Kiir urged to include clerics in Jonglei violence committee
South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit addressing the nation at State House J1 this evening (Photo credit: South Sudan News Now – SSNN)
June 27, 2020 (SSNN) – South Sudan President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has been urged by a local rights group to include church leaders in the committee which the head of state established last week to investigate the ongoing Jonglei ethnic violence.
Kiir last week appointed James Wani Igga, the vice-president, as head of a committee for the investigation and finding resolution for the intercommunal fighting in the state which has become more alarming in recent months.
In a statement, the Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA), a Juba-based rights organization urged the president to appoint members of the Church in the committee which the organization said will help resolve the violence in a religious manner.
“The Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA) therefore urges the president to reconsider reconstituting the membership of the high-level committee to include representatives from the civil society and religious leaders, but most importantly there should and must be tribal chiefs from the ground representing respective conflicting tribes; they are well informed with issues affecting them, unlike politicians,” the CPA said in a statement extended to South Sudan News Now.
“Appointing politicians to head the process is nothing but another opportunity for politicians to empty the state’s coffers. If appointing politicians solves anything, the Greater Jonglei’s inter-communal fights would have been solved long time ago.
“Conclusively, the Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA) cannot help points out to the fact that, these communal feuds in Jonglei and other parts of South Sudan are as a results of state policy failures, anarchy and dysfunctionality.
“It is therefore a joke to expect a state that has presided over the chaos for over decades to overnight wake up and solve the problems they help created. The political elites in South Sudan have politicized and commercialized these inter-communal fights and should not be appointed to further their gains!
“The president should as a matter of credibility appoints members from the ground not Juba-based politicians if he wants to solve the issue; something we are tempted to believe.
“The problems in Jonglei do not end with finding the root causes but it is fundamentally tied generally to the prevailing situation of lawlessness and rampant insecurity countrywide. It has to do with provision of all forms of securities; justice and proper administration the rule of law, appointing politicians will not help it but aggravate it.
“The Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA) would like to urge the president to look at involving the civil society, religious leaders and paramount chiefs of the conflicting tribes from the ground, otherwise this is going to be another political appointment that has nothing to do with the common people but politicians.”
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