On the National Healing, Peace and Reconciliation in South Sudan Jul. 15 More Views, Uncategorized 1 comment
BY: Tongun Lo Loyuong, JUL/15/2013, SSN; This is a continuation of a previous discussion on the national healing, peace and reconciliation initiative in South Sudan, where I made the case for this process as the mandate of the church (see article/The-Case-for-Reconciliation-as-the-Mandate-of-the-Church-in-South-Sudan). On that occasion, I came full circle towards the end by maintaining that the church notwithstanding, reconciliation process continue to be a contemporary secular political agenda, as a function of a legal area in peace-building practice known as transitional justice. It is a practice that often characterizes major political transitions, such as when a protracted violent conflict has come to an end in a negotiated settlement or when a draconian authoritarian regime has been toppled, as a mechanism to redress past egregious human rights abuses. Let me come back to this at a later stage. What I want to continue discussing in the meanwhile, is picking up the pieces from where I appealed to “our brothers and sisters, elders and mothers, political leaders, spiritual leaders, and traditional and tribal leaders to form a cohesive unit and rally behind the national reconciliation initiative.” It is particularly timely to revisit this discussion, especially as on the one hand, the political climate in the country seems somber, and the future of the land looks bleak as South Sudan seems to be edging ever closer to all out ethnic violence. On the other hand, however, there are encouraging signs of maturity that South Sudanese from all walks of life are yearning for the national healing, peace and reconciliation initiative. The Guardian online news medium in an article marking South Sudan’s second independence anniversary and poignantly entitled “South Sudan: ‘independence is not as beautiful as we thought,’” reports that “surveys conducted by the [Sudd] institute found people across South Sudan were almost unanimously in favor of the idea” (please see http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jul/09/south-sudan-independence?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487). This is true of most of the other faith-based actors, including our Muslim brothers and sisters who are now equally on board—a feat clearly exemplified in the South Sudanese Muslims dedication of the afternoon prayer of Friday July 5th, 2013 for the reconciliation initiative. To our Muslims in South Sudan, I wish you a happy and steadfast devotion to God in this holy month of fasting and spiritual contemplation. Remember South Sudan in your reflections. Ramadan Karim. That said a vast majority of our Christian brothers and sisters, as well as followers of African traditional religions, have evidently also embraced the national reconciliation process. Most have joined the nationwide day of prayer held on the eve of the second independence commemoration to pray for South Sudan and to kick-start the reconciliation process. In the same vein, political leaders, including representatives of opposition parties such as SPLM-DC, have come out and fully endorsed the initiative. They have also recognized and accepted the integral role of the church and other civil society actors in the process. In his keynote free speech on the second anniversary of the independence of South Sudan on July 9th, 2013, President Mayardit equally continued to express the spirit of reconciliation. He extended renewed appeal to those fighting his government, to come back home, embrace peace and join in the process of nation-building. “I am extremely concerned about the continuing attacks and senseless killing of innocent civilians…in Jonglei State, and specifically in Pibor County,” bewailed the President. “I acknowledge the leaders who have seen the value in reconciliation, unity and brotherhood and have responded positively to the amnesty,” the President further noted, and “urge[d] those who have not yet responded to the amnesty offer, including David Yau Yau, to reflect on this day, the second anniversary of our independence, and to honor the memory of our martyrs, who fought so that we do not have to struggle again.” “We should end violence and war with our generation so that our children will eventually enjoy lasting peace,” the President concluded. Surprisingly, the president’s speech was ubiquitously silent about the pertinent issues of increasing tribal extremism and systemic nepotism at home. The speech was also quiet on how to improve our foreign relations abroad. These issues, among others currently dominate the political discourse in South Sudan. As such it would have been prudent for the president to outline to the citizens progress made, or how he intends to steer the country to overcome these challenges. Perhaps, the president is also a victim of the organized stifling of freedom of expression, and censorship from discussing certain issues deemed sensitive in the land. Who knows, particularly in view of the current global violation of individual liberties and freedoms, including the intrusion of privacy through mass scale global surveillance campaign—the Prism project?! Else it does not make sense why the president did not touch on these issues in his speech. Nonetheless, in my view, save for the speech’s overall mute on policies to tackle the increasing tribal fragmentation and unprecedented nepotism, and to improve foreign relations, the sections of the speech that did discuss corruption, the importance of unity, brotherhood and reconciliation, can be characterized as promising, inspiring and visionary. But the President must now act to ensure the promises he made to South Sudanese in the spirit of reconciliation in his speech, are kept. A starting point for this is for the President to extend a blanket amnesty to all the political prisoners. Mr. President, in the spirit of reconciliation