The leader of  federal Democratic Party, one of the hold out armed dissident groups in South Sudanese conflict, has welcomed the launch of the national dialogue but expressed a desire for holding it outside the country for security reasons.

Gabriel Changson Chang, a former youth and sports minister, said a meaningful dialogue would only take place in an environment free of guns and where very body will have the opportunity to participate.

“For any dialogue to be truly national, it has to be absolutely inclusive in every sense of the word. The participants should include all political parties, Civil Society Organizations, Faith Based Organizations, Community Based Organizations, Youth and Women groups, Traditional Chiefs and Opinion leaders.

The Venue of this National Dialogue should be outside South Sudan for security reasons and preferably, Kenya or Ethiopia.   For Neutrality purposes, the patron of the National Dialogue Conference should come from UN/SC or African Union”, explained in a statement welcoming the initiative.   

He continued “Secondly, to organize a national dialogue at the grassroots level in this particular moment in time is not realistic and not feasible, due to the situation of war and insecurity prevailing in most parts of South Sudan which makes it impossible to conduct grassroots consultations and regional conferences”.

The opposition figure argued that the patron should not be one of the parties to the conflict but rather Panel of three to five of eminent personalities from the continent with credible tract records in conflict transformation and resolution, similar to the three eminent personalities that helped Kenya to resolve its post-election of 2007 violence.

 He further added that a successful national dialogue would require the identification of the root causes of the conflict, discuss them and prescribe solutions to them.  Changson recommends that the stakeholders needs to agree on the objective as the priority after which the National Dialogue Conference should be convened to allow the whole country embark on wholesale national, Healing and Reconciliation processes by forming Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar to those that were put in place in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid or in Rwanda after the genocide in 1994.

He appeals for support from the international community, saying it was time for them to stand with the people of the country to avert the country from sliding into the ungovernable ethnic enclaves or disintegration.

“The Leadership of FDP/SSAF takes this opportunity to appeal to the government, all political parties and all South Sudanese in general to embrace the noble idea of a National Dialogue Conference as the only peaceful way of resolving our problems and stop the spiral of violence that has characterized the short life of our new nation.

“We appeal to the International Community, especially the UNSC, EU, TROIKA, AU, Arab League and our immediate neighbors the IGAD countries not to abandon the South Sudanese people at their moment of need, and to take up once again the challenges of bringing us together in the proposed National Dialogue Conference”.