South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Awan Achiek
The government delegation and opposition parties are set to sign a document brokered by religious leaders to build trust and confidence in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Bishop Emeritus Enock Tombe, representative of the South Sudan Council of Churches which is mediating the South Sudanese intra-party dialogue told U.N radio, Miraya FM on Friday that the 12 points aim to narrow the gap between the parties attending the “Tumaini talks” being mediated by the Kenyan government.
“Even in the family if you don’t trust each other between the wife and husband, children and parents, nothing will happen. The important thing is that the relationship must be built on trust,” Enock said.
The points include leadership crisis, the gap between words and actions, culture of lack of trust, division based on ethnicities, parties and region, broken promise and trust, unhealed wounds of past conflicts, peace spoilers and the impunity breaking trust, as well as land grabbing and others.
Bishop Enock express hope with the soon to be signed document, saying it will pave the way for compromises for peace.
“If you say something and do it, people will trust you but if you say something and you don’t do it, you lose the trust, the relationship is very important either in the family, church, mosques or in the government,” he said.
He said building trust among parties is critical in achieving lasting peace in the country.
“The leaders must be trusted but if they just make empty promises like we are going to bring peace and there is no peace, you think we will believe them,” Enock said.
Enock said that they have started harmonizing the document to pave the way for the final signing.
“They have all agreed, what is left is to hand it over to the mediators and then they are going to put it in headed paper and they should initialize, and yesterday instead of initialing the document, they gave us the summary of what they discussed previously,” he disclosed.
On May 3, 2024, President Salva Kiir and his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto graced the official launch of the mediation process between the Juba government and hold-out opposition parties in Nairobi.
Chaired by the Kenyan mediator, Major-Gen (rtd) Lazarus Sumbeiywo, the talks are between President Kiir’s government and opposition groups that refused to sign the 2018 revitalized peace agreement that ended years of conflict since 2013.
