Radio Miraya
2757: Nairobi Peace Talks: The Role of Faith Based Groups
[MUSIC PLAYING] You are listening to a special broadcast of the South Sudan peace talks in Nairobi, Kenya, on Radumiraya, the voice of peace. Yet again, we cross over to Nairobi, where Sunimartin is on the ground. And yes, now we will be speaking about the role of faith-based groups in the Nairobi talks and what their observations have been. And this morning, Suni is with the Akh Bishab, Moses Dangbol, peace envoy for South Sudan Council of Charter. Remember, you can also catch us live on our Facebook platform and that's Radumiraya. If you haven't liked the page, please hit the like button. Yes, Sunimartin, tell us. Good morning. And like you rightly said, we have already here at Bishop Moses Dangbol, the peace envoy for South Sudan Council, catches just to remind you and our listeners that if you hear some kind of sound banking of the doors and maybe it's people taking tea, we are not in a sun-proof studio. We are sitting here in this hotel where the negotiation is happening in Nairobi. Yes, good morning, Bishop, and thank you so much for taking your time to come to talk to the people of South Sudan through Radumiraya this morning. Thank you very much. And for inviting me to be with you, I'm happy to be here. And I greet you and all the listeners to Radumiraya this morning. OK, first of all, what is your role in this high-level mediation as the peace envoy for South Sudan Council catches? Thank you very much, as you have seen from the confident, present, confident building session that was led by the face-based leaders in particular Bishop in October, and Chekh Jalladin. The face-based are here to balance the equation because for us, the people, the parties to the conflict for us, they are all our brothers and sisters. We don't differentiate them. And you have seen yesterday in the prayers. When it came to prayers and the prayers were done in the same place, the same hall were done in the negotiation took place the other day. We removed the levels, the government, the position, the name of the parties. They were all removed. So that we sit there as all of us, children of God, and brothers and sisters, and people of South Sudan. So the face-based bring us together. And we are like a glue, or a glue, that is kind of a specific people together, yes. OK, now, so far, what is the observation on how the process is going? You led these confident, trust-building that ended on the feet of this man. First of all, what is the observation among the parties? How are they, what is the weather atmosphere in the room? Well, the bio-observation so far has been very good. I have actually seen the way they interacted during the break-fast, during the other meetings, and even in the hall, there are these relationships. It is warming up. And also, I have been talking to many of them, from the government and opposition side. And they are all optimistic. You have seen also when the Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Kaya, the speeches that were given by the head of the government and they are very, very encouraging. You can see people who are really, really committed to this peace process. And above that, the commitment of the Kenyan mediation team, you can see the Kenyan team are really, really committed to see peace and unity among the people of South Sudan. And when you look at the initiative that was initiated by His Excellency, the President, and you see that the President is committed to this, you can only see hope. That is why we like even the Nam call to many initiatives because it gives hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for South Sudan. Okay. Now, let's go to the recent happenings. Yesterday there was a press conference held by the Soma Group condemning these documents called the fundamental issues for achieving peace in South Sudan that has been circulating on social media. And the Soma Group says that is a disinformation by the enemies of peace. And they condemn that what is your take on this kind of documents circulating at this critical time when the parties are said to be engaged in a constructive dialogue here in Nairobi. To me, I believe the document being discussed at so far are still confidential. So if there is any document being circulated on the social media, that must have been created by enemies of peace. It is not from the parties because the document of the parties are not being released officially yet, but the parties have to agree on the document. And once they have agreed, they have also to be taken to the lead mediator who is the Kenyan president. Who will I believe will also consult with his kind of South Sudan president, Sir Fakir. So to me, I believe this Edman issued by the parties yesterday is enough. That this is not our document. And please, don't be surprised. Anything you do, no matter how good it is, there will always be enemies of that. Even in the book, in the Bible, in the book of Nemaya, when Nemaya came to reveal the wall of Jerusalem, there were some enemies. There is somebody called Zen ballad and Tobiya. They were laughing at him. They were insulting him. They were even creating, trying to create an enimity between him and the king. They said, this is a rebellion against the king. And Nemaya, do you know this talk from building the wall? So far, what has faced this attending this? And you have gone ahead extra mile to organize a series of four days of confident building. What are your recommendations to the parties to this high-level delegation so that they work to achieve a sustainable and