South Sudan’s bid for reconciliation back on track, despite scepticism
South Sudan’s National Reconciliation Committee was put on ice earlier this month amid talk of a rift between Salva Kiir and his Deputy Riek Machar, who had led the committee.
With its sudden dissolution, the president removed all delegated powers” from Machar. However, the sudden decision sparked criticism among many of the country’s top most offices who urged that the nation needed to tackle the trauma of more than two decades of civil war.
A new body has been created, comprising religious leaders. It will be headed by Bishop Daniel Deng Bul of the Episcopal Church and deputised by Bishop Paride Taban.
Our leadership is intact.”
Last week the church leaders sought to play down talk of clash between the country’s top politicians. There is no difference [between] them. We were even hearing that our army, our forces, our soldiers were divided. The rumours that we are hearing are not true. Our leadership is intact,” Juba Catholic Arch Bishop Paulino Lukudu told journalists.
The committee, inspired by the South African truth and reconciliation commission, will research modern and traditional conflict resolution”. The time frame of the ambitious project is unclear but the first committee, now dissolved, aimed to kick off in June.
However, many people remained cautious about the plan. Faiza Sebit, a former employee of the International Red Cross in South Sudan, warned that the committee will have to tackle deep-rooted tribal divisions and ethic fighting. Without unity our country will not move ahead,” she said. In this reconciliation (committee), there should be equality; no one group should be above the other.”
John Aurelio, chairperson of the political committee of the United Democratic Forum (UDF) party, highlighted the irony of ongoing rifts within the political structures which are meant to oversee reconciliation. They should have started with themselves first before going to the entire people,” he said. You remember the 75 officials accused of stealing billions of money (last year) -- they are still in the government. Let them come and confess what they did.”
Meanwhile others questioned the idea of importing a foreign approach to reconciliation. Mading Ngor, a journalist and blogger who now lives abroad, is among those illuminating the flaws in South Sudan’s project. There are unresolved ambiguities. The document conflates ‘truth and reconciliation’ with ‘peace and reconciliation’ as though they were interchangeable,” he wrote on his blog.
The document conflates ‘truth and reconciliation’ with ‘peace and recon-ciliation’ as though they were interchangeable.” As well as Bul and Taban, who share a history of peace making, other members of the committee include religious leaders, women, youth, civil society and state representatives. Taban recently won The Sergio Vierra de Mello award for his peace projects in Kuron village. Bul, meanwhile, has headed the Jonglei peace efforts.
Other members of the committee include Bishop Rudolf Deng of the Catholic Diocese of Wau, Bishop Enocka Tombe of the ECS Diocese of Rajaf and Peter Lual Gai.
The president instructed the previous committee to surrender their powers and assets to the new team. The government allocated at least two million dollars for the task, some of which has been used already.
Questions also linger about the funds already used by the committee, not least because South Sudan’s economy is in tatters and lacks many basic services.
Amule Mike, a politics student at the University of Juba believes that the process could waste state funds. Money spent by the first reconciliation team would not be returned he said.
Now it is difficult to retrieve the funds,” he said. That money is gone instead of using it to do other developmental ground work.”
