By James Innocent
A three-day community peace dialogue organized by Reconcile International that brought together community, religious leaders and military commanders to enhance civil-military peaceful co-existence kicked off in Yei River County on Monday.
The peace dialogue organized by Reconcile International drew about 120 participants within Otogo Payam of Yei River County which included; the military, religious and local leaders. The dialogue was organized in a quest to create peaceful Co-existence between the military and the civilians as result of the challenges the communities faced since 2016 conflicts.
Geri Moses, the Program Manager for Reconcile International said the participants were picked from various Bomas of Otogo payam in Yei River County with the aim of bridging the fragile civil military relations through dialogue to address the challenges brought about by the 2016 war.
“This dialogue is targeting 120 people picked from various Bomas of Otogo Payam and the aim is clear, this dialogue came as a result of crisis in the Country especially 2016 up to now which has affected Yei River County greatly being with a lot of crises until 2018-2019,” he said.
Meanwhile, Michael Machar the Director of Civil Military Relations in Yei River County said dialogue is a good initiative because they need all the civil population to live in peaceful coexistence with the army.
He urged all the armed forces in Yei River County to respect the civil population in the communities saying without the civilians there is no government.
“It’s a very good dialogue because we need our civil population to live in peaceful coexistence among themselves because without civil population there will be no government and I thank Reconcile International for organizing the dialogue as it was written in the bible that those who build peace among themselves will be blessed” he cited. “For the civil population in Otogo to live in peace I am appealing to the military people to respect civilian population because this is the population that can make us achieve our desired goals,” Machar stressed.
For her part, Emma Meli Charles one of the participants, expressed her gratitude for the three days’ peace dialogue workshop organized by Reconcile International to bring all the military leaders and civil population together.
“Am very happy for today’s dialogue because it has brought us together with the army operational commanders from different Bomas to witness the training so that each and every one can go with enough solution to tackle issues affecting our people in the community,” she stated.