Nuer deal presented as progress towards peace

The New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) has brokered a peace deal among warring factions of the Nuer people in South Sudan, as part of a wider people-to-people peace process to end Africa’s longest running civil war, according to the British-based NGO Tearfund. At a peace conference in Kisumu, western Kenya, part-sponsored by Tearfund, 72 Nuer leaders signed a declaration by which they called for the unity of two factions: the Sudan People’s Democratic Front (SPDF) and the South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM), the NGO reported on Friday.
The Nuer signed their Declaration of Unity to alleviate the suffering among their people “as a result of division and conflict”, in order to end others’ exploitation of differences among the Nuer, and to allow them play their rightful role in “the liberation struggle of the people of southern Sudan”, a press release from Tearfund stated.

The Kisumu conference - which brought together more than 200 traditional leaders, elders, women, civil society representatives and politicians from southern Sudan [but, notably, not the Sudan people’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which declined to attend] - called on the international community to respond to the humanitarian crisis in southern Sudan, the South Blue Nile and the Nubah Mountains, according to Tearfund. In addition, it appealed to oil companies to suspend production until there was a comprehensive and just peace agreement in Sudan, and for the NSCC to continue its peace-building work in the region.

The purpose of the Kisumu conference, convened from 16-22 June at the request of traditional leaders, was to work towards “unity of purpose, unity of effort and unity of ideals” among southern Sudanese, according to informed sources. That liberation was “the common and prime agenda” and self-determination the “the central objective” were among the key affirmations of the conference, they said. Unity in the face of “a common threat” and “clarification of the goal of liberation” were said to be constant themes. It was notable that the NSCC was aligning itself with the people in their struggle for liberation from oppression, but was not associating itself with any one movement, the sources added. In the past, the church grouping has been accused of being too close to the SPLM/A.