SPLA-IO senior military staff receive UN workshop in Ethiopia
Article
Comments (0)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
facebookmyspacetwitterbuzzyahoo
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
February 10, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Senior military officers of the
armed opposition faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
(SPLM-IO) have completed a two-day workshop in Addis Ababa with
technical support from the United Nations (UN) through the Office of
the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence
in Conflict and UN Integrated Mission in South Sudan.
JPEG - 63.3 kb
SPLA-IO Senior staff members who took part at the UN workshop (ST Photo)
The leadership of the SPLM/A-IO has delegated 13 senior staff
representing various military departments for a workshop which was
organized by the United Nations in Addis Ababa on from 4-5 February,
2016.
Participants on Monday told Sudan Tribune that one of the main
objectives of the workshop was to address alleged human rights abuses
that might have been committed by both sides of the conflict in South
Sudan.
This is the second time that senior SPLA staff have been brought to
Ethiopia so that issues of human rights concerns in the country are
openly discussed. At the end of the workshop, it was resolved that two
of the eight Divisions of the SPLA-IO will appoint 100 Focal Points
each as a starting point.
David Bang Teny, member of the Implementation Task Force said the
workshop was so significant in that it is done in line with unilateral
communiqué signed by Dr. Riek Machar Teny, the chairman and commander
in chief of the SPLM/A-IO on 18 December 2014 and joint communiqué by
Salva Kiir Mayardit of the SPLM/A-IG on 11 October 2014 respectively
on Conflict Related Sexual Violence.
The two principals have appointed High Level Focal Points who would
directly liaise with Special Representative of the Secretary General
of the United Nations.
Accordingly, Awan Guol Riak, the current Minister in the office of the
president on the government side and Angelina Teny, the chairperson of
Defense and Security committee on the Opposition side were selected.
The Director General of the Military Justice of the SPLA, Major
General William Kuol Chuol, among others have presented brief and
precise Military Justice programmes which are already in place in
areas controlled by SPLA-IO.
Participants told Sudan Tribune that they have gained crucial
knowledge from the work shop and pledged to assure they would do
everything in their powers to pass on the knowledge as trained.
Gatluak Michael, one of the implementation task force member said the
UN workshop that he had attended was significant in the sense that it
educated combatants that raping and other conflict related sexual
violence are against international humanitarian law (IHL), humanity,
country’s constitution (SPLA-ICT that both SPLA-IO and SPLA-IG are
using), norms and customary laws.
“It also aims at transforming the SPLA-IO [in] to a national army.
Most importantly, it goes in line with the directives that were given
to the entire forces of SPLA-IO by [Commander-in-Chief] Riek Machar
after the Nasir consultative conference in April 2014 on how to
protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law before,
during and after defensive battles,” Gatluak added.
In collaboration with the United Nations, there are going to be
ongoing trainings on how issues of human rights violations by soldiers
will be documented and will hold accountable those who are implicated
on committing human rights abuses if proven guilty by competent court.
In less than a month, an Implementation Task Force office will be
inaugurated at Pagak, South Sudan, whose members are official
appointees of the two principals based on their expertise on different
areas and will be working in conjunction with UN agencies for a quick
and timely documentation of human rights abuses in South Sudan.
(ST)
--
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob
View this message at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oq0R1nzvnJjtiXuekUOrcps1%3Dorduuv8ykPTyALO8bKUQ%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
