South Sudan’s permanent represtentative to the United Nations told the Security Council in New York that efforts by President Salva Kiir to make peace are not being adequately recognized.
Ambassador Francis Mading Deng told members of the Security Council that Kiir has made “remarkable” steps in the interest of peace.
“We also believe that the efforts of the Government, in particular President Salva Kiir for the cause of peace, are not being adequately recognized and rewarded,” he told the Council.
“For a democratically elected leader confronted with a rebellion aimed at overthrowing him, to have moved so fast from the outbreak of the rebellion, to engage his adversaries in a dialogue for peace, and to make the major compromises President Kiir has made, is remarkable.”
Deng urged the Council not to assign “moral equivalency” between wrongs committed by the government and the opposition.
“Rights and wrongs, although never one sided, are also never equal,” he said. “The risk with moral equivalency is that the wrongdoer is equated with the wronged, and that cannot be a basis for finding a truly just solution.”
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