World Evangelical Alliance, South Sudan and Tribes Discuss Ending Violence in Embattled State
9 min readAfrican, US Evangelicals Search for Solutions to South Sudanese Tribal Conflicts During 3-Day Conference
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(Photo: WEA via The Christian Post)Participants of Peace Conference in South Sudan’s Yei River County, Jonglei state, featuring Secretary General of World Evangelical Alliance, the Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, on April 1, 2012.
The unprecedented meeting, which lasts until Tuesday, united local officials, U.S. and African Evangelicals and members of four tribes, Murle, Dinka, Nuer and Anyuak, in the Eastern region of the country, which has suffered from tribal violence sparked by disputes over pastoral grounds for cattle, the main local source of income. Fighting between these tribes has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives and thousands of injuries in the past six months, it has been estimated.
Among the conference’s participants were the Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, WEA’s CEO and Secretary General; Dr. Brian C. Stiller, WEA Global Ambassador; Stephen Tollestrup, WEA Director of Peace and Reconciliation Initiative; and the Rev. Aiah Foday-Khabenje, General Secretary of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa (AEA). Also in attendance were local church leaders, including Bishop John Machar Thou of the Anglican Diocese of Duk and Bishop James Par Tap, Moderator at the Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Khartoum, part of the Church of Sudan.
Participants mostly agreed on what some reports have already been suggesting — that ending tribal violence in the region would require improving socio-economic conditions, especially ending poverty and bettering education of the local tribal population. The role of the international Christian community in supporting meeting these goals was also discussed.
“Our intention is to find out what do we do together to overcome our past. All the wrong things that have happened, what can we do together as the sons of South Sudan and the children of God to make a difference,” Bishop Elias Taban of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan said Sunday in a sermon, addressing the conference on its first day.
Taban named poverty, lack of education and illiteracy, and lacking health services, as well as depending only on cattle for income, as the main problems in the region, leading consequently to violence between tribes. The bishop called to participants for support in aiding the tribes to become more settled and less nomadic. Others later joined in suggesting that the tribes must learn techniques for growing cattle grass rather than relying on natural pastures, and that the tribes must develop the ability to find other sources of income.
“We were very moved by and challenged by the sermon message this morning by Bishop Elias Taban. It reminded me of what we have gone through since the 1950s. The most difficult task has taken us over 50 years to achieve but there are still challenges that we face,” said later that day Jonglei State Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Babriel Gai Riem, referring to the fact that South Sudan only became an independent state in 2010.
General Secretary of WEA, the Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, emphasized in his speech later that the U.S. Evangelical church has been supporting the newly established and mostly Christian country for years. “We know the story of Sudan and the birth of South Sudan has been a story of pain,” he said. “I want to remind you that the church around the world loves the people of South Sudan. God loves the people of South Sudan.”
“We know there has been serious violence and loss of life but because we believe in the gospel we are a people of hope,” Tunnicliffe added. “The gospel is about reconciliation because it is the gospel that reconciles us to God. And we also believe that we can be reconciled to one another because we are all connected.”
Foday-Khabenje, AEA’s General Secretary, also expressed the organization’s support for the people of South Sudan, emphasizing the unity of African churches. “If I am here, then 35 countries in Africa and around 1 million evangelical Christians are here with you and indeed the global Christian Church is here,” he said.
“If one Christian is hurting, if one denomination is hurting, it is reason enough for the whole church to rise up. So this concern of EPC for Jonglei State is enough to bring the whole evangelical church to stand with you,” he added. “Our prayer is that a process of peace and a journey towards peace will begin over these few days and will join together the Government, the church, the tribal leaders and the people.”
Ethnic tensions in the region have flared after the country gained independence from the overwhelmingly Muslim Sudan in July 2010, as tribes fight over grazing lands and water rights, reportedly leading to cattle raids and the abduction of women and children. In addition, the conflict between the Lou Nuer and Murle ethnic groups is reportedly taking on a dynamic of repeated revenge attacks. Thousands are believed to have been at least temporarily displaced in the recent six months, including children, while government officials and aid groups have often been unable to gain sufficient access into the embattled region.
