Keep The Flame

The announcement of the unification of South Sudan’s military has been greeted with much euphoria. On Tuesday, April 12, 2022 against expectation, President Salva Kiir ordered military officers loyal to his Vice President, Riek Machar, to be officially integrated into a unified command of the army. The integration is a central pillar of the peace process signed in 2018 that ended five years of civil war. Though its implementation has been slow and the opposing forces have clashed frequently over disagreements on how to share power with fighting skyrocketing in recent weeks, the decision to merge the two forces opens a new era in the history of one of the youngest African nations. 
The journey to this historic move comes after pressure from donors and international partners who made the two sides to understand the benefits of having a strong and unified force by submitting a list of officers to be absorbed into the security services.  This was followed by talks on the sharing ratio within the military command structure. The ratio made public gave the Sudan’s People's Liberation Movement-In Government, 60 percent and the opposition 40 percent of the military f...