A member of the Warrap state parliament on Wednesday said that calls for reconciliation may be premature if South Sudan’s warring parties do not demonstrate political will to bring torn communities together.
General Bona Bhang Dhol, who is also a member of the Jieng (Dinka) council of elders, a group of influential and powerful Dinka politicians and relatives of president Salva Kiir, said that people are not addressing real issues when they call for reconciliation.
“People fought and people have been killed. There are people whose relatives, love ones have died. The wounds are still fresh,” he said. “[Some people] are talking about peace, reconciliation, unity, peaceful coexistence but outside, there is no reconciliation.”
He said people need to need to sort out their issues with themselves and their neighbours before going to the church and praying for reconciliation, perhaps a reference to calls for church leaders to lead reconciliation process in South Sudan.
“It sounds a bit mysterious when people keep being told that, ‘We are reconciling’. No one has ever come to explain the reasons for reconciliation and to start the reconciling process about anything. Some people don’t know what they are supposed to reconcile about,” he said.
Bona said communities are confused about the cause of the war. He claimed the war is not between Dinka and Nuer, but was a political divide within the ruling SPLM party. He said the divide within the SPLM part exists across South Sudan, even in states dominated by one ethnic group.
“There is a good degree of dissatisfaction among the original members of the SPLM about the way we are sort of accepting anybody as members and giving them important jobs. This is not only at the level of Juba but also in the states,” he said.
Bona praised President Salva Kiir for his efforts to solve political problems within the SPLM, accusing politicians with “chameleon style” politics of creating distractions. He said the president’s accommodation of rivals with positions in government had become “humiliating.”