President Salva Kiir Mayardit has called for the necessary unified forces to refrain from being affiliated to any political party or ethic group.
He says the duty of the unified forces is to remain loyal to the nation and its citizens.
On Tuesday, South Sudan graduated over 20 thousand soldiers comprising the army, police, national security, and other units to form a unified force for the country.
Kiir reminded the forces to remain as security for the country under his command.
He warns the soldiers to desist from mistreating and discriminating the people of South Sudan based on ethnicity, religion, gender or region.
He said any member of the organized forces found to act unprofessionally will be stripped off from duty and arraigned to face the full course of the law.
“Now you belong to South Sudan and its people, refrain from any political party or ethnic affiliation. It is your duty to treat all south Sudanese equally, any soldier found discriminating the people, will be dismissed,”he said.
President Kiir calls upon the holdout groups to return home and join the Reconstituted government of National Unity under the unified forces in the peace-making process.
He says the government looks forward to disarming the civilians to eradicate inter-communal violence and cattle rustling in the society.
“I call upon the holdout groups to join us in the peace-making, as we want to disarm our civilians to eradicate inter-communal violence, improve the local security and end gender-based violence,” Kiir said.
The First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar says he is a happy man seeing the unified forces graduated.
Machar commended the soldiers for being patients at training camps and asked them to take the same display of high discipline and tolerance to their deployment locations.
He encouraged the forces to be productive, engaging in farming, road constructions and also be teachers of new ideas.
“We want you besides doing your security work, to be a productive force. You must engage in agriculture, be a teacher of people and creator of new ideas,” Teny expressed.
A civil society activist calls on the government to put priority in improving the welfare of the soldiers to mitigate the insecurity caused by people in uniforms.
Edmund Yakani, the executive director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) says there is a need for the government to pay the soldiers good money in order to avert the constant insecurity caused by the ‘Unknown gun people’ in South Sudan.
“These are good uniforms, and good soldiers only if we add good money to their pockets and the unknown gunmen will disappear in South Sudan,” Mr. Yakani advised.
Yakani told the graduates to be nonpartisan as stated in the oath of allegiance and not to be manipulated by the politicians but should always defend the constitution of South Sudan.
The unified forces are included those from the Oppositions group from SPLA-IO, SSOA and South Sudan People Defense Forces (SSPDF) that make one security body for the country.