The first ever traditional authority regional conference for greater Equatoria kicked off in Torit Town in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria State on Tuesday.
The regional conference, under the theme “Empowering local peace structures to address local disputes and resolve communal conflicts,” was organized by UNMISS’ Civil Affairs Division and brought together nearly 50 participants from the three states of Central, Western and Eastern Equatoria.
Tahir Cevik, the civil affairs team leader and acting head of the UNMISS field office in Torit said the conference aims to resolve the challenges faced by traditional leaders in an effort to provide effective service delivery.
“The objective of this conference is to bring you from the state, regional and national levels to see what challenges you are facing so that we as mission and partners can be able to offer help so that you can play your role at grassroots levels to address some of these conflicts before they spire to communal violence,” he said. “In a couple of months, we will organize a major conference in Juba where you will all be meeting with your counterparts from Upper Nile, Bahr el Ghazel and other parts of the country.”
“That will be our final act (conference) then we will send you home to help us achieve a peaceful home,” Cevik added.
The Eastern Equatoria state minister of local government, Peter Lokeng, who officially opened the conference on behalf of the state government, told the participants to take home ideas that will bring peace.
“This conference is meant for our people who are working at the grassroots, especially our paramount chiefs, who have to sensitize our communities so that they have peace,” he said. “Without peace, there is no development so we have to be ambassadors for peace within our communities. We came up with something that people can benefit from.”
Meanwhile, the Western Equatoria State local government minister, James Severino Morris, hailed UNMISS for the technical support in peacebuilding across the country.
“We are very glad that the people who are implementing the peace are here and ensured that those at the grassroots are here with us as well and I believe with your support at the regional conference, we have to come up with measures that will address local conflicts,” he said. “I believe the grassroots have solutions and we need to enhance their capacity and support them to maintain peace at the grassroots.”
On his part, Moro Isaac Jenisio, the Central Equatoria State minister of local government, said the conference will generate solutions to problems interfering with court decisions, customary and statutory laws, murder cases, and marriage among others.
“These are issues of concern as governments at the state level, we are also struggling to maneuver to find ways of how we can be able to handle this to come up with a common position,” he said. “Why they focus on chiefs is because the chiefs speak the truth, they do not have a conflict of interest like us the politicians. Chiefs cannot be intimidated and we believe strongly that you can be the agents of peace within our midst.”
The participants include paramount chiefs, local government ministers, the council of traditional authority leaders, civil society, and Whittaker peace development initiative officials.