Archbishop of South Sudan says country must unite or fail

From Episcopal News Service:

The primate of the Episcopal Church of Sudan has called on the people of South Sudan to be “united in order to achieve lasting national healing, peace and reconciliation.”


The Most Rev. Daniel Deng Bul, who is also bishop of Juba, made the call in a strategic paper developed by his office to help guide the peace process. Deng was appointed chairperson of the national reconciliation committee by the President of South Sudan Salva Kiir in April this year to facilitate in “healing the mental wounds” in the country.

“God created and placed you here in South Sudan to live together in peace and harmony,” the archbishop wrote. “We attained this freedom as a united people and it is very important that you remember that it is God who has helped this country gain its freedom.”

Deng bemoaned the high levels of violence in the country even though all the tribes participated in the struggle for liberation. He said, “It is distressing to see the very people who struggled shoulder to shoulder now butchering each other as though they have forgotten where God has taken us through.

“We have to recognize that we have wounded ourselves through cattle stolen from each other, abducted children and women, land grabbed,” he wrote. “We have killed and wounded one another and destroyed our own property. We have spawned a culture of violence, corruption, nepotism, and inequity. We cannot continue this way. Enough is enough!”

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