By William Madouk<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
South Sudan People\u2019s Defence Forces (SSPDF) have broken their silence regarding the recent clashes in Nasir, Upper Nile State, asserting that the situation is a “politicized” conflict.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Returning to Juba from Malakal, Lt-Gen James Koang Chuol, Assistant Chief of Defence Forces for Operations, stated that their mission was to oversee the rotation of SSPDF contingent in Nasir, but not to disarm.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were instructed by the command in mid-February to replace our forces who had been in Nasir for a long time, some spent 8 or 10 years. And it was their right to be replaced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I left together with my colleague [Gen Olony] in order to see them off as they [new forces] go to Nasir,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Gen Chuol, who also serves as Assistant Chief of Defence Forces for Training, explained that before the forces embarked on their mission, the situation was already politicized, suggesting that the army was going to disarm civilians.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore the force could leave there is politics, the whole thing was politicized, that we are going to deploy these forces in Doma, Ulang, and Jokou. we tried our level best to correct it, through social media and other law enforcement agencies but we failed,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not politicians, we are soldiers and our primary mission was to relieve Nasir forces, this is what was given to us by our chief of defence forces as requested by command or general headquarters,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Chuol indicated that the politicization was incited by a few politicians in Juba and South Sudanese in the diaspora.<\/p>\n From his part, Lt-Gen. Johnson Olony, Assistant Chief of Defence Forces for Disarmament clarified that the SSPDF forces were not going to disarm civilians or engage in confrontations with SPLM\/A-IO forces in Nasir; their mission was solely to relieve the overstayed SSPDF forces.<\/p>\n \u201cThis politics started here in Juba. I don\u2019t fear and I always say the truth \u2013 this whole thing starts with Dr. Riek Machar, the SPLM\/A-IO,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n \u201cThose who fought are not the white army, where will the white army get RPG and PKM from? You know I have been an IO member and rejoined the government \u2013 so it is IO that fought with SSPDF in Nasir, they are not civilians,\u201d Olony continued.<\/p>\n He dismissed allegations that he had gone back to the bush.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a rumour that Johnson Olony has gone back to bush this is just a social media claim and it’s not true. We are soldiers, not a politician and South Sudan belongs to us all,\u201d said.<\/p>\n \u201cas you know I am the commander of disarmament, so, these are just fabrications and don\u2019t listen to it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n In addition, SSPDF spokesperson Maj Gen Lul Ruai Koang stated that they were engaged in combat with the white army and Riek Machar\u2019s forces, the SPLA-IO, in Nasir.<\/p>\n For instance, Ruai mentioned Col Tor Gile Thon, who was killed during the Nasir confrontation and was a commander of the white army, stating that he was an SPLA-IO officer.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2019, he was selected by SPLA-IO to be part of the instructors that we trained, when we were preparing for the training of the Nasser unified forces we created unified training centres,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the instructors for unified training centres in great Upper Nile. The instructors were trained in Upper Nile capital Malakal, and Tor Gile Thon was Lieutenant colonel at the time,\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cAnd prior to him attacking Nasser, he was elected as the operation commander for the white army. Now, if SPLA-IO was not in agreement, they would have taken action against him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By William Madouk South Sudan People\u2019s Defence Forces (SSPDF) have broken their silence regarding the recent clashes in Nasir, Upper Nile State, asserting that the situation is a “politicized” conflict. Returning to Juba from Malakal, Lt-Gen James Koang Chuol, Assistant Chief of Defence Forces for Operations, stated that their[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":33903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Lt-Gen-James-Koang-Chuol-assistant-chief-of-defence-forces-for-operation-assistant-CDF-for-Training-and-Lt-Gen-Johnson-Olony-assistant-Chief-of-Defense-forces-for-disarmament.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33904,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33902\/revisions\/33904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}