Give peace a chance

As I have remarked before several times I am a very fortunate man. Amongst my many good fortunes I count my education. In South Sudan, many have never had even the chance to be educated and part of my mission as bishop of Wau is to change this forever.

But even with my education, I still find it hard to understand things sometimes. I find it hard to understand really why people have killed one another in our country for over five months, often just because of the tribe that they were born into. It is really very difficult to explain this to people that live in countries that do not have tribes. They think we are very stupid and cannot understand why a country that was created as a result of a war has taken so long and so much effort to make peace with itself.

The announcement of the signing of a peace deal in Addis Ababa recently did not make me happy so much as relieved – at last an end. It is estimated that 900,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in South Sudan. I cannot really imagine 900,000 people; it is a number that has no meaning to me. But if you stop and think of how many people live in the town or city where you live, then suddenly you can understand better how big this number is.

All these people have been forced from where they used to live and now must exist by the kindness of others as refugees in the country that not so long ago they fought for, voted for and gave so much to defend. All that they had is gone and the life that they led is stopped. There are of course many who were never given any chance of survival which is a shame we must bear as a country.

The leaders of our country have agreed to keep the peace but fighting and killings have been intense for five months and caused much devastation. How many times has Bentiu been fought over in bloody exchanges since the first ceasefire agreement was signed? How much blood has been shed in Bor where Mother’s Union workers were killed?

No one is blameless in this and people in the world outside South Sudan talk of the civil war here and awful atrocities. As a country and a people, we must wake up to the truth that this situation cannot be allowed and we must look for a peace that binds us all if we are going to remain as a country.

President Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan made a comment recently that he thought South Sudan could be accepted back into Sudan and become part of his country again as we once were. It is to our eternal shame that he could be able to make a comment such as this barely three years after we won our independence.

I am South Sudanese and I have no desire to live in Sudan. President Bashir may dream of reunification but let me assure you, however bad things are, this will not happen. Let us embrace this new peace and begin to think of the future.