Museveni puts UPDF on standby, as tension grips South Sudan
Uganda 's military adventurism is set to be tested again in South Sudan, as President Museveni put his military generals on standby to come to the rescue- again of his counterpart Gen Salva Kiir, Nile Post exclusively reveals
Information coming in from Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) headquarters in Mbuya, Kampala indicates that the army leaders have been put on standby to deploy to State House in Juba to ensure the safety of President Salvar Kiir.
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Tensions have been building up in Juba for the last three days ever since President Salva Kiir sacked the country’s Defense Minister Angelina Teny, who is also his long time political rival Riek Machar's wife, and interior minister Mahmoud Solomon in a presidential order read on state TV late on Friday.
Machar’s office issued a statement and noted that the sacking of the Defence Minister occurred without consultations.
Angelina Teny a member of the Riek Machar’s SPLM-IO that is a key party to the 2018 peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war.
According to the terms of the peace deal, the ministry of defense is to be led by Machar’s party and the interior ministry by Kiir’s, and therefore the sacking of Angelina Teny has been seen as a violation of the 2018 Peace Agreement.
Following the rise of tensions between the two camps of Riek Machar and President Slava Kiir, sources inside State House Juba indicate that Slava Kiir has been in touch with the Kampala administration to seek for assistance should there be need for it.
A source inside State House Entebbe has also told the Nile Post that President Yoweri Museveni has asked the army leaders to monitor the situation and brief him frequently on their own assessment of the situation.
Sources inside the army also indicate that the force has also put on alert with the commandant of the Special Forces Command, an elite force mandated to protect the president and his family, to be ready to be deploy soldiers and specialised fighting equipment to State House Juba should the tensions between President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar escalate.
Nile Post has contacted the UPDF spokesperson Brig Gen Felix Kulayigye to comment on the possible deployment but he declined to comment saying that he was not aware of any arrangement of sending soldiers to Juba, yet. ‘There’s nothing like that for now,’ Brig Gen Kulayigye told our reporter via a phone call.
SPLA (IO) protests Kiir decision
In a statement written by Riek Machar on March 4, 2023, he protests President Kiir’s decision to sack the Defense and Interior Ministers. Riek called upon the President to; revoke the unilateral decree and the Republican order, and reinstate Angelina Teeny as Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs. Riek in the same statement further states such decisions should be done ‘with continuous consultations within the President, between the President and the first vice president, and the four Vice Presidents to ensure effective governance during the transitional period.’
End of peace agreement
South Sudan political parties key to the revitalised agreement announced a new transitional two year period starting February 22, 2022, the day the unity government was formed.
Initially, the unity government was to be in power for three years and elections were conducted in 2023 but according to a statement read by the Minister of Cabinet Affairs Martin Elia Lomoro, the extended transitional period to peace would them end in February 2025 with elections held by December 2024.
Uganda’s role in South Sudan Peace
Uganda has played a key role in the unification of the forces in South Sudan since 2019 when President Museveni, as one of the guarantors of the peace agreement for South Sudan, sent then Maj Gen Paul Lokech(RIP) to Juba to monitor on behalf of the guarantors of the peace process, the assembling, screening, demobiliSation and integration of the armed forces of South Sudan.
