Kiir denies ethnic bias in army, urges peace Photo: President Salva Kiir in military uniform in December 2013
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir today denied claims that there was a trend of military recruitment predominantly among certain ethnic groups in the country. This statement comes three months after several top military officials resigned while accusing Kiir and ousted chief of army Paul Malong of ethnic bias, and Kiir said last year that he had been forced to rely on soldiers from his Dinka ethnic group. Kiir was speaking at the 34th anniversary of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) today. The event was attended by many senior army officers and top government officials.Kiir accused what he termed as “the forces of evil” of trying to destroy South Sudan. “Obviously, in the last three years we have seen how the forces of evil have tried to bring our country down, they are bent on trying to rewrite history and drive the wedge among our people. They have gone as far as portraying our historical army as an ethnic army,” said Kiir.“However, we are all keenly aware that our military is comprised of South Sudanese from every ethnic group in the country,” he added. The South Sudanese leader called for peace in the country, while urging the people of South Sudan, including the opposition to embrace nationalism and focus on building the nation.“We should not allow our own hands to destroy the most precious gains we have made since we took arms in 1983,”he said. Kiir also downplayed criticisms over the delay of national dialogue that he called for since December last year, saying the initiative will kick off this month. ”On Monday, 21 of this month, the general secretariat of the national dialogue will be sworn in so that they can start to operationalize the national dialogue,” he said. “I wanted to inform you that we had been talking about this national dialogue, and this national dialogue has raised so many questions, especially those who pretend to be friends to SPLM or friends of South Sudan when they are actually enemies in disguise that they wanted to destroy South Sudan”, Kiir added. -- 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/CAJb14oqhs-jXnEtRZ_FqnAv3YqOzD9DiSDhm4TDPHbGoE_Ky0g%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
