South Sudan civil society groups to meet Pope Francis, here is what they will ask him to do

JUBA, FEBRUARY 3^rd 2023 (SUDANS POST) – South Sudan’s civil society organizations are prepared for a high-level meeting with visiting Pope Francis and they have put in place a number of demands that they would hope the head of the Catholic Church to do.

Speaking to Sudans Post, Edmund Yakani, the Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) said the meeting with Pope Francis is an opportunity for the civil society organizations in South Sudan to suggest to His Holiness what he can do to help bring peace.

“The meeting is a great opportunity of sharing national concerns with Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. This is a long-waited opportunity that will allow us to urge the global Christian faith leaders to continue playing influential role for realization of peace and stability in South Sudan,” he said.

“Today’s meeting with the three visiting Christian faith leaders will be much focusing on assessing the impact of Pope Francis kiss on the feet of leaders in April, 2019. It is clear that our leaders have not honored the kiss of Pope Francis for peace since. The unfortunate situation is that the level of deficit in trust and confidence among our top political leaders is still higher and this made them to drag feet in working genuine and timely for realization of peace and stability,” he added.

Yakani said that among the requests the civil society to present to Pope Francis is for him to speak to the leaders in order to create a political will in them to reconcile among themselves, implement the revitalized peace agreement fully and also create an unrestricted civic and pollical spaces for a smooth transition.

Today concerns that will be shared with the Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury and moderator of the general assembly of Church of Scotland will be centered on the followings; our political leaders taking serious responsibility for forgive and reconciling with each other to allow peace prevail; demonstration political Commitment and maturity by our leaders for smooth implementation of R-ARCSS and genuine commitment for Roma Peace Talks; open and unrestricted civic and political space for participatory and inclusive engagement on the political transitional,” he said.

“Tasks namely constitutional making process, General national elections as per the provisions of R-ARCSS; unconditional space for humanitarian works and workers; prevention of the elites fueled and aided deadly armed inter-communal violence across the country including demand public messages from the three visiting Christian leaders on criminalization of child and woman abduction and government commitment for promoting and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities through president signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities among others,” Yakani stressed.

The prominent activist further urged “the three Christian faith leaders to tell our political leaders to allow credible, fair, free and nonviolent elections to take place without any illegal practices. The forthcoming constitutional making and conduct of national elections offers greater opportunity Honorable and peaceful transfer of power.”