Jonglei state commissioners’ forum calls for peace ahead of referendum

By Thon Philip Alue

September 11, 2010 (BOR) – A three day forum for Jonglei State commissioners concluded on Saturday in Bor with calls for urgent
measures to minimize insecurity in order to ensure the smooth conduct of the southern Sudan January 2011 referendum on self-determination.

The government of Jonglei State welcomed the various recommendations as deputy governor Hussein Mar Nyuot pledged to observe the commissioners’ document in the council of ministers and by the state assembly.

During the last day of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) sponsored forum, delegates to the meeting were grouped into five sections: services delivery, security, finance, referendum and natural resources. Each group made its own analysis of the current situation and made recommendations that were approved, disapproved or supplemented at the combined last sitting.

Calls were made to step-up efforts to quell insecurity in Pigi and Pibor counties where defeated April elections candidates, Athor Deng and David Yauyau, have been engaging with the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) for the last three
months.

Sanitation, training for local people on the referendum and creating mobile centers for pastoralists to vote from were hot topics at the forum.

“We are very pleased for these recommendations by commissioners and the part [of recommendations] concerning the State [will be] worked hard by council of ministers and state assembly to implement them,” Nyuot told the Sudan Tribune shortly after closing the forum.

(ST)