fire broke out after civilians were violently forced to handover their guns.
President Salva Kiir Mayardit has on several occasions called on the United Nations to lift the arms embargo stressing that it affects the implementation of the security arrangements provided for in the revitalized peace agreement.
But several Western diplomats have doubted the government claim, saying the government has more guns in the country to arms the unified forces.
Those guns they were talking about are very Old and they were brought from civilians disarmament exercises and would not be used for National Army that is fact. Youths in the communities are dangerously and fully equipped this is why when the SSPDF started disarmament exercises in Tonj East county, the fighting emerged immediately because they see Army are carrying same weapons which they already have. It is true, the youths in South Sudan are more powerful than the SSPDF soldiers. UN Peacekeepers have seen them carrying PKm machines guns in the community. If government want to buys their weapons in order to avoid confrontation with the regular Army SSPDF soldiers perhaps, most of them are not even interested to do that. I think the government is totally afraid to conduct the forcefully disarmament exercises because the youths in South Sudan have arms themselves very heavily weapons and they don’t respect government nor soldiers.