By Matia Samuel Timatio
The Undersecretary in the National Ministry of Peace Building has said peace is not achieved by force but can only be realized by understanding.
Pia Phillip Michael the Undersecretary in the ministry of Peace Building made the remarks during a project launch by YWCA together with Empower Youth Africa titled “enhancing the knowledge capacity and influencing strategies of women and youth to fully participate in the implementation of Revitalize Agreement on the Resolution of conflict in South Sudan”.
He said for South Sudan to realize peace, South Sudanese must sit down to discuss what went wrong and by doing little consistent activities which can bring peace and stop considering this country to be the worse because there are countries worse than South Sudan.
“As I keep saying, there is nobody who has peace in the basket because there is this illusion in South Sudan that we want peace, we want peace, and we want peace from who has the sacks of peace? Peace can be achieved by doing those little things, practicing what you want” Pia said.
“You only feel peace when it is not around, the presence of peace you don’t feel it but when it’s not around that’s when you feel something is missing and what we need to do as all South Sudanese is to practice peace building, social cohesion to avoid anything that is violenct” Pia stated.
He further encouraged women to continue being peace builders in their families citing that time has come for the youth of South Sudan to challenge the thinking of ethnicity but to look for technology, innovation and to advance their own families.
“When women are reconciled, I tell you men will reconcile, so the women of South Sudan should be that factor because women are so powerful only that you don’t know how powerful you are! If you tell your man to stop fighting, many men will stop because God gave women this negotiating skills. So women should use this heart to challenge men on co-existence which is important” he noted.
The Undersecretary stressed that the only way to embrace peace through forgiveness, social cohesion is by saying sorry to whoever was offended and leave together to enjoy the fruits of this Country.
“And I know the process of reconciliation in South Sudan will be a tough one, there will be a lot of questions that will be asked, and how do you forgive people who killed your family? Because what is in our hearts is to revenge but we continue to revenge, eye for an eye, at the end of the day there will be no eye but we must forgive” Pia emphasized.
Meanwhile Modi Enosa Mbaraza the Executive Director for YWCA said the voice for the women and youth from the grassroots will be very important in the implementation of the peace agreement and they will make sure voices from the grassroots are heard.
“The women and youth voices are aired out and then their views are put into consideration when it comes to peace implementation so this project will run for six months. And within this six months I would like to ask the stakeholders to bring in good ideas on how we can bring up the voiceless women from the rural areas so that it can also portray in the peace process” he said.
“We need to create awareness at grassroots levels on the revitalized agreement so that people can understand and how they can be able to participate and air out their voices also” Modi explained.