lasting peace in South Sudan? Our advice, not really recommendations, but we call it our advice to the parties, is to commit themselves to the dialogue. Because, as you know very well, it doesn't matter how long we fight. We are not going to end this conflict with fighting. We have had war between 1955 to 1972. It ended with the dialogue in Addis Ababa, or it ended with peace talks. We had war from 1983 to 2005. It ended with the talks here in Nairobi. We had war in 2013. It ended with the talks in Addis Ababa. So, let us take a mindset that even if there are areas where we disagree, let us agree to continue with the dialogue. Because in the end, at the end of the day, even if we fight, we will come back to talking. So why don't we? We just commit ourselves to talk instead of fighting. So, we actually, even I want to use this opportunity to appeal to my brother, Thomas Jirello, and also brother Garwig Duall, to join the process. Let us, all our South Sudanists commit ourselves to dialogue. If we disagree, let us commit ourselves that we stop violence and continue to commit ourselves to dialogue. Same thing also, I'm appealing to the government, to dialogue who open-mindedly, so that we give our brothers and sisters who are not satisfied with the way the country is being run, an opportunity to share their feelings. What are they not happy with? And how do they want to be improved? Which is what was done in the Confident Building? OK, and because of the interest of time, we have to hand over to our main student, Juba. The people of South Sudan, most of them have criticized the church in general, whether the Catholic church, or the Episcopal church, or South Sudan, or the Presbyterian, or whatever, that the church has not been seen to be fighting or pushing the leaders of South Sudan to do the right thing. You have taken a back seat. We'll refer to you the 2018 agreement in Addis. The church said there will be the one monitoring, the implementation of their revitalized peace agreement, but ever since they went back to Juba, no one is talking. They are just too soft. When we are talking of a church in South Sudan, we are talking of one church, and under the umbrella of the South Sudan Council of churches. So as individual churches, we cannot do anything. And the church has been having internal challenges, especially in the council. And that is what led to my appointment as peace and boy, so that the church can speak to the one voice. As I speak to you, I am actually a night bishop in the Episcopal church of South Sudan. But as I speak to you, I am speaking about all member churches of the Council of churches. I am not representing the easiest anymore. So we don't want to speak as easiest as Catholic churches, Presbyterian churches. We want to speak as a church. And that is the statement we made in Rwanda when we developed action plan for peace. So we see the South Sudan Council of churches now playing a big role in achieving sustainable peace in South Sudan, but you are not in the government. Because you have all the people after you, because the ACS have their own followers, the Catholic church, and all these leaders, belongs to some of these churches. Absolutely. From now, as I said, we have now been managed to correct the challenges that we have internally. And so we are now coming back. And you will see us playing a very major role in ensuring that there is peace, and there is unity among people of South Sudan. OK, be sure, finally, briefly, what is your expectation? He has the peace anyway for the South Sudan Council of churches. My higher level of mediation. Our expectation is that there will be an agreement. And that agreement will address the root causes of the conflict. And it will also bring on board all the brothers and sisters who did not join the 2018 peace agreement. So the root causes will be addressed. And those who did not join the peace will all join this process, so that we have peace once and for all. There will be a role in implementing whatever will be agreed here, given the past experience that anything agreed is not implemented fully, as per the, say, in your first Black Agreed Principle of Confident Building, one of the key issues there is the gap between what's and action. Now, our role, number one, is to sensitize the people of South Sudan. As you correctly put it, almost 80% of the people of South Sudan ascribe to the faith, whether it is Christianity or Islam, or even upper-contraditional religion. And so our first role will be to sensitize the people of what has been agreed and what is their role. Because for us, we believe the real grantors of peace are the people of South Sudan. So if the people of South Sudan and understand what has been agreed, they will hold leaders accountable. They will ask leaders, you have agreed to do this. Why have you not done it? Number two, we will continue to do the dialogue. As we have done here with the Confident Building, these brothers and sisters who are in the different parties, they are people of South Sudan, and they love this country. But sometimes suspicion is very high. So if we continue with the dialogue, then we will watch out the suspicion, and we build trust and confidence among them, so that they can be able to implement the agreement. Bishop Moses, thank you so much for talking to us, and we hope to talk to you. Has the high-level mediation for South Sudan and talks begin continuously in Nairobi and Ali Masu. That's it from us here. We hand over to you in the studio in Jua. Right, thank you so much. Sonny Martin, hold away from Nairobi, Kenya's capital.