NOT ON OUR WATCH

4th May 2009

I, Daniel Deng Bul, Archbishop and Primate of the Province of the
Episcopal Church of the Sudan and Bishop of the Diocese of Juba, am
personally appealing to the international donor and diplomatic
communities, on behalf of the entire Church and the entire country,
for increased support and action in safeguarding the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA).

Over the past year I have undertaken major tours of Southern Sudan,
covering almost all of Equatoria, Lakes State and Jonglei State.
During these visits I have witnessed first hand the suffering of my
people and the increasing fear of communities on the ground because of
a situation of ever-increasing insecurity. In the Church’s opinion,
this is the biggest problem in Sudan today, and prevents any further
material or economic development, as well as the free and fair
elections desperately needed in February 2010 and the referendum on
Southern secession scheduled for 2011.

Peoples in Western and Central Equatoria are being attacked, murdered
and displaced by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), rumoured to be
supplied by people within Sudan. A large number of civilians in
Eastern Equatoria, Lakes and Jonglei states are armed. The
proliferation of modern weapons has caused traditional tribal
conflicts over cattle ownership and grazing rights to increase and
escalate into far bloodier warfare all over Southern Sudan – warfare
that is now damaging the unity of the people and the CPA process as a
whole. Last week a large weapons cache was apprehended in Lakes State
and there are rumours of trucks loaded with weaponry heading north out
of Juba to fuel tribal violence in Central Equatoria State.

The only conclusion one can draw is that these are ancient disputes
that are being deliberately stirred up into something much more
damaging for the local people and the stability of our country as a
whole. Who is doing this is still largely unknown, but it is evident
from local reports received through the Church network that the arms
smuggling, re-armament and incitement of tribal violence is being
carried out by enemies of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

During Easter 2009, I visited Jonglei State, travelling from Bor right
up to Ayod in the Nuer lands. Although I and the vast majority of the
party I was travelling with are Dinka, we were welcomed, and I as a
Church leader spoke about love and peace between tribes. On my return
to Juba I was informed that following the visit all cattle raiding and
violence in the Ayod area has ceased. I take this as proof that the
Church is one of the most effective ground-level players in the peace
process and as proof that our message of love and reconciliation is
one that is most effective in peace building amongst the tribes of
Southern Sudan.

The Church has a presence in almost all small villages in the South,
coverage unmatched by any organisation, including the Government of
Southern Sudan and the SPLA, which in most cases are no longer able to
keep the peace on the ground. The army is largely absent from
effected areas, the police are too few to provide adequate security to
even the County Commissioners, let alone the people, and therefore the
government is in danger. As evidence of this I cite the fact that the
police in Twic East County of Jonglei State were not able to contain
local violence even during my visit to the area.

I am therefore making a passionate and heartfelt appeal to those
governments and organisations that form Sudan’s diplomatic and donor
community, in particular the United Nations agencies and the
governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the
Netherlands, all of which have a major presence in Southern Sudan and
are guarantor signatories of the CPA.

As guarantors you have a duty to prevent this nation from returning to
war, and I urge you to consider very seriously the churches as key
partners in the work of peace-building on the ground. This is a
problem that requires an ecumenical approach – all churches need to be
supported by international stakeholders in the CPA to be tools of
peace building on the ground. With our community-level network that
surpasses any other, we need to be empowered to spread peace in this
land as I have been doing in Jonglei State last month. We must teach
our people that they are part of much bigger politics of which they
are unaware, but which they are destabilising. They must also be
empowered to make free and fair democratic choices in the upcoming
elections and referendum.

My worry, and the fear of many thousands of people I have spoken to
across Southern Sudan in the past year, is that the current escalating
violence will add to the current disputes between the National
Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)
over the North-South border and the Abyei Protocol, that are already
threatening to cause the CPA to collapse. If the CPA is not
guaranteed now, war can start again all too quickly, during which a
return to peace will be incredibly difficult, the Sudanese people will
be further devastated and the whole region will be destabilised.

If you are guarantors of the CPA, then why is the international
community allowing this violence to continue? I beseech you to act
now to prevent it and protect the peace of my people.

Yours in the love and peace of Christ,

The Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Deng Bul Yak

Archbishop and Primate of the Province of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan