February 4, 2012 (JUBA) - The Anyuak and Murle peace consultative meeting was held at Episcopal church of South Sudan on 3rd to 4th-Feb-2012.The two days peace consultative meeting was mediated by Resource Centre for Civil leadership. The only selected leaders who attended the meeting were 46 in total from both communities.

Anyuak and Murle Community attending the meeting

The main agendas were Reconciliation, the common values between the Anyuak and murle, Root causes of conflicts, possible solution to those causes, the way forward and the recommendation.

At the meeting, one of the leaders ironed out that Anyuak and Murle came from a far distant. Historically the two groups had disputes and conflict but of which are minors’ issues. At the same time one of participant expressed himself by saying,” Murle and Anyuak are brothers and they must remain as brother no matter what condition. This peace reconciliation between the Anyuak and Murle ethnic group is essential in that the two communities inter-marriage, trade and interact together. However, during the immigration to grazing land and water point in Anyuak area, some minor problems arise like cattle raiding, abduction of children and killing."

One of the MP expresