Kampala/Juba, October 12, 2015 (SSNA) — Ugandan Chief of Defense Forces General Katumba Wamala has announced that Ugandan troops will soon begin withdrawing from South Sudan starting this Monday, adding that all Ugandan soldiers will be out of the young nation by early next month.
Gen. Katumba, who also goes by the name Edward Katumba Wamala, told reporters that Kampala believes Juba is well prepared to deal with any situation in the violence-wracked nation.
“We think they have upped up their business by now. We think things will hold,” Gen. Katumba told reporters in Kampala.
South Sudanese around the world appear feed-up with Uganda’s continuous refusal to leave South Sudan and the IGAD-Plus’s approach to the implementation of the recently signed power-sharing deal.
“If the so called IGAD-Plus really wants peace in South Sudan, it must start by enforcing its own rules. Let Uganda leave as it is the case in the peace pact,” Duop Chak Wuol, the Editor-in-Chief of the US-based South Sudan News Agency (SSNA) wrote on his social media page on Monday.
When reached to explain what he meant, Duop said he is referring to the language of the IGAD-Plus’s compromise peace agreement, which he says stipulates that all foreign forces must leave South Sudan by the 10th of October 2015.
“If Lions write jungle rules and force all animals to abide by those rules, then the Lions should also respect their own rules. Asking the rebel leadership to go to Juba before Uganda leaves South Sudan and without any sensible agreement on security arrangements is a mere joke,” Duop added.
When asked to elaborate more on his statement, Duop simply laughed and suggested that the SSNA contact the IGAD-Plus for clarification.
“Who still need to be lectured on the ongoing civil war?” he asked.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a staunch supporter of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, sent his troops to fight alongside South Sudan’s government soldiers against rebels days after fighting broke out in Juba in December of 2013.
Soon after South Sudan gained her independence from Sudan in July of 2011, the young nation became Ugandan’s largest export market and trading partner.