December 16th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s First Vice President designate and SPLM-IO Chairman Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon has called on the people of South Sudan to embrace peace and reconciliation so as to build a one nation of one people.
Machar, who is expected to take up his previous position as the country’s First Vice President next year, made the call in a statement issued on December 15th to mark the fifth anniversary of the Juba Massacre.
“The SPLM/SPLA (IO) call s upon our people to start the process of reconciliation among themselves so that they can live in peace and harmony as one people in one nation with one social contract that shall l lead us all to build a democratic, federal and prosperous state,” Machar said in the statement seen by the Nyamilepedia.
Machar said as result of the revitalized peace agreement signed by him and Kiir along other opposition groups in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in September, South Sudan will be a country where laws are respected and all activities contravening the law will be a matter of the past.
“The victims who have lost their loved ones, or property shall get redressed. Indeed impunity and lawlessness shall become a practice of past and the rule of law shall prevail,” Machar reassured.
In December 2013, thousands of ethnic Nuer civilians were massacred by a Dinka ethnic militia sponsored by the state to execute a ‘state policy’ to clean the capital Juba of its Nuer population.
The killings sparked sharp division among the country’s army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army or the SPLA igniting what later become one of the brutal African conflicts which is mostly fought along ethnic lines.
South Sudan President, Salva Kiir Mayardiit and opposition leader Dr. Machar signed a revitalized version of a 2015 peace deal in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in September following a three months negotiations in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
