Pope urges South Sudan leaders to make ‘new start’ for peace

Pope Francis yesterday urged the leaders of South Sudan to make “a new start” for peace, warning that history would remember them for their actions, as he began a three-day visit to the violence-wracked country.
“The process of peace and reconciliation requires a new start,” the 86-year-old pontiff said in a speech at the presidential palace in Juba, calling for intensified efforts to end conflict in the world’s newest nation.
“Future generations will either venerate your names or cancel their memory, based on what you now do,” he told an audience that included President Salva Kiir, his rival and deputy Riek Machar, as well as diplomats, religious leaders and traditional kings.
Since South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in 2011, peace has eluded the impoverished country, with a five-year civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar leaving 380,000 people dead and 4mn displaced.
“No more bloodshed, no more conflicts, no more violence and mutual recriminations about who is responsible for it, no more leaving your people athirst for peace,” Francis said.
The “pilgrimage of peace” is the first ever papal visit to South Sudan since the predominantly Christian nation gained independence from Sudan after decades of war.
It follows four days in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a brutal conflict in the mineral-rich east was high on the Pope’s agenda.
Crowds of people, who began lining the streets of Juba hours before the Pope’s arrival, cheered as his convoy drove along freshly tarmacked roads, with some kneeling as he waved to them.
Some wore traditional clothing or the garb of religious orders, while others ululated, blew horns and whistles, and sang hymns.
As well as the political leaders, the pontiff is also expected to meet victims of conflict, and church officials, between prayers and an outdoor mass that is expected to draw large crowds.
The visit — Francis’s fifth to Africa — was initially scheduled for 2022 but had to be postponed because of problems with the Pope’s knee.
The affliction has made him dependent on a wheelchair and has seen the itinerary pared back in both countries.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland have also joined the Pope in South Sudan. Francis promised in 2019 to travel to South Sudan when he hosted warring leaders Kiir and Machar at a Vatican retreat and asked them to respect a hard-fought ceasefire for their people.
Medical student Malek Arol Dhieu said the Pope has “laid a foundation for peace in our country”.
“The Pope’s visit will cement...the peace agreement so that peace prevails in our country,” the 29-year-old said.
Kiir said he hoped the visit would “push us over the line on our journey for (a) peaceful and prosperous South Sudan.”
21 KILLED
But in a sign of the challenges facing the nation, at least 21 people were killed in a cattle raid on the eve of his visit, in what authorities termed a reprisal attack in South Sudan’s state of Central Equatoria.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the church leaders to put pressure on South Sudan’s leadership to “address the country’s ongoing human rights crisis and widespread impunity.”
“They should also press South Sudan’s leaders to take concrete steps to end attacks on civilians and to ensure accountability for serious abuses,” Mausi Segun, HRW’s Africa director, said in a statement released yesterday.
At the meeting with the Pope, Kiir announced that his government was willing to enter into peace negotiations with a coalition of rebel groups, which did not sign the 2018 agreement to end the civil war.