Training of unified army commanders to commence in December – Angelina Teny

JUBA – South Sudan’s defense minister Angelina Teny has said that the training of unified army commanders who would command and estimated force of 83,000, will commence in December.

The senior government and opposition official made the revelation during a press conference in Juba on Monday morning, saying the government was in coordination with the commanders identified to command the unified forces.

“We are in the process of working with unification of commands. We will start the training of commands because you can’t graduate without putting in a new command which will now be the transitional security arrangement,” she said.

Mrs. Teny who is also the chairperson of the Strategic Defense and Security Review Board (SDSR) formed under the revitalized peace agreement said the government has secured training centers for senior commanders of necessary unified forces.

“We managed to secure the UN training unit to undertake that process, hopefully they will commence from the 5th of December,” she said.

She added that the top commanders are going to be imparting knowledge through workshops to prepare them for the unification process early in December.

“Right now, we are in a stage whereby we really feel that these forces should be graduated and deploy some that the next phase can commence,” She said.

The official said that the forces can’t graduate without a structure of commands in place.

“Once training for commands is done, they are unified, and deployed, then now we can start the deployment of unified forces; we can’t bring unified forces and deploy them without the commands,” she said.

She said that the Joint Transitional Security Committee is screening and putting the unified in scientific form.

Training of the necessary unified forces started early this year across all training centers and their graduation had been delayed further due to financial constraints and lack of command structure.

The 2018 revitalized peace agreement provides for the unification of the rival forces to form the first professional national army consisting of 83,000 soldiers drawn from the rival South Sudan parties and the SSPDF.