Lou Nuer Community in Diaspora concerned about timing of disarmament but urges cooperation and protection
Written by Lou Nuer Media Group Friday, 02 March 2012 11:35 For Immediate Release March 1, 2012 Contact Lou Nuer Media Group [email protected] The disarmament that commenced today in the state of Jonglei, Republic of South Sudan, raised several concerns, most important of which is timing. Ordinary people and experts, local and International alike, questioned the timing of the exercise and its potential for success. For one thing, the concerned public has not been educated on the blueprint of the plan, particularly the short and long terms goals, and second, a definition of success has not been provided. In the absence of these two important components, namely the blueprint of the plan and what constitutes a successful disarmament, people are left guessing on what to expect. With the Lou Nuer counties still being raided as late as last week, by the SPLA contingents from the Murle community, who defected recently and still at large, the overriding question of how to account for them continues to loom. We, like most people, believe that a successful disarmament will only be realized after a grass-root peace drive, sensitization and mobilization. After having created the necessary trust among the warring communities, which would then bring about a sense of security, disarmament would then logically follow. This will mostly likely spell success because the civilians will have no fear of being harm if they trust each other, and the job of the government disarmament forces would then be easy because our civilians would hand in their guns with little effort. It must be noted that the civilians are tired of guns themselves and would be the first to celebrate a successful disarmament. However, if the civilians fear for their lives as a result of handing in their guns, then it is a matter of common sense not to expect a faithful effort on their parts to do so. So in the final analysis, our question would be; will the disarmament be considered a success if all the guns, especially of those who don’t live in their villages, are not collected, or will it be a success if the violence still continues? We will let the authorities, readers, and all the stakeholders ponder those questions. Having expressed these legitimate and serious concerns, we, the Lou Nuer Community in Diaspora, want to make it crystal clear that we are for peace in Jonglei and South Sudan, and we will do everything we can to see that happen. That is one of the reasons we convened an extraordinary phone conference after learning about the sudden disarmament plans in the media and came up with several plan of actions and recommendations: We have asked our communities in all counties to cooperate with the government authorities, and we adapt the same position as that of our chiefs, elders and county commissioners in cooperating with authorities. We know that our community has been given a bad name in the Diaspora by the enemy of peace, but we want to urge the authorities in Juba and Bor to refrain from mistakenly taking the media misinformation as the official position of the Lou Nuer Community in the Diaspora because it is not. Again, Lou Nuer Community in the Diaspora is not a warmonger and will never wage war via remote controls! In return, we told our civilians that the government will protect them, though we know that history is not on the side of the government as far as such promise is concern. Nonetheless, it is our hope that our government will reverse history of this kind once and for all, or it will be responsible for any death starting today and beyond. Signed: Lou Nuer Media Group (Diaspora) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob?hl=en.
