An activist has welcomed the initiative by the Eastern Equatoria State Governor, Louis Lobong, and the Chief Administrator of Pibor Administrative Area, Lokoli Amee Bullen, to restore peace among their communities.
The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, said the two leaders should demonstrate a genuine commitment to uniting their citizens to end what he called “starvation crime” in the areas.
He said the two communities of Eastern Equatoria State and Greater Pibor Administrative Area like other areas in South Sudan have starved enough and should not continue suffering.
“The inter-communal violence that is going on in the country for the last three years is a starvation crime, where a community imposes hunger on the others as a weapon of war by not allowing the other community to farm or to graze cattle.”
“Since [Lobong and Lokoli] bear the responsibility for the security of their citizens, they understand why citizens are fighting… “It is a good initiative that requires commitments from the leaders because the arms that go to the hands of the community are not being bought in the market but are leaked out through leadership structures,” Yakani said.
He was reacting to the recent peace mission by Lobong and Lokoli at Jebel Buma, Greater Pibor Administrative Area, where four ethnic groups—Bie, Kasipo, Murle, and Toposa—were brought together for reconciliation.
The peace mission was prompted by the recent movement of Toposa pastoralists towards Boma in search of water and grazing pastures for their cattle after the Kapoeta was hard hit by drought.
The area also had experienced an unprecedented hunger situation that forced some to move to Torit Town, and they are currently in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
“This is not the time for our people to engage in conflict while people in other parts of the country are talking about development. We must denounce conflict and join the success story of nation-building, ” Lobong said.
On his part, Lokoli vowed to cooperate with Eastern Equatoria State for peace, cooperation, and peaceful relations between the communities of the two areas.
“As leaders, we are committed to resolving the disputes among our people so that they can live in peace with one another,” Lokoli said
The move was a reinforcement to the September 2021 three-day leaders’ retreat to the Greater Pibor Administrative Area to address issues of political differences and how to counter cattle raids, age-set youth violence, and child abduction.
The retreat which was co-organised by the UNMISS Civil Affairs Division and United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Peace and Community Cohesion Project, with funding from the Swedish government, brought partial stability that did not last.
But Yakani said, “those who are suffering the consequences are people who have no decision-making authority. It will yield fruit if [Lobong and Lokoli] commit themselves.”