South Sudan steps up inter-state community reconciliation conferences

By James Gatdet Dak

January 4, 2009 (JUBA) – The regional Government of Southern Sudan has directed relevant authorities in the region to resume intensive inter and intra-state community peace and reconciliation conferences as the dry season approaches.

The conferences aim at reconciling various communities to avoid conflicts and co-exist peacefully among themselves.

In his briefing to the Council of Ministers on Friday after his one-week tour of four Jonglei state counties, Vice President, Riek Machar Teny warned of possible inter and intra-community conflicts during the dry season unless reconciliatory conferences are urgently conducted among the various communities.

Community conflicts are common in Southern Sudan during the dry season because of the causes ranging from cattle grazing rights, access to water points, revenges on past murders, cattle raiding and abduction of children.

Machar told the cabinet that he witnessed this kind of ongoing violence during his tour of four counties in the state where a group of Murle youth who defied the orders of their elders before Machar arrived in the state left the county to carry out raids in the neighboring counties of Bor, Akobo and Waat.

The Murle elders reported to the Vice President upon his arrival in Pibor town that they reported the situation to the County Commissioner who alerted the neighboring counties about the Murle youth who left the county to raid the neighboring communities.

The culprits actually attacked the three counties while the Vice President was on the ground that resulted to killing of a number of people including a police man in the Bor incident, one culprit was killed in the Akobo incident and 7 attackers were repulsed in the Waat incident. Unspecified numbers of people were also wounded in the three separate incidents.

Machar also said there was a growing insecure atmosphere between the Nuer sections of Lou Nuer and the Jikany Nuer, who felt unease with the Lou Nuer’s plan to cross over to their territory for pasture and water points during the dry season.

He also said there was a growing tension between the Lou Nuer of Wuror County and the Dinka of Duk County, as those of Duk might not allow the Lou Nuer to move to touc (pasture & water point area) during the dry season. “The atmosphere I saw, I am afraid they might fight unless something is urgently done about it,” Machar warned the Council.

He said in his interaction with the different communities for seven days during the Christmas and New Year holidays, the discussions were dominated by expression of mistrust among the Jonglei communities, but added that all wanted peaceful co-existence if issues that caused conflicts and mistrust among them were harmonized and resolved.

Also local administrators and chiefs in the areas visited by the Vice President presented plans they understood to be of immediate need to their populations and blamed both the Government of Southern Sudan and the Jonglei state government for what they said was “neglect to the grass root population.”

They argued that all Jonglei state counties are not connected by roads and do not access the state capital, Bor, four years after the CPA was signed and Government formed.

The cabinet resolved to carry out intensive peace and reconciliation conferences among the communities throughout Southern Sudan with the aim to reconcile them, resolve on the causes of the conflicts and to speedily implement relevant projects in the communities.

It also resolved to revise the Government’s strategic plans to meet the emerging and immediate needs of the populations.

The Council also resolved to speedily implement all the pledges of service delivery projects promised to communities or counties by the President of the Government of Southern Sudan during his visits last year.

Among those pledges President Salva Kiir promised included hospitals, schools, drilling of boreholes that would be financed by his office and in addition to other projects such as roads for connectivity to be implemented by the concerned Ministry.

The Council also resolved to continue with the disarmament of the civil population and the deployment of the organized forces in the areas of potential conflicts to stop them from recurring.

Jonglei state remains one of the most volatile areas in Southern Sudan in terms of cattle theft and raiding, child abduction and inter-community conflicts followed by Lakes state that, until recently, dominated the media with inter-sectional fighting.

(ST)