South Sudan’s VP commends the role played by southern chiefs in north Sudan

April 7, 2011 (JUBA) – Vice president of South Sudan, Riek Machar has commended the positive contribution made by South Sudanese chiefs who resided in north Sudan, during 21 years of civil war, to the welfare of southerners displaced in the northern part of the country, in a meeting on Thursday in Juba.

Hundreds of local chiefs, most of whom were elected in north Sudan, found themselves in charge of over three million southerners who were displaced to the north during the war. Their main structural body, known as the Southern Sudan Council of Chiefs (SSCC), has moved its office to Juba, after repatriating most of the southerners from the North.

Machar said the South Sudanese chiefs, while in the north, ensured that the displaced population maintained their native region’s cultures as well as keeping their unity and identity as a people.

The Vice President made the remarks while meeting in Juba with a delegation from the SSCC, composed of representatives of repatriated chiefs from all the ten states of South Sudan under the chairmanship of chief Deng Macham, from Northern Bahr el Ghazal state.

“We acknowledge and commend the role you played in maintaining our people’s cultures and ensured their unity as a people while in the North,” Machar told the delegation.

He also commended the role played by the chiefs in the mobilisation of the people of Southern Sudan to repatriate to the South.

He told the repatriated chiefs to harmonise their return to the South with the existing chiefs in their respective states who remained in the region during the war.

Representatives of chiefs from Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and the three states of Darfur also participated in the meeting.

Machar also assured the assembled of the role being played by the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in ensuring successful elections and popular consultations in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile areas.

He also said the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement encourages unity amongst the Darfur rebels and to pursue dialogue with the government in Khartoum in order to peacefully resolve the Darfur conflict.

(ST)