UNMISS Protection of Civilian site for the IDPs in Juba, South Sudan - File Photo

The Internally displaced persons in Juba POC are calling for total reforms in the security sectors in the next transitional government of national unity.

Speaking during a focus group discussion aimed at seeking opinions of the IDPs organized by CEPO in partnership with Strategic Defense and Security Review Board yesterday, the IDPs said they want to see the organized forces separated from the civil population.

They also called on the government to ensure that, the police are deployed to maintain laws and order among the civilians in the country.

“We need our forces to be trustful, to be peaceful to the citizens of this country. Let them be good to all, regardless of tribe, work, and gender. Let them be responsible for the peace,” said one of the IDPs.

Another said: “We want peace and proper security, our problem is even if you made food available and peace is not there then you did nothing.”

“I think security is bad because we talk about peace while there is no implementation. In rural areas, it is difficult for you to move around. There are some areas in the country still the situation is not good,” said another IDPs.

Another participant said: “All the soldiers should have their own place and civilians should have their own place. Just like last time, there were police, and with police, if you did anything wrong, they arrest you, and if it is nothing serious, they let you go.”

For her part, the chairperson for Strategic Defense and Security Review Board, Angelina Teny said the discussion is meant to get opinions from the public.

“The purpose is to understand hear their views, what do they expect their security sector to look like, their vision and so on, we are also trying to analyze the challenges of our security sector currently and in the future,” said Angelina Teny.

Angelina Teny said the views from IDPs will enable the defense board to come up with a comprehensive strategic security assessment document

“When we finish with the data collected from different stakeholders including the organized forces, now this will finally become a document that will be known as strategic security assessment,” said the chairperson for Strategic Defense and Security Review Board.

Meanwhile, CEPO’s Executive Director, Edmund Yakani said his organization will work to ensure that, the opinions of each citizen are not censored.

“My responsibility is to ensure that the views expressed here are not censored and reflected in those reports for submission to the principals as citizens have said and that is why we are close to this process to offer a bit of transparency and accountability,” said Edmund Yakani.

The strategic Defense and security review Board is one of the agreement mechanism mandated to develop strategic security assessment and legal framework, policy document, revised defense policy document and come up with future security models that will determine the size of the organized forces.

So far the board has conducted a focus group with civil societies, members of the organized forces, IDPs and refugees in the neighboring countries.