The paramount chief of Central Equatoria Yei River County says plans are underway for community leaders to kick start grass-root peace dialogue programs in a bid to promote peaceful co-existence among local communities in the area.
Last Friday, the peace committee headed by the commissioner of Yei River County met and briefed the Central Equatoria State governor Emmanuel Adil on the committees' preparedness to start the peace process this month.
Joseph Brown, who is also the chairperson of the peace and reconciliation committee, told Radio Tamazuj on Monday that the community-driven process hopes to restore trust, reconciliation, and enhance civil-military relations.
Brown calls on the local communities in the county to embrace peace from the family level and extend it beyond the community.
“Peace is very important because we know that the conflict around Yei has affected peaceful co-existence among communities and we want to use this opportunity so that we work together for peace. I want to urge our people to begin forgiving and loving ourselves as brothers and sisters in Yei because with the peace we can live together as brothers, sisters, and mothers,” he said.
For his part, Adis Victor a civil society representative in Yei urges the peace committee to promote inclusion of all stakeholders and actors to promote peace ownership and reconciliation at the community level.
Adis also calls on the population in Yei to embrace peaceful co-existence to promote development in the conflict-affected Yei area.
“For us, in Yei, we are peace-loving people and it is very important to have to see development and for us to realize peace. We need to start it from the community level up to the national level and we need inclusion of all people including the civilians, the military, and the government so that we can understand our issues," Victor said. "As civil society, we call for good relations between the civilians and the military and the government so that together we can build peace in the country.”
Local communities in Yei have repeatedly urged the government to promote sustainable local peace efforts for lasting peace and stability in the county.