Representatives of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other stakeholders on Tuesday organized a one-day roundtable dialogue on transitional justice in South Sudan.

Speaking during the meeting at Juba Grand Hotel, Gordon Lam, Executive Director of Dialogue and Research Initiative (DRI), said all communities in South Sudan need to come together to discuss their to discuss their issues.

“This event is organized as people to people discussion. It is about transitional justice, reconciliations and healing,” said Lam.

“This workshop will generate debates and discussions among the participants, and those recommendations will be shared with institutions including the institution that is leading the national dialogue, they will have to consider that there is community processes,” he added.

He further added that people will have views that need to be incorporated into the upcoming national dialogue especially on transitional justice, reconciliation and healing.

Meanwhile, Fr James Oyet Latansio, Secretary General of the South Sudan Council of Churches, said guns should be silenced to achieve justice and reconciliation.

He stressed the need for a neutral forum to allow people to express their grievances to allow peace and justice to prevail in the country.

“Today people in the Republic of South Sudan lost hope; we have negative narratives about ourselves. It is true that the church has the big role through dialogue, in order to reconcile, we need to go through this challenging process of truth telling where we speak out our burning issues in our heart,” said Oyet.

“We can’t get to justice if we don’t speak out,” he stressed.

The discussion brought together over 65 representatives of civil society organizations, government officials, members of parliament, judiciary and key actors in transitional justice. The meeting was supported by UNDP and UNMISS.

Photo: Representatives of civil society organizations attending a meeting in Juba on 28 February, 2017/Radio Tamazuj.