JUBA DECEMBER 5, 2017(CISA) – Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of the Catholic Diocese of Tombura-Yambio has called on the South Sudanese to work together for peace in the country.
“We are never defined by our past but our present, as no matter how hard the past, you can always start again. We wish to forget the wounds of the past and move ahead towards peace,” said Bishop Hiiboro Kussala.
Speaking during the end of Interstate Governors’ Strategic Intervention Conference for Peace, entitled Peace within and across the borders at Yambio November 27 to 30, Bishop Hiiboro Kussala said that despite the bad history that country has gone through there is still hope for growth and peace.
“South Sudan is a blessed land. It is resourcefully rich above the ground and below the ground. God and nature have given us enough to make all of us rich and prosperous. But despite all these blessings we have a wounded history and we must move on,” Fides News Agency quoted the prelate as saying.
South Sudan achieved her independence in 2011 after decades of civil war against the Sudanese regime.
After the separation from Khartoum, in December 2013 civil conflict broke out between President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar, which resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of internally displaced persons and refugees abroad.
Bishop Kussala further called on the government to focus on young people, by giving them better education and quality professional formation.
“It is also necessary that the States of the South Sudanese Federation create common economic projects and cross-border peace initiatives. Invest in Young people through good education, Invest in hope, invest in peace. Peace is possible because it is the only way,” he said.
The Conference was organized by the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (JMEC), in collaboration with the Interfaith Council for Peace Initiative, the body the Catholic Church belongs to, in order to promote peace.
JMEC is responsible for monitoring and supervising the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, ARCSS, signed in 2015, under the auspices of the IGAD (economic and political community formed by Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda).
