By Malek Arol Dhieu
When war broke out in South Sudan, many women were killed and others raped, children and elderly people were killed as well.
To everyone’s surprise, people were killed in churches, buildings, utensils, cattle and farms were destroyed. What type of war do you think the warring parties were fighting? They were fighting a “war of nerves”.
A war of nerves leaves nobody untraumatized. You may be wondering what a ‘war of nerves’ means. Cool down! My dictionary defines it as a physical conflict in which one or more combatting parties use demoralizing and frightening tactics to attempt to dishearten one another.
Everybody, including those who think they won the war, became traumatized. No better place to take refuge in. The refugee camp in South Sudan was not different from that in Uganda or Kenya. Refugee camps were also warzones. Traumatization then exceeded war. Lives were cornered. All a person could think of was death. If one survives today, one would not survive tomorrow. It was a catch-22 situation for the citizens of South Sudan.
When peace was signed in 2018, war ceased, but traumatization refused to sign the cessation of hostilities. But one thing hinders the implementation of peace; Upper Nile and Unity States lodge pockets of rebels, meanwhile, Central Equatoria State lodges NAS. The bad news is that the Nasir war, which was a small thing, now looks a big deal, which may probably result in a new version of war. This hampers the search for healing and reconciliation.
This continues increasing the number of IDPs and prevents refugees from returning to South Sudan to embrace peace. Though the sleeping reconciliation and healing committee was working, this would be a foreign body in its quest for trauma healing, thus prolonging the period of trauma. Indeed, it begins with peace and ends with rehabilitation to heal the traumatized people.
Peace is the mother of prosperity. It is peace and only peace which will restore the bond linking one community with another, thus redefining South Sudanese as one people, hailing from one country, South Sudan. It is peace which will give birth to democracy so that democracy gives a room to equal representation in the government, bans one tribe from prospering at the expense of another, and above all, makes the citizens choose a leader of their choice.
This is the formula for calculating one South Sudan, not 64 South Sudans. This way, South Sudanese can become one people, inhabiting one nation where one’s problem is the problem of all. After peace, wounds of war begin to heal, but for them to heal as fast as possible, therapies, such as trauma healing and reconciliation, should be administered.
Reconciliation makes a wounded heart heal without heaped-up scars. Through reconciliation, grievances are aired out and the flames in the heart decline, burning and that, space for forgiveness automatically creates itself and peace prevails at last.
If the government does not see trauma as an afterbirth of war, then by the time peace is fully implemented, trauma shall have sent many people to the graveyard. Trauma healing does not need the warring parties to fly to Addis Ababa, but needs them to go to Freedom Hall, discuss and unanimously agree on what to do to heal trauma.
2 Corinthians 5:18 says, all this is from God who, through Christ, reconciled us to himself and gave us the Ministry of Reconciliation. As the heart heals, rehabilitation is then needed to help a traumatized person gain back good health.
Thank you for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.