Salva Kiir urges religious coexistence in Southern Sudan
By Isaac Vuni
August 3, 2007 (JUBA) – The First Vice President and President of Southern Sudan Government has urged to fight religious discrimination in southern Sudan; he reminded that during the SPLM/A struggle Christians and Muslim coexisted without any consideration to the religious factor.
Kiir urges southern politicians not to divide their people along religious line. Otherwise, during the war SPLM/A captured and held thousands prisoners of war from Sudan Armed Forces mostly Muslims and they were given full religious right including fasting during Ramadan period with fasting requirement provided by the SPLM/A leadership.
He was speaking at the first inaugural of prayer breakfast for the southern Sudan legislative assembly held today at the assembly building, first of its kind.
He further said that Southern Sudan will always respect and maintain religious diversity and will work for its promotion in southern Sudan because even the most repressive government that came and went in this world did not succeed in pressing a particular religion.
President Kiir noted that in Sudan Christianity became much stronger at a very difficult time when there was suppression of religion in Sudan. Christianity did not varnished during that difficult time and will not take any revenge against any religion of that time.
“I want to assured you that you respond to this invitation is very much encouraging to our people of southern Sudan and it will strengthen us on what we are suppose to do in our young country” remarks Kiir.
“As a leader of GoSS, I would like to reaffirm our commitment in implementation of the CPA brokered by Kenyan Chief Mediator, Rt. Gen. Lazaro Sumbeiywo however; there are still many things that have not been done in implementation of the CPA.”
“I believe that if we don’t lay a firm foundation for the government of southern Sudan, then there will be no good future government that will come to the south.”
Therefore, we have committed ourselves as the government of southern Sudan to good governances which is the cry of everybody that there must be good governance. In this regard, I must affirm to you that we will always follow this slogan without any hesitation so that the people themselves feel that they are being governed in the way they expected through out their life. By doing that we must fight the corruption which is cancer of this world today. And corruption is colourless but it’s very effective. So if we have to combat and erase corruption, we must be guided by God.
President assured the congregation that SPLM/A fought for justice and equality therefore we will always be mindful about what the policy it stood for by administering justice in its administration so that the strong or weak are represented equally before the law as no body will be above the law.
On corruption, he assures congregation, that no body will be favour. “If you swallow something that does not belong to you, you will be forced to vomit it out because it does not belong to you” Kiir said.
There are people who pretend to be God fearing but when they go into darkness, they do very shameful things. If we say we are God fearing then it will be very easy for us to eradicate corruption.
President Kiir says by loving one’s neighbor as oneself, you can eradicate tribalism in our country the Sudan. Tribalism has been used for a very long time in our country to divide the people of southern Sudan and it has been a serious weapon against our people but I now believe that southern Sudanese have become mature enough to know their previous weaknesses where they went wrong. These weapons will not be used again in our situation so that our people are divided according to their ethnic group.
Nobody has the right to deny any ethnic group their rights to exercise their culture and traditions. Otherwise, God is not mistaken to create us with different colours, light or dark skin and white or red yet the Satan is always portrayed in black color because every things evil is always associated with black person but it’s wrong. We can prove that a person wrong by saying God is a black man. The white people often discarded black people yet when they white go for wedding they put on black suit, Kiir observed.
We must be proud of our skin, culture and tradition even our different religions but we have one thing that we should not compromise, the interest of our people and of our country, Kiir emphasized.
He went on saying that there are different parties in the current government of southern Sudan headed by southerners but that their paramount interest in the government is to work for the benefits and welfare of the people of southern Sudan.
We as leaders will accept all short coming in our government and nobody will deny the responsibility among us because every thing starts with a leader and ends with a leader. Therefore we will do everything to avoid disappointment of our people and rather do something that pleases them and our God, declared Kiir.
The people have been praying for throughout the struggle and today it has come at the right time for us to give praise to almighty God for what he has done for us in southern Sudan.
Kiir said there are many things that have not been implemented in the CPA but we are doing every possible effort to ensuring that the CPA is implemented as it was signed on January 9th 2005. Otherwise, many Committees has been form on Abyei but we sill want to ensured its full implementation.
Border between the north and the south has not been demarcated but it will start at the end of rainy season otherwise its affect the oil share of the south because most oil wells are annexed to the north, declared Kiir.
He said the area where he is coming from has been annexed to the north therefore “I have no reason to become the president of the government of southern Sudan and this is a very serious matter that has to be corrected as soon as possible”, declared Kiir
President Kiir emphasised that deployment of forces as stipulated in the CPA security arrangement has not gone smoothly as Upper Nile and Unity states are still under occupation of SAF yet they SAF has been issuing a misleading announcement that SAF has withdrawn from southern Sudan. Instead SAF has been reinforced by Khartoum government; he adds, “What our partners should know is that nobody forces us in signing the CPA on January 9th 2005”
DARFUR
The GoSS president went on sing that situation in Darfur is still alarming although the Sudan government has agreed to deployment of high bridge forces in Darfur that will be sending by the end of this year but may lives would be lost in the middle of this period.
President Kiir observed that since the war started in Darfur in year 2004 to the present, the international community kept on giving the same figure that there are 200,000 people killed and four million displaced yet there are daily killing in Darfur, Kiir wondered why the same figure is being maintained.
He reiterated SPLM committed to finding political solution to Darfur conflict and also working very hard to bring together the 26 factional groups of Dafurians fighters for reconciliation among themselves and consequently to form a unit for negotiation, Kiir disclosed.
The catholic Archbishop Paulino Lokudu said signing CPA is not enough therefore, he urges Goss leadership to see the need to govern and lead the people of southern Sudan through the wisdom of God and praised the spirit of prayer breakfast for binding lawmakers with grace of God in their daily activities for the people of southern Sudan.
Meanwhile Anglican Bishop Anthony Poggo said it is an indication that southerners leaders are rely on God guidance regardless of what they do at various positions for the love of Almighty God.
Rt. Rev Poggo said it is very important for parliamentarian to set aside time to bring issues to God and this is a very good step for the people of southern Sudanese. It is high time our masses realize that prayer is good and we should continue to pray especially for our leaders who very much need our prayer to enable them make major and right decisions from time to time. Since parliament is the watch dog over the government hence we should from time to time remembered them in our prayer, remarks Rev. Poggo.
The First Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly Prayer Breakfast under the theme; “Advancing good Governance and Godly Leadership” was organized by MP Jimmy Wongo, Chairman of Public Account Committee of SSLA in conjunction with Africa Evangelistic Enterprise of Kenya, World Vision of South Sudan programme.
It brought together both the GoSS and state of Central Eqatoria parliamentarians including invited guesses from Kenya, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbgwe, South Africa and United States of America delegates among others.
The event was financially supported by SSLA administration and MPs contribution, Kenya Commercial Bank, Ivory Bank among many others.
(ST)