National dialogue: The only hope towards realizing peace and stability in South Sudan
By Longar Mathiec Wol, Nairobi, Kenya
January 7, 2017 (SBB) — South Sudan national dialogue announced by the president of the Republic of South Sudan H.E general Salva Kiir Mayardit last December has been received with mixed reaction with others rejecting it and others welcoming it as the right steps toward the right direction. But the truth should be told the formation of national dialogue committee is one of the positive thing that ever happened.
Regardless of how you perceived this initiative, it is the only way toward reunifying our country. South Sudan need peace now more than any other time. What the people of south Sudan are waiting is how this committee will approach and handle this complex task. But there is no doubt that the people spearheading the committee are noble people the society respect; so why don’t we listen to them.
Many people think South Sudan cannot come back to peace again but nothing is impossible. But to tell you there is no one who don’t want peace but the only differences is how we want to achieve that. If that is the case therefore, the national dialogue represent the opportunity for the people to express their grievance and try to come to consensus. With all the hate and bitterness still there is a chance for the people of south Sudan to resolve their problems and come together again. There are no ideas that are irreconcilable if people work toward the realization of peaceful coexistence.
Now, since the president has tried his best it is up to the people of south Sudan to choose either peace or continue with their business as usual, the war. But one thing I know for sure war, tribalism and hatred will not lead us anywhere but destroying our own country. Let embrace peace as the only option that will take us forward. If we believe our tribe is more important than our country then we had seen the disadvantages of it during last two years. So it is up to us to either choose the destruction through our tribal alignment or to say enough is enough and this dialogue imitative should be given a chance to open a new page in the history of our country. We have had enough of this nonsense.
I know there are critiques about this process, but it is time for the people of south Sudan to criticize and come up with an alternative. We need to avoid this blanket criticism and start to be objective. Give a suggestion what you think could be done to improve this process but not to watch and criticize. Criticism is good when it is constructive rather than being nonconstructive.
To our brothers who are taking arms across the country we have seen whether those arms are doing well or harm to our country it is a time to come to table. I know injustice if it exists is painful and should not be encourage to continue. But what you need to know is that any problem will end up on table. We need to develop the culture of dialogue. Brother dialoguing with brother has nothing wrong with it. We fought war of injustice for almost fifty years but we ended up sitting together discuss our differences that led to the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in 2005 that pave the way for independence of what we today refer to as The Republic of South Sudan. Dialogue is the most powerful tools that can be used to reconcile the irreconcilable ideas.
We though we are the only country which has a problem, but that is not the case every country has problem but our different with them is the method of approach. How we approach our problem make it hard to resolve them. If this dialogue is given a chance and we continue to make some useful inputs then it will produce tangible result. The result of converting impossible into possible. All of us should make sure we put all our differences and grievances on the table and discuss them.
I am appealing to all the opposition to make sure that they should be strong in discussion not in battle field. Whether we pretend, the truth remain clear that this war hit us hard and in core. Therefore, national dialogue is the last bullet toward the realization of stability in our war torn republic. It is up to us to shoot that one bullet in target or miss it. If we miss it the suffering continue, if we aim perfectly and shoot it well and good.
It is clear that the leader of SPLM – IO former 1st vice president Dr. Riek Machar has rejected the national dialogue terming it as bogus, but that should not discourage the process that why it is call dialogue. Not all the people will agree with it but if the process lead to the right direction still there is a room for the people opposing this dialogue to come on board. Let us show the world that we are capable of creating and resolving our own problems not one sided, creating them only.
To all the people of south Sudan the grievances we have cannot be resolve through barrel of gun alone. There is a need to balance the use of force with the use of diplomatic means as the ways forward. Let us support this initiative, no one knows it might bring a peace that we have been looking.
God bless South Sudan.
The author, Longar Mathiec Wol, is a South Sudanese student at United States International University-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, where he is pursuing Bachelor degree of Science in International Business Administration and Minoring in International Relations. He can be reached through email address: longarmaxiech@gmail.com.
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