In resource-scarce East Africa, minority groups face major challenges over the control of and access to land and other natural resources.
Some international Christian think tanks suggested that in the long term, the government must address the root causes of violence among minority communities, and those are political representation, disarmament and equitable distribution of natural resources.
Kuol Manyang Juuk, the governor of Jonglei State said Sunday, during the conference, that the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has taken some significant steps toward preventing violence. Among those were issuing a presidential decree ordering disarmament of the civil population in the state and forming a National Peace Committee headed by Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, the Rev. Bishop Daniel Deng Bul, to supplement state initiatives on peace building.
Obama calls for restraint as violence grows along Sudan’s border
African nations feared headed for all-out war
By Ashish Kumar Sen
The Washington Times
Monday, April 2, 2012
President Obama on Monday attempted to defuse tensions between Sudan and South Sudan that have ignited international concern that the African neighbors are teetering on the brink of an all-out war.
In a phone conversation with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit, Mr. Obama said the fledgling nation’s military must exercise maximum restraint.
Mr. Obama “expressed concern about the growing tensions between South Sudan and Sudan, especially the violent clashes along their shared border and renewed fighting in Southern Kordofan state,” the White House said.
The president also emphasized the importance of avoiding unilateral actions and asked Mr. Mayardit to ensure that South Sudan’s military is not involved in the fighting along the border or supporting rebels in Southern Kordofan.
Fighting has escalated in the past week between Sudanese and South Sudanese forces in Unity state along the disputed border. Sudan’s armed forces also are fighting southern rebels in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states north of the border.
The conflict in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, which has created 140,000 refugees, also threatens to drag the two nations to war.
Sudan accuses South Sudan of supporting southern rebels in these states in the Nuba Mountains. South Sudan denies the accusations.
Meanwhile, Princeton Lyman, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, warned that any attack on oil facilities near the border could exacerbate the conflict.
“It’s very important that both sides be extremely careful under the current tensions and fighting at the border, that neither crosses the line of attacking oil installations, because I think that would deepen the conflict very much,” Mr. Lyman said in a conference call with reporters.
A spokesman for South Sudan’s army said Sudanese troops already were targeting oil fields and installations in the oil-rich Heglig region.
“There is no more evidence [of the north’s plans to attack the oil installations] than the fighting itself,”Col. Philip Aguer said in a phone interview.
“We have been abiding by the cease-fire. … It is the government in Khartoum that has declared war.”
An official in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, said his government has no intention of going to war.
“War is not our strategy,” Al-Obeid Murawih, a spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, said in a phone interview. “But we will retaliate if there is any force from the outside.
“There is bombardment from both sides – politically and militarily,” he added.
Earlier Monday, Pagan Amum, South Sudan’s top negotiator in the talks with Sudan, accused “enemies of peace” in Khartoum of attacking South Sudan and undermining the negotiations.
Seventy-five Sudanese troops were killed in the fighting Sunday and more than 100 wounded, while two South Sudanese soldiers were killed and 19 wounded, Col. Aguer said.
South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan in July following a 2005 peace agreement that ended a two-decade civil war. The two nations have since had a tense relationship.
Meanwhile, in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the defense ministers of Sudan and South Sudan met face to face for the first time since the start of the recent fighting in a bid to resolve the crisis.
The fighting derailed an April 3 presidential summit between Mr. Mayardit and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in South Sudan’s capital, Juba.
In his phone conversation with Mr. Mayardit, Mr. Obama expressed hope that the two countries’ leaders would soon meet. He also emphasized the importance of an agreement on oil.
South Sudan cut off the flow of oil in January in a dispute with the north over transit fees. Oil is the chief source of income for both countries.
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