Lift arms embargo to enhance forces deployment, Makuei tells UNSC
The government of South Sudan has appealed to the United Nations Security Council to lift the arms embargo to enhance the deployment of already-graduated unified forces.
Last year, parties to the South Sudan Peace Agreement reached a milestone and graduated over 50,000 forces now awaiting deployment.
However, government officials, including President Salva Kiir, continue to blame a lack of arms for the delay in the deployment of the forces.
While responding to the recent extension of the continuation of the national emergency concerning South Sudan, Michael Makuei, government spokesperson, appealed to the UNSC and the international community to lift the sanctions.
“We have been calling upon the security council and the international community to lift the arms embargo so that a good Samaritan can give us arms for these soldiers (the unified forces) and deploy them,” Makuei said.
He expressed the view that extending an arms embargo would leave the government with no option but to deploy forces without guns or delay the deployment of forces altogether.
“We have been told to abide by the arms embargo and at the same time we have been told to deploy the forces that have been graduated with sticks,” he said.
Makuei argued that putting more embargoes on South Sudan would continue to obstruct the implementation of the peace agreement, on which parties are focusing their efforts to achieve peace.
“To me, I see this as another way of obstructing the implementation of the peace agreement by those who are here in South Sudan,” he said.
South Sudan’s Vice President Rebecca Nyandeng called on the UNSC to lift the arms.
Nyandeng stressed that the embargo is slowing down the implementation of agreements, more so the security arrangements.
“We are going to graduate them with sticks, and then you just send them to the community?”
While addressing governors during the 6th Governors Forum last year, President Kiir called for the lifting of the arms embargo to allow speedy implementation of the peace agreement.
“We intensify our call for lifting the unjustified arms embargo. Today I am joining all of you in calling on the UN to lift the arms embargo on us,” said Kiir.