Rewarding rebellion is killing the morale and professionalism of our national army
Rewarding rebellion is an impediment to South Sudanese Army pursuit for professionalism
By Chol Deng Yol, Juba, South Sudan
December 5, 2015 (SSB) — Rewarding rebellion is only but blight to South Sudanese army in term of transformation and professionalism; the case of benign mutinies in greater upper Nile, Equatoria and Bhar el Ghazal region. In the interest of peace, it an humble believe of the this author that communities or individuals who chose to rebel against the government should not be rewarded with higher ranks and titles, for so doing it, may attract more rebellions and chaos in the Country.
Attaining peace remains a prerogative of everyone including rebels and government hence there is no point, whether legally, politically or morally, to make somebody’s day over the mutineers at the expense of loyalists. This, enormously, is absolutely an ambiguity within the South Sudanese government policy-makers in their attempts to buying peace and unity among various armed groups.
For instance, during the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) era, other armed groups (OAGs) were sluggishly integrated into the ranks of Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) with an hope of buying peace and tranquility among the armed South Sudanese militias unfortunately it only worked to inflate the ranks and file of SPLA with some bunch unprofessional military cadres.
It has to be recalled that for a country to be militarily recognized, it is not the quantitative summation of the military numbers that matters but the qualitative proportion that matters a lot. This is simply expressed in the term of trainings, logistics, discipline, legality and permissible responsibility including perpetuation upholding and abiding by universality of international principles and basic human rights in the country.
What does it mean to have a professional SPLA in South Sudan? The answer to this question may varied from one reader to the other however, in the opinion of this writer, a South Sudanese army is an expert, a voluntary in profession of arm, bonded with comrades in a shared identity and culture and services to the nation, under civilian authority, entrusted to defend the Constitution and the rights and interests of the South Sudanese people. This implies that it is a duty of the South Sudanese Government to ensure that SPLA Soldiers must always feel that their role is a calling and not just a job.
Instead of the inflating SPLA’s files with untrained armed civilian, the South Sudanese government, in their quest to restore peace, should embark on the implementation of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of the SPLA and other armed militias so as to have a smaller number of soldiers who would be capable of fighting and winning the nation’s war. By doing so, SPLA will create its own expert knowledge, both theoretically and practically, for the conduct of full spectrum operations inclusive of offense, defense, and civil support operations.
To better enhance professionalism of the SPLA, the government should devise some methodologies of absorbing armed rebel civilian into the SPLA and instead embark on the provision of military-technical expertise that enables the Army to conduct effective offense, defense, and stability or civil support operations on land at each of the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
Moreover, the government should commit resources toward SPLA human development expertise to enable the Army to socialize, train, educate, and develop volunteers to become Soldiers and then to develop those Soldiers to be leaders within and future stewards of the profession. This includes training, education and development systems, human development, and mental and physical fitness.
You can reach the author, Chol Deng Yol, via his email: <johnchold@gmail.com>
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