You see, the problem is you have to choose between doing right and being nice. The commanders cannot take people they have commanded for over twenty years, people who have been their comrades for long, and just say-look you have to go home. In the past the issue of security has been used as an excuse. Now there is no way of going around it. It has to be dealt with.
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) was inked in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that has come to pass. The armies of the principle signatories were obliged to undergo DDR. Did they? How much was achieved? In this interview, RICHARD MOGGA speaks to the South Sudan DDR Commission Commission Chairperson, WILLIAM DENG DENG::–
How did the SSDRC perform in the interim period? Any successes?
DENG: The first part of the DDR was what I can refer to as the CPA DDR. This first part of the DDR, the one we talked about last year, was the interim period or CPA DDR, which ended on July 8th mid night with the CPA. That DDR is something one can call, One Country Two Systems. You also know very well it was not just one country two systems but also three military systems. It involved the SPLA, SAF and JIUs-so three military systems. But with the end of the CPA we have gone to two countries and, therefore, two National Armies.
So the achievement of that time was basically dealing with transitional areas like Southern Kordufan, Abyei and Blue Nile and also sensitizing communities and international systems and partners about the need for DDR in The Republic of South Sudan (RSS) because it is an important element. So this to me is an achievement.
Achievement two is that out of the relatively small number of 12,525 people we took on we have successfully trained and integrated 9000, out of that. So out of 34,000 we took out 12,525 and I think that is a success. I also think that is a success because we were able to mount a complete campaign of the commission’s principles and ideals, in the government, among the communities and even outside the country.
So now when we saw that we were coming towards the independence of South Sudan, at the end of last year, we started putting together the policy processes, which we successfully completed and we now have the draft policy sitting in front of the Council of Ministers. We think it will be approved soon.
Now we are moving forward to what we call program planning, which we are doing now (four day workshop) and also we are going to have what they call assimilation. So what will these two do? Program planning is simply going through the timeline for DDR. We start with Pre-DDR, then go to Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and finally development and exit strategy. So that is what we are doing today. And then the assimilation is about subjecting the whole system to test. What will happen if we put in 5000 or 3000 people in transit facilities? Who will be responsible for what? What will go wrong and where? What will fail? The answers to these questions will lead us into developing a strategic work plan for DDR for the next three to four years. After that we are going to have a program design. A team of DDR international experts are working now to put the program design together and they will come up with a program and project document which will be put in front of donors for fundraising.
That is the document we will using for what they call year in year out. It will be updated often but it will be basically the document that we will use as our bible so that the program is implemented.
Qn. Why is it important to implement this program now?
Now we are the Republic of South Sudan (RSS) and the Government is building institutions and improving human resources capacity and we think that the DDR is the biggest human resource that we can use for employment and as an economic multiplier. One hundred fifty thousand, to be exact, is a lot of people and if properly handled it can change a lot of economic opportunities. If not handled well it can become a nightmare for the new government and the new republic. So this is what is driving the whole program.
Qn. Some people have suggested that these people should not undergo DDR but instead should remain in the army and be trained in vocational skills so that they can contribute to building the nation from within the Military ranks. What is your take on this?
Wong. It is either we demobilize them or we build the capacity of the army to train those people and keep them as an institution separately but that is not our job.
In any post conflict situation you must have DDR. We were fighting as a liberation army and now we have emerged a state so to operate properly we have to DDR all that huge army which we mobilized and downsize it so that we have a professional army.
We have a huge army that fought for liberation, so now we have the state and the huge army needs to be downsized to a small, effective and efficient army. You don’t need a lot of people but an agile and logistically efficient force. These days you can have a few people fighting because of technology. It is easier to move a force of 3000 men than 10,000 men. The quality of command will even be better in a smaller and leaner force. So that suggestion does not hold water.
Qn. Is it true that the United Nations or UNDP particularly did not handle the DDR program appropriately?
You see what happened in the past program was that the money for DDR came to and was held by the UNDP, what they call the fiduciary from the voluntary contributions. What happened was that when I got in I wanted to simply know what the deliverables were.
Usually in such a situation they do an internal audit and the audit did not find any corruption but found that there were irregularities. The management and overhead costs were very high and there were no deliverables. This was the problem for the program, the UN and the donors.
That has been corrected now and the way we corrected it is that the DDR Commission is going to be the lead in running and giving instructions on what to do and all the partners working with DDR will sit in the Commissions offices right here. That is why you see we are expanding the offices. So all the agencies will be sitting here and will go through me.
Qn. It was said in the past that both SPLA and SAF were apprehensive about DDR and wanted to keep their rank and file intact in case there would be a resumption of hostilities. Now that South Sudan is a new country has this attitude changed?
Look, it is not the attitude. Even now the SPLA cannot do it. You see, the problem is you have to choose between doing right and being nice. The commanders cannot take people they have commanded for over twenty years, people who have been their comrades for long and just say-look you have to go home. In the past the issue of security has been used as an excuse. Now there is no way of going around it. It has to be dealt with.
Someone has to do it. How do you send a comrade home when you are remaining to get your salary? It is a dilemma. This is the problem. The SPLA is committed to the DDR it is just that the program must be made attractive so that when people come out of the army they go and find something to do.
Qn. One hundred fifty thousand people is a very large number. How long is it going to take you to DDR all of them?
Six to eight years and we are going to start with three facilities for what they call transitional facilities. And then we go to six and then we might go to twenty, to the States. We will start with a small number. May be 2000-3000 next year in January and June to test our case and then when we get better we will increase the number. May be the other year we might have 45,000. We will start small and build the confidence of all involved in the program and then as we improve we will increase the numbers. After seven years we will be almost done.
Qn. Is the DDR Commission going to control the funds in this second phase?
No. We don’t want to control funds because you see my current system here is very weak and we don’t have the capacity to control money. This is tens of millions of dollars and we do not have the capacity to run it. So what we do is, we get another agency to run this money. May be UNDP, World Bank or whoever, we have not decided yet. The government will decide, then the donors will give the money to that agency. Then we will tell them that we want this to be done and they will help with professional procurement.
We do not want to get involved with money because even if we lose a penny they will say we have corruptly eaten the money.
Qn. Is there sufficient political will in support of your program seeing that your policy document is sitting in front of the Council of Ministers?
There are a lot of things going on. You know there are about thirty two items that are pending. Everybody has been too busy. The political will has already been established. The SPLA, the Ministry of Defense, by the issuing of the provisional order establishing the mandate and existence of the DDR Commission is the political will. It is more than political will and the President has already said that this the most important issue after the security of the border.
