Juba peace conference warns against external resolution
February 18, 2015 (JUBA) – An internal peace conference gathering leaders and citizens from all tribes of South Sudan has called for immediate end of war, and warned that external solutions would not be sustainable.
Central Equatoria state governor, Clement Wani Konga told reporters on Wednesday that regional efforts to end the inter South Sudanese conflict have failed to bring peace and end the fighting that erupted in December 2013.
“We have to be frank to ourselves that the reason why many ceasefires have never been honoured by the two sides since the conflict begun is that the solution has never been homegrown. It was never from our people. The decision was imported and imposed on them,” Kongo said.
“The same thing would apply to the peace agreement. If it is imposed, it would never work. Nobody would implement it,” he added.
The governor who was part of a South Sudanese delegation to meet presidents of some neighbouring countries further said the African leaders encouraged them to seek an internal solution to the conflict.
“This was what we went and told the regional leaders and they told us to find our own solution, Central Equatoria state governor”, Konga told reporters on Wednesday.
Konga, who chairs the governor caucus, attributed the cause of war to the failure by the leaders to deliver service to the people while they were together in the government.
Last week, governors representing South Sudanese states of Central Equatoria, Western Equatoria, Eastern Equatoria, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Western Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile toured some IGAD capitals to explain their stance against proposal of leadership structure and power-sharing at the peace talks in Addis Ababa.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has given up to 19 February for the two principals to consult with their respective constituencies and sign a final peace agreement by 5 March.
From his part, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic church in Juba, Paulino Lukudu, said in his opening remarks on Tuesday that it has been long to stay without peace since the war broke out.
“My dear people, it is too long, it is too long that you are now not in peace. This war must stop and if the war does not stop, we shall finish all ourselves, and we shall finish our entire nation”, said the top religious leader during his opening prayer service.
He further addressed the participants saying they are representing “our ancestors, our parents, and all the people in South Sudan” adding “This is the best kind of the meeting that is needed for us to look into problems that we are in.”
The religious leader urged the traditional leaders to put the nation first and to start serious search for peace and stability, stressing a “need to go deeper than usual” to find solutions to the violence.
He pointed that the Church has been calling to end war and the suffering of civilians but the warring parties did not listen to the religious leaders.
“This is the only thing we have been asking all along and it (the war) never stopped. We ask again this war must stop. People of God are suffering, they are starving, they are hungry, they are dying”, he said.
(ST)