Gov’t told to deploy graduated peace forces before commencement of phase two

JUBA – Activist and Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani has appealed to the parties to the revitalized peace agreement to deploy the unified forces which have already been graduated in order to avoid backlog of huge forces after the graduation of the forces in phase two.

This comes after the parties graduated at least 2000 soldiers in Western Equatoria state yesterday where defense minister Angelina Teny and speaker of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA) called for the forces to observe ethic of good soldier and avoid being used by political leaders for their personal gains.

In a statement to Sudans Post this morning, Yakani welcomed the graduation of the forces in Western Equatoria state, urged other state governments and the unified army command in Juba to do the same for the remaining forces in phase one and deploy the troops in order to avoid a huge backlog for the deployment of forces after the graduation of soldiers in phase two.

“CEPO is urging the leadership of the unified command to timely redeploy the already graduated unified forces to show indicator of enrolling face two of the unified forces training,” Yakani said in the strong-worded statement.

“The redeployment of the unified should not be politicized, should be based on merits and delivering principle of civilian’s protection as provided by the relativized transitional constitution provision,” the prominent activist continued.

Yakani further revealed that the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization was preparing for “consultations with each political parties signatory to the R-ARCSS on matters of ending the transitional period in fruitful manner and preparation for the proposed National Roundtable on R-ARCSS implementation.”