Former Kenyan president Moi urges Dinka and Nuer elders to advocate for peace
June 10, 2015 (NAIROBI) – Kenyan former president, Daniel Arap Moi, has urged Dinka and Nuer elders of the rival major communities in South Sudan to put aside their tribal differences and take the lead in the typical African elders’ role to end the ongoing deadly war in the young country.
“In your African culture, elders are the pillars of the society and we believe that where there are elders things do not go wrong,” he said in a statement which copy Sudan Tribune has obtained.
Moi made the remarks during a joint meeting with rival elders from the Nuer and Dinka communities whom he invited to his house in Nairobi last Wednesday for consultations on a new initiative on role the elders should play to end the war.
He told the elders of his support to the initiative, saying there was need to address the root causes of the conflict which erupted in mid-December 2013 and plunged the country into civil war.
The former Kenyan president also challenged the South Sudanese leadership to be “brave enough” to let go power ambitions in order to save the country from collapse.
Moi, who was instrumental in bringing to an end the 21 years of war between Sudan and South Sudan, said he felt pain seeing the country he helped created yet to go back into deadly violence and not development.
He pledged to facilitate the rivals elders in their joint efforts to mobilize for peace in the country and urged them to do it by forging a joint platform with one united voice for peace, pursue the way of dialogue instead of fighting, establish the root causes of the conflict and how they can be addressed as well as mobilize respective communities to support peace and initiate a process of healing and reconciliation.
“Mine shall be to facilitate you in achieving these objectives, and any that you may consider critical,” he assured the elders of his support to the initiative.
“The future generations will judge you harshly if you let your country collapse because of your own failures to maintain peace. You cannot run away from the responsibility of making peace and promoting national integration,” he told the elders.
He also advised them to include elders from other communities in South Sudan in the initiative for peace mobilization across the war-ravaged country.
President Salva Kiir’s community, the Dinka, had formed what they called Jieng [Dinka] Council of Elders which many critics said were anti-peace and responsible for many negative actions the president might have executed per their advice.
The Nuer community, from which the opposition leader Riek Machar hails, also reciprocated and formed the Nuer Council of Elders which significance and influence on the rebel leadership is not yet measured.
War erupted on 15 December 2013 when internal political debates on reforms within the ruling SPLM leadership turned violent. The fighting pitted rival Dinka and Nuer communities when president Kiir’s guards and ethnic Dinka militia groups turned against Nuer civilians in the capital, Juba, reportedly killing thousands of their members in cold blood.
(ST)