FULL SPEECH: Museveni at graduation of united S.Sudan army

Juba, South Sudan | THE INDEPENDENT |  Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni was one of several heads of state who early this week witnessed the graduation of the 1^st batch of the unified forces of the Republic of South Sudan. This follows the Entebbe Tripartite agreement of November 2019 in which a cessation of hostilities & a transition process towards general elections within South Sudan was set in motion.

After years of stagnation, President Kiir who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the South Sudan Defense Forces (SSPDF), on Tuesday graduated a total of 21,973 unified forces.

The passed-out included 3,308 VIP protection forces of the Unified SSPDF, and 4,366 personnel into the unified South Sudan National Police Service. Kiir also integrated 6,315 personnel into the unified National Security Service, and 1,120 personnel into a unified National Prison service.

*****

Here is a transcript of President Yoweri Museveni’s brief speech:

His Excellency General Salva Kiir Mayardit, President of the Republic of South Sudan,

His Excellency General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, President of the Republic of The Sudan.

The other delegation leaders,

Their Excellencies the Vice Presidents ,

And all the brother people of South Sudan,

****

I am here on behalf of your brother people of Uganda, and on the invitation of His Excellency Gen Salva Kiir, to show our solidarity and happiness about what is happening here today. To see a united force of the people of South Sudan, making a nucleus of a new national force. I thank you so much. CONGRATULATIONS!

I was watching these people who were passing here, and I could see they are from all parts of South Sudan, because I know you. I know who is who.  I know the tall ones and the short ones, and I can see they were all here. I was watching them, I am very happy about that.

Africa, over the last 700 years, has suffered so much. Slave trade, colonialism, under-development and hunger, all have been here with us,  caused mainly by two problems.

Problem number 1, the greed of foreigners who always take advantage of Africa. You know who they are.
Who was taking slaves? Do you need to be told who it was? Colonialism. So, those people are known, and they always take advantage of the problems here.

The 2nd problem are our own internal mistakes, because by 1900 the whole of Africa had been colonized except for Ethiopia. How could it happen that the whole of Africa was colonised? It is because of our internal mistakes. How could we allow this bunch of foreigners to come and take over our continent?

The internal mistakes, are partly lack of full information, but also, when I went to Khartoum, General Al-Burhan, taught me some Arabic words. One Arabic word he taught me was Hawiyah. Once you go according to Hawiyah, you are lost, you will not manage. So, we the progressive forces in Africa…..  You had people talking of Mwalimu Nyerere, John Garang, Gen Salva Kiir here, the SPLM, the NRM and other progressive forces, for us, we never emphasis Hawiyah. We emphasis Mashallah. What are the interests of the people? We do not care what tribe you are, what religion you are, but you define the interests of the people, which are the same. Do you all have the same hunger? Yes. If there is Bari hunger and Dinka hunger you tell me. But what I know is hunger is hunger, floods are floods, disease is disease. So, we the progressive forces, we say ‘Look at the Mashallah of the people, not the Hawiyah‘

These people are here and are now part of one force.. prisons, army and so on.  But the army and the civil service, these are money consumers. I heard the vice president say that you are now going to make them wealth creators also. Produce wealth instead of just consuming. The Vice President wants you to grow crops, have factories so that you become wealth creators, but otherwise public service is a money consumer. That means that money must come from somewhere. Where does money come from? From Commercial agriculture. If you go crops for food and for money, that is wealth.

Industries, services, ICT, that is where wealth and jobs are. These government jobs are limited. Not everybody can be in the government.  Uganda has got a population of 43 million people now, the civil/public service altogether 480,000.  Public service cannot solve the problem of the whole population  for jobs. The jobs are in commercial agriculture, in industry, Services and ICT. But these need peace,  without peace you will not have commercial agriculture, you will not have industries, you will not have tourism, and so on.

📍 JUBA:
South Sudan's former rebels join unified army

📸 @peterlouis6 | @AFPphoto
✍🏿 @WaakheWudu 👇🏿https://t.co/giiyxHKIcg pic.twitter.com/4HDQ9fkKw7

— Hillary Orinde (@OrindeHillary) August 30, 2022

So it therefore it is an ideological issue in Africa that we should understand the importance of peace and importance of of the sectors that develop wealth, the other  four I have talked about. The army may try to produce but it cannot produce as much as the population if the population has got peace.

I am very happy to see you are on the right track. You have united these forces. The process delayed, but when I talked to Gen Kiir he told me part of the problem was money.

This integration needs money. I think, some of the partners, the friends whose countries made a lot of mistakes in Africa here in the past,  should bring that money so that this people can move quickly. Don’t just talk talk, talk, talk. In Swahili we say maneno, maneno.

Congratulations and thank you very much. I came here  and I have just been here enjoying myself.

Thank you very much.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

*****

RELATED PHOTOGRAPHS

 *****

SOURCE PPU