A two-day peace conference of representatives from all of South Sudan’s 64 tribes began Tuesday at Nyakuron Cultural Center in Juba, South Sudan.
Each of South Sudan’s 64 tribes sent 10 representatives to Nyakuron to discuss a path to peace ahead of tomorrow’s summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia between the two warring parties.
“My dear people, it is too long, it is too long that you are now not in peace,” said Catholic Archbishop of the Juba Diocese Paulino Lukudu Loro, who opened the meeting. “This war must stop and if the war does not stop, we shall finish all ourselves, and we shall finished our entire nation.”
“From the background of our tribes…from the ancestors of this land, you are representing our ancestors, our parents, and all the people in South Sudan,” Lukudu told the participants. “This is the best kind of the meeting that is needed for us to look into problems that we are in.”
Lukudu said the people “need to go deeper than usual” to find solutions to the violence, lamenting that despite urging by religious leaders still there is no peace.
“War must be solved. This is the word of your religious leaders here,” he said. “The religious leaders say the war must stop, but war has not yet stopped.”
The conference was also attended by three governors, one each from the Upper Nile, Bahr al Ghazal, and Equatoria regions.
Central Equatoria Governor Clement Wani Konga, who chaired the event, told the conference that South Sudan’s government has failed to achieve development because political leaders put their own interests first and have forgotten the people of South Sudan.
Konga further said the war has destroyed the spirit of unity among South Sudanese citizens, and called upon the participants to use the conference to find solutions to the war.
The Nyakuron summit theme was “Peace Now for South Sudan’s Tribes to Unite against War.”