Saturday, May 16, 2009

GOSS needs to resolve the SPLA salary crises

This site has learned that there is a serious problem of banditry along Torit-Juba road. Confirmed reports say that some members of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are behind this banditry attacks. Other reports seem to indicate that there is a rebellion in the making. The reasons behind this banditry or rebellion – whichever way one wants to see it – are said to be failure to pay salaries to SPLA, lack of food for the soldiers posted along the road; and the problems of tribalism and sectionalism within the Government of South Sudan (GOSS).
On May 9th, 2009, Al-quwat Al-musallaha (Armed Forces) Newspaper (page 1) reported the killing of two SPLA soldiers and the capture of two others in a clash between the so-called bandits and the GOSS security forces. It has also been reported that one member of the GOSS security forces was killed in yet another clash with the same bandits on May 11th, 2009, along Juba-Torit road.
This is not a new development. The Juba-Torit road had in the past faced a similar catastrophic banditry attacks. The GOSS used to refer to those attacks as committed by the Equatoria Defence Force in collaboration with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). GOSS did not mince its words then when it directed accusations for such operations on the SAF.
In response to the tribal fighting between the Bari and Mundari tribes, GOSS said: "From LRA attacks in Eastern Equatoria State (EES) to the recurrence of cattle raids that resulted in killing of innocent lives in Jonglei Lakes, Warrap, Unity and Upper Nile States, preventing these incidents is GOSS' priority", (The Citizen Newspaper, May 12th, 2009, p.1).
Reading from the GOSS statement above, the reader would realise that LRA is still being mentioned by GOSS as responsible for the attacks along Juba-Torit road. Is this true? May be and May be not. Because the whole world knows that the LRA had shifted their bases into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and are very active in Western Equatoria and not in EES.
According to the news reported by the SAF Newspaper, the two killed and two captured were said to be SPLA soldiers. Is the SPLA also called LRA? Obviously not. The SPLA remains SPLA and the LRA remain LRA. Why then does the GOSS refer to the attacks along Juba-Torit road as those carried out by the LRA?
To answer the question above, one would say that the GOSS is probably trying to divert the attention of the people of South Sudan from blaming the SPLA for the attacks. This would be deceit at a time when the people of the South have come to know that it is the SPLA soldiers who are carrying out these attacks and not the LRA.
The SPLA soldiers are going for more than three months without salaries. The SPLA forces that are deployed along Juba-Torit road are not supplied with food. If soldiers are not paid salaries; at the same time food is not supplied; they are bound to use force in order to earn cash and at the same time some food to eat. Should they be blamed? No, it would be unfair to blame them because they had volunteered for more than 23 years and this is the time to get rewarded for the 23 years voluntary services to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
The GOSS needs to resolve the current crisis of failing to pay the SPLA salaries. This has to be a priority if the GOSS wishes to conduct elections in South Sudan peacefully. Otherwise, any attempt that would aim at undermining the issue of salary payment to the SPLA would lead to something bigger than just banditry. When such happens, the GOSS should forget anything called elections and should have itself to blame and not the poor SPLA soldiers. The GOSS had made SPLA soldiers to understand that the time for voluntary services is over. Thus, the GOSS should live up to its promise and pay the salaries of the SPLA and supply food to those deployed to protect the innocent civilians from this and other banditries in future.

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