South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
U.S. Ambassador to South Sudan Michael J. Adler [Photo: Awan Achiek]
By Benjamin Takpiny
The U.S. Ambassador to South Sudan Michael J. Adler has urged South Sudanese leaders to take necessary steps to create an environment conducive to free, fair and peaceful elections.
“Now is the time for them to act with urgency to take the steps necessary to create an environment conducive to free, fair, and peaceful elections. These steps include establishing political and civic space, so that individuals, candidates, and parties can freely express views and campaign without fear. They also include establishing politically neutral security forces,” Adler said in a statement on the event commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Juba on Tuesday.
He said that now is the time for South Sudanese leaders to use public revenue to address public needs, including to help South Sudanese who have returned to their country since last April’s outbreak of the Sudan conflict.
“To provide basic services, including health and education, to the citizens of South Sudan; to pay public sector salaries on time, including those for security forces, health workers, and teachers, all in a transparent and accountable manner and to fund and operationalize electoral institutions,” Adler said.
“After I was confirmed for my current position as U.S. ambassador to South Sudan, I was given the opportunity that all my counterparts have around the globe to select works of art to borrow for display in my residence here in Juba,” he disclosed.
Adler said that when Dr. King accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he said, “Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time.”
He said that Dr. King believed that civilization and violence are antithetical concepts, adding that the latter shifted the course of American history.
“As South Sudan enters 2024, it begins a year that offers the opportunity to shift this country’s history irreversibly in the direction of peace, inclusivity, and well-being, There is no better path to sustainable peace and well-being for South Sudan than through free, fair, and peaceful elections in December of this year,” Adler said.
He said that Dr. King criticized and called for change in the America of his day, adding that today the United States is a better and stronger country because of Dr.King’s words and his actions during his life.
“There is a lesson to be drawn here of the need for and the importance of political and civic space in every country, including South Sudan. Dr. King also spoke about values. Delivering a sermon at Detroit’s Second Baptist Church in February 1954, he called for the rediscovery of values. These include being “honest and loving and just with all humanity,” Adler said.
He said that values matter in their day, as they did in Dr. King’s.
“They matter to all of them here who are committed to America’s work to support the South Sudanese people,” Adler said.
“Our engagement to support the people of this country began decades ago. From the start, it has been based on values including peace, human rights, democracy, and a people’s right to a government that is responsive to its needs. This includes a government that uses public resources for public purposes,” he said.
Adler said that the time has come for South Sudan’s leaders to demonstrate that they share these values.
“Now it’s the time for South Sudan’s leaders to reject the use of violence as a tool for political competition,” he said.
He admitted that South Sudan is not the United States because of it’s different history.
Adler expressed confidence that the South Sudanese people still have a dream.
“I am confident that after more than twelve years of transition and the painful years of civil war, this is the same dream that they had when they voted for independence in the 2011 referendum,” he said.
Adler said that the South Sudanese people’s international partners, including the United States, share this dream for South Sudan.
“This shared dream is based on shared values, namely the ones that led to the start of our engagement here decades ago, including peace, human rights, democracy, and a people’s right to a government that is responsive to its needs, not only to that of a small elite,” he said.
“As we start the year, my wish is that the people of this country can look back on 2024 as the year when South Sudan moved rapidly and peacefully forward to successfully achieve this shared dream, for, it is more than a dream. It is what the South Sudanese people, like all people, deserve. It is what those in the international community who have worked to support the South Sudanese people expect to see,” Adler said.
