By Nathaniel Pierino,
Opinion
September 14th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – On the occasion of this peace agreement, I must say It was a short long walk. As we seek to implement this agreement, both sides of the political divides should never forget the carnage of 2013-2018.
Even then we have not yet crossed to the other side. We have not yet turned a new page. It’s still the beginning of the end. The attitude of the mind must change.
It’s easier to restructure the state and embark on national democratic transformation and peace building than relapse to further violence. Agreement is one thing, it’s implementation in letter and spirit is another.
Our creed should be, to love our great country and it’s great people and care for its best interests. No one or group has the right to deprive anyone or group or part thereof of the right, privileges and entitlements as citizens.
We must embrace one another as survivors and victims of history of painful struggles to attain dignity and prosperity for ourselves. Where is the dignity and where is the prosperity? When two brothers fight to death, the stranger inherit their possessions.
We have lost our possession to strangers, wealth to strangers, populations to strangers, space, time to strangers and generations. How do we recover them? How do we heal and reconcile the nation.
How do we build a prosperous state? How do we put the required institutions in place? How do we modernize the economy? How do we reconstruct and recover from war wreckage?
The peace agreement signed should never be another opportunity to divide the spoils. To arrogate power and wealth, to entrench autocracy and one party dictatorship, to entrench personality cults, to entrench ethnic bigotry and to wage revenge.
The attitude of the mind must change. This peace agreement does not belong to IG, IO, SSOA, FDs, or OPP. The peace agreement belongs to the suffering masses of South Sudan, to the refugees, to the IDPs, to the widows and orphans, to the next generation, to the disabled and war wounded.
You must therefore guard it, it’s your peace, your prosperity and your development. We have done our best, the rest we can walk together. God bless you and South Sudan.
The author is the SPLM-IO governor of Imatong state.