and brotherhood I urge you to immediately release the likes of Justice Peter Sule, who are still languishing in jail without trial for rebellion allegations, for which you have now offered forgiveness. I also commend you for temporarily releasing elder Sule to attend the funeral of his brother who recently passed away in Cairo, Egypt. Such random act of kindness and a brotherhood gesture will go a long way. In the same spirit of reconciliation, I appeal to you to extend immunity and safety to your political opponents who are in self-imposed exile and invite them to come home and join the nation-building process. The national reconciliation process can only command any meaning and truly heal, reconcile and bring sustainable peace to our country, if it is honest, comprehensive and an all embracing exercise. Whether the President responds or ignores this appeal (which is likely), is his decision. But that much is clear. The reconciliation initiative has gained currency and has been embraced by most South Sudanese across all levels of the society—the top, middle and the grassroots levels. Indeed at a time when many are complaining about political leadership deficiency, and lack of national vision and direction in the land, the reconciliation process is being rightly hailed around the world as a genuine opportunity and an alternative to overcome this challenge. Seen this way, the national healing, peace and reconciliation initiative may well be our last best hope to begin the process of building the South Sudan nation in earnest. What we do not seem to realize is that the reconciliation processes is not only about redressing the past, but is also a forward looking opportunity to reunite the ranks of all South Sudanese, and address all legitimate grievances, including current challenges related to cattle rustling, inter-communal violence, insecurity, selective disarmament, and such. The reconciliation process will create space for all these issues to be transparently discussed, and consensus solutions proposed. If this is the case, how should the process look like as a genuine opportunity for offering national vision and direction of justice, equality and prosperity in lasting peace and unity in South Sudan? It is clear from the preceding paragraphs that significant progress has been made. This is equally demonstrated in a recent interview conducted by Radio Miraya with the most reverend, and the chair of the reconciliation committee, Dr. Daniel Deng Bul Yak, the archbishop of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan. Though the bishop acknowledged in the interview that thus far the committee has only “met to see how we can begin the process of the national reconciliation,” he did provide a tentative plan going forward. This can be briefly summed up as follows: In the interview, the bishop noted that his mandate in the process is apolitical, and therefore the process will be entirely guided by “spiritual values.” This being the case, his lordship emphasized the importance of prayer in giving thanks to God for the independence of South Sudan. To this end, but also to inaugurate the dawn of the national healing, peace and reconciliation era, the national day of prayer was held nationwide on the eve of the second independence anniversary as noted above. The most reverend, further acknowledged that “prayer is a core of any reconciliation we want to do because if you have not open up your heart to your brother or sister it is very difficult to carry out any reconciliation. We are calling the people of the Republic of South Sudan, beginning from the top leadership that we need to say that ‘we are sorry to one another for what we have done,’” referring to the atrocities South Sudanese inflicted on themselves during the war. “We cannot continue to carry all the bad things that we have done to one another all along, we need to remember them and…say what we have done is not good for this nation.” Bishop Yak further discussed a plan to send a committee to train community leaders on the meaning of healing, reconciliation and forgiveness in the ten states. From this, fifty individuals will be selected from each state and tasked with carrying out civic education of the masses at local grassroots —County and Boma levels on the meaning of reconciliation and forgiveness. But the trainers will also solicit and collect people’s grievances to be discussed in conferences held across the ten states leading to the main national conference on healing, peace and reconciliation event to be held in Juba, where all the levels of the society will be represented. In response to a question raised by the host in Radio Miraya about those who may call for justice before reconciliation, the bishop stressed that “you know if you have not softened the hearts of the people you cannot get justice. The reconciliation means someone should say, I’m sorry for what I have done to my brother, so if someone did not say this justice will not come; it is from there that we can talk about justice. The important part is for a person to acknowledge what he/she has done (to) his/her brother.” Archbishop Yak concluded the interview by highlighting some of the challenges confronting the process, including logistics and lack of funding and resources. He rightly urged the NGO and donor community intent on assisting our beleaguered country to commit their resources behind this national reconciliation initiative. “I believe all the money we have in South Sudan should be geared towards the peace and reconciliation process…. I’m appealing to everybody to help us to be able to embark on this very important process” (for the whole transcribed interview, see http://www.radiomiraya.org/interviews2/11451-reconciliation-to-address-grievances-archbishop-deng-bul.html#gsc.tab=0). On the whole the bishop has delineated a promising plan for the national reconciliation to effectively redress our tragic history as well as tackle