Mammoth tasks await new army chief Gen. Wol

A Republican Decree elevated Santino Deng Wol to First Lieutenant General, making him General Chief of Staff for the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) on Saturday April 10.

While it may sound precious and lucrative, the position entails responsibilities Gen. Wol has to uphold, critical to the full implementation of the 2018 peace agreement and total stability in South Sudan.

One of the immediate responsibilities that come with his new role is to resolve current rampant insecurity along major roads hindering free and safe movement of people and goods in and out of the country.

The mission his predecessor, Gen. Johnson Juma Okot was sacked trying to address. Rampant insecurity along major highways is impeding transportation along roads leading to Yei, Bor and Bahr el Ghazal regions.

Several road ambushes and road attacks over the past months have claimed hundreds of lives, looting of goods, abduction and burning vehicles also significantly hindered humanitarian service delivery to thousands of vulnerable people in need across the country.

President Salva Kiir has however, ordered Gen. Wol to ensure all these vices come to an end by reverting the country’s situation to normalcy, enabling free movement of goods and services across the country.

Another huge task ahead of Gen. Wol will be the graduation, reunification and redeployment of forces, as provided for in the chapter two of the revitalized peace agreement, which have delayed since 2020.

The forces

Over 20,000 who have completed training processes were yet to be graduated and formed part of the 83000 necessary unified forces.

More than half of the over twenty thousand forces at the training centers, however, have already vacated the centres while over fifty others died due to hardship, including lack of food, safe and clean drinking water and medicines, according to Ceasefire Transitional Security Arrangement, Monitoring and Verification Mechanism.

The group reported at its latest technical meeting that Important events and the pre-transitional activities, which include cantonment, training, graduation and redeployment of the Necessary Unified Forces have not been implemented.

No justified reason for the delay of the graduation has been made public by the National Transitional Committee (NTC), the body tasked to ensure smooth implementation of the agreement despite several promises.

Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs, Angelina Teny has earlier said logistical and financial constraints have been the reasons delaying the graduation to path way for training of the expected second batch.

Again, Gen. Wol has to work hard to effect reform and professionalism in the army to reflect diverse ethnic South Sudanese who will be loyal to the country, but not leaders.

“It is disheartening to note that a lack of food and other essential resources, such as medicines, shelter and separate facilities for women, has led to suffering of the trainees, who are also abandoning the training centers. Unfortunately, morale in the training centers has significantly declined. We understand that a similar situation exists in cantonment.”

“Furthermore, no NUF graduation or redeployment plans have been published to date by the Ministry of Defence or Security Mechanisms. Based on these facts we think that the process of the unification of forces is not going in the right direction as envisaged in the R-ARCSS.” AU and IGAD jointly lamented in January this year.

Slight delays

Quoted by the Chinese media outlet Xinhua, ministry of defense spokesperson, Lam Paul Gabriel, said the installation of Gen. Wol as the new Chief of Defense Forces (CDF) would slow down the deployments as the new army chief would first settle in the docket.

“We are waiting for him (Deng) to take his office then he has to call the first meeting to be briefed on what has happened since the start of implementation of the security arrangement until now. From here the CDF will then come up with a decision on what to do next,” he told Xinhua.

By Friday, April 16, the new army chief had rolled his sleeves with changes in the security docket, assigning 12 lieutenant generals areas of jurisdiction. In the same week, president Kiir had assigned him to investigate the sorry state of training centres that are making the trainees to flee in numbers.

Gen. Wol, who was a commander of SPLA Lion Division between 2007-2017, has served in the army at various levels, including as an assistant chief of staff for administration, finance and personnel and later became commander of ground forces.

He was among senior army officials sanctioned by the United Nations in 2015 for allegedly playing roles during conflicts that violated cessation of hostility agreements.

Assuming his current responsibility means Gen. Wol has to work extra hard with impartiality to have a point to prove to the international community.

Wol succeeded Gen. Okot, whom President Kiir relieved and appointed Ambassador of South Sudan to Belgium on Saturday April 10 2021 following nearly eleven months in office as SSPDF chief. 

Gen. Okot was one of the loyal SPLA officials since 1984. Like other government officials, no reason was given for the replacement Gen. Okot.