The chief administrator of the Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA), Joshua Konyi, has said calm had returned to his area after a group of youth from Jonglei State attacked, leading to days of bloody clashes.
Radio Tamazuj phoned and sounded him out about the situation on the ground.
Below are edited excerpts:
Q: How is the situation in your region after days of clashes?
A: The situation is now getting calm after violence that continued for nearly ten days. The fighting started on 10 May and ended on 17 May. A group of youth from the Gawaar Nuer attacked our area despite a series of peace conferences in the recent past. We organized a peace conference in Juba under the supervision of the Vice President, Dr. James Wani Igga. We organized another conference in Pieri and we agreed to exchange the abducted children between the two communities. The resolution of this conference has been implemented. We handed over to Lou Nuer 23 children and they handed over to us 27 children. This was in March this year.
But what we are surprised by is that we don’t have borders with Gawaar Nuer and we are wondering why they came all the way to attack our people.
Q: How did you manage to contain the situation?
A: Our local youth managed to force the Gawaar youth to return to their area. And as I speak, there is no presence of them in our area.
Q: How many people have been killed and injured during these recent clashes?
A: They attacked around 1736 houses and looted nearly 44,962 head of cattle. They kidnapped 112 women and 84 children. 128 men and 28 women have been killed, 691 houses burned to ashes and 51 people wounded.
Q: Have you been able to bury the dead?
A: Up to this moment the bodies are not yet buried because places of the fighting are far away, a distance of three to four days away from Pibor town.
Q: How did you get the exact statistics of the people killed and casualties?
A: Gumuruk is the only county that has been affected by this fighting. We called the executive director along with some youth who were involved in the fighting and they gave us these figures based on their witness accounts.
Q: As the chief administrator, what are you going to do to stop these kinds of incidents from happening again?
A: We have tried a lot. Up to now, we managed to stop the youth who were engaged in the fighting with our neighbouring communities such as Lou Nuer and Dinka Bor. As I speak with you, Lou Nuer business people are on their way coming to our area for trade activities. Dinka Bor cattle traders were here and they managed to go back to Bor with their cattle and nothing happened to them.
The group which came and attacked us are from Ayod in the Fangak area and we don’t know why they decided to come and attack our people. But what we heard as rumours is that a witch-doctor mobilized youth to come and test the power of his witchcraft on the Murle people. This is what prompted us to fight back. No reason would allow us to fight at this moment.
We are aware that there are criminals who own guns and are trying to use their guns and loot people’s property. This incident will not end in one day. Now the recent attack on our communities has led us to be alert and forced everybody to be ready for any fight again.
Secondly, during our conferences, we agreed for the formation of community policing to be deployed along the border with Lou Nuer and Dinka Bor. So this is something we did not implement as one of the resolutions. Hopefully, we will put it into practice in the coming days.
Q: Why have you not implemented this?
A: We have requested the national government to support us with logistical supplies. You know, those who will be deployed there need a lot of things such as mobility, communications among others. These things have not been provided and we are still waiting.
Q: Will it be a joint force from all three tribes?
A: We need a national police force including all tribes of South Sudan. We need them to come and live together. If they bring Murle or Dinka, each one will try to support their relatives.
Q: Your people, the Murle, have severally been accused of rustling cattle and abducting women and children. What is your take on this?
A: This is a false accusation. As for me, I can’t claim something that has not happened. If Murle killed themselves or killed someone, I will not deny this incident. If you can recall the incident of the death of the wife of the former minister of health, Dr. Riek Gai, it was reported that the Murle were behind the killing, but what indication shows that it is Murle who killed her?
We know that a group of youths came from Ayod and attacked our communities and the executive director of Ayod said Murle have raided thousands of heads of cattle. How can they come to attack us and at the same time get attacked by Murle youth?
Q: So what are you planning to do to mitigate this cyclic violence?
A: I spoke with our youth here and asked them not to carry out any revenge attack on anyone because we are at peace. Continued retaliation will finish all of us. They came and attacked us and went away with heads of cattle, children, and women. Let them go. We will follow the law. We will engage authorities in Jonglei to address this issue. We need the kidnapped children to be returned to their families. Now we have some children of Nuer here and we will address them and send them to Pieri to be handed over to their families.
Q: Can you confirm to all South Sudan that the fighting in Pibor is over and there is no more killing?
A: Yes, I can assure the South Sudanese that the fighting is over and Pibor is now calm and secure. Murle youth have gone back to their areas. There is no gain in the fighting because if Gawaar came and killed, kidnapped, and looted cattle and yet Murle have to defend themselves and many are killed, no one is going to benefit from anything.
We cannot continue killing ourselves because of cattle. I will work together with the Jonglei state governor to address this problem so that we don’t continue losing more youth.