Southern peace worker honoured

Awut Deng Acuil, a peace worker in southern Sudan, has been declared a winner of the InterAction 2002 Humanitarian Award, in honour of her "extraordinary leadership" in promoting peace and development in the war-torn country.

InterAction, the American Council for Voluntary Action, is an umbrella organisation for international NGOs which have offices in the United States.

Deng has been a longtime conflict resolution trainer with the New Sudan Council of Churches, and is a founding member of the Sudanese Women's Association of Nairobi and the Sudanese Women's Voice for Peace.

"Awut is an inspiration to us all," said Ken Hackett, executive director of the US-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS), an InterAction member organisation which has worked closely with Deng.
"She is a person who has dedicated her life to bringing peace and reconciliation to this troubled region."

Deng, born and raised in southern Sudan, has been instrumental in people-to-people peace processes in the Bahr al-Ghazal and western Upper Nile regions, the momentum of which continues to grow slowly but steadily, according to humanitarian workers.

These processes have built on the success of the West Bank Dinka-Nuer Conference in Wunlit in March 1999 - endorsed by delegates, church leaders and the leadership of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) - which has since been followed by numerous other people-to-people agreements on the west and east banks of the Nile, involving members of the Anyuak, Dinka (Bor and Padang), Jie, Kachipo, Murle (Boma) and Nuer (Gawaar and Lou) ethnic groups.

While traditional hostilities have prevailed for generations among some of these ethnic groups, they have been aggravated, and often manipulated, by the warring parties in the course of the 19-year-old civil war, according to aid workers in Sudan.

People-to-people peace processes and conferences serve as a forum for people to face each other, discuss their differences and search for agreements to reconcile and make peace. Practical agreements are also hammered out over issues such as access to animal grazing areas, water points and the return of abducted children and women.

Such local peace agreements have also emphasised that all military and militia groups should respect the civilian population, allow displaced people and abducted women and children to return to their homes, and allow for freedom of movement, trade and communication across tribal areas.

Deng's particular ability to bridge the divides that split local communities "gives courage and hope to others that most problems can be resolved through sensitive dialogue and understanding", Hackett added.