The government of Jonglei State intends to hold a peace and reconciliation conference in the state capital Bor in spite of objections from national government officials in Juba, according to the state government spokesman.
Last week during a Christmas day address in Bor town, the Governor John Kong Nyuon reportedly disclosed that some national government officials who hail from Jonglei rejected plans for the conference.
He said the conference was supposed to bring together different communities to the state capital Bor to discuss how to live in peace.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj on Monday, Jodi Jonglei, Minister of Information of Jonglei State, confirmed that some government officials elsewhere have opposed the conference plan. But he vowed that the government in Bor would proceed with the conference anyway.
“We were supposed to do a peace conference in the coming two months called a ‘peace mini-conference’ in Jonglei State. The [national] government of South Sudan had allocated money for the conference.”
“But this was changed,” he said, explaining that opponents of the conference cited security concerns as a pretext for canceling the event and pulled the funding. “Some people said, ‘Oh Bor still has problems, we don’t want to go – it has problems.”
Jodi continued, “So we as the government of Jonglei, we are saying that we will do it – even if there is not money we will do it. That is the declaration of the governor. The governor says we will do it, even if there is not money.
“Because that is our responsibility. We are not going to wait for peace from Addis Ababa. We want to make our own here. We are the people living here – not the people coming and going from Addis.”
The minister was asked who specifically had opposed the peace but he declined to name any names. “We are not going to accuse somebody, no. We are just saying, whether or not there is money, we will do the conference.”
But he said that those who oppose peace, whether they are in Juba or in Bor, are equivalent to ‘rebels.’ “We as a government see it like that: anybody who doesn’t want peace is rebelling against the authorities.”
“There are many people who do not want peace,” he stressed.