current issues and challenges, bring healing and closure, and promote lasting peace in South Sudan. As I argued elsewhere in the recent past, an effective and comprehensive reconciliation process tailored to our context specific grievances and needs must possess key ingredients from faith-based peacebuilding and reconciliation practice, combined with secular sociological conflict resolution strategies, and buttressed by our traditional reconciliation rituals and exercise. Thus far the bishop’s roadmap for this process can be argued to have seamlessly weaved key ingredients from these three approaches to effective peace-building. The centrality of prayer in the process represents the “spiritual values” that the bishop noted underpin the process. But there are several other important issues in the interview that speak to effective peace-building at work in the initial plan outlined by the bishop in his interview. First, in prayer it is also ensured the process takes off in the right spiritual frame of mind, heart, and soul that commits the whole undertaking to God’s guidance and prepares us to confess the injury committed against God and our neighbour. In transitional justice terms, which earlier I noted that I will come back to it at some point in this exercise, we may call this confession the beginning of truth telling. In transitional justice and reconciliation, the truth about past political atrocities and current grievances must be revealed or recounted in order to be addressed to ensure the beginning of the process of healing that ultimately brings closure to these experiences. This is the first step in any reconciliation process, which as can be deduced from the interview is one of the mandates of the fifty member committee that will be tasked with working with the grassroots. In simple terms, the fifty trained elders of the different communities will train or build capacity of the masses; educate them on the meaning of reconciliation; and elicit their grievances, including truth telling or sharing of bitter past experiences. Of course this exercise should be preceded by some form of conflict impact assessment (CIA) to identify the various stakeholders, who are to be included in the national reconciliation function. Second, as the bishop also observed, by beginning with prayers, we also present ourselves with a golden opportunity to begin to reflect, and acknowledge our sins of commission and omission. In transitional justice and reconciliation practice we can technically refer to this as the beginning of acknowledgement, where we owned up to our misdeed, which is also vital to the success of the process. The third equally important point in the function of the national day of prayer as the bishop noted is to serve the purpose of preparing our hearts to express remorse or public apology, which again is another stepping stone in the path of any given attempt at overcoming a gloomy past and a challenging present towards a national healing, peace and reconciliation. The concern about justice before reconciliation amongst some of our brothers cited earlier is legitimate and it is a question about retributive justice. And as bishop Yak stressed acknowledgement must precede the service of justice. It is at this juncture that traditional reconciliation practice plays a key role. As we all know too well in our traditional societies, in cases of serious injury, justice may be served through returning or compensating for the loss. This customary law practice neatly fits with another equally integral element of sociological transitional justice and reconciliation practice, namely the payment of reparation or the restitution of the loss to avail forgiveness and reconciliation. This was fourth. Fifth, forgiveness or amnesty as the president has shown on numerous occasions is another ingredient of transitional justice and reconciliation attempt. But forgiveness is entirely left to the victim or the relatives of the victim’s discretion whether to choose to forgive or not, as healing processes vary from one individual to another, and forgiveness is part of this equation. In a nutshell, the national healing, peace and reconciliation process must reflect the five stages mentioned here, namely truth telling, acknowledgement, public apology, reparation and forgiveness throughout the preparatory phases leading to the main event, where the political leadership must in turn participate in the same five stages. However, the question remains: why would such a historic process remain starved of funding by our “well intentioned friends” among the donor and the NGO members of the international community? Without this process all stakeholders in South Sudan can rest assured that all bets are off, including whatever “life-saving” programs that are currently being implemented by various NGOs across the country. Without relative peace and stability in the country, it is difficult to see how any humanitarian and development program can be implemented in South Sudan, including in the rural areas where these programs are needed the most. I urge all stakeholders from the donor community to do the morally right thing and support the national healing, peace and reconciliation process. This national reconciliation is the next best thing and our last best hope for lasting peace in South Sudan. [email protected] << Older Newer >> 1 Comment Morthon Akol July 16, 2013 at 1:37 pm I am very confused some body can help me to understand this so called National healing, peace and Reconciliation. it means what? because the people who are calling for that Reconciliation are fighting over the position now. so how that one works? i do suggest to lord bishop Dr. Daniel Deng to talk to our leadership to stop what they are doing now specially in the SPLM leadership. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14ooxZkAcs_XheV_Jae%3DdEYc8Q%2Bmxf6N1UdwR7BUM0gDKmQ%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
