The Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission has announced plans for a workshop with the South Sudanese army (SPLA) to be held in the capital Juba to discuss cantonment of forces.

A faction of the SPLA-IO under Taban Deng Gai will also take part.

In a press release today the monitoring body said the workshop would take place this Thursday and Friday at Crown Hotel in Juba.

“Amongst the issues to be deliberated during the workshop include, specific locations of cantonment sites, criteria regarding eligibility of combatants for admission into cantonments sites and arrangements for the protection and security of the sites,” said JMEC.

he faction of the South Sudanese rebel group SPLA-IO under Riek Machar, which controls parts of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei states, has not been participating in JMEC since the events of last July.

Major Dickson Gatluak Jock, deputy spokesman of the rebel SPLA-IO commented that “JMEC should not confuse SPLA-IO with the Taban and Kiir groups. How come SPLA-IO could still participate in workshops while we have already pulled out all our forces from Juba from July? I think this is nonsense.”

He said that all SPLA-IO officers that were participating in JMEC have been withdrawn. “Those who are in Juba are Taban's Deng group who claimed to me members of SPLM/A-IO but are not.”

Another agenda for the workshop is comparative lessons from cantonment exercises elsewhere. JMEC said in its press release that it will provide “detailed analysis of other cantonment exercises that have taken place in other conflict zones with a view to adapting these processes to suit the context of the South Sudan conflict.”

File photo: SPLA officers at a JMEC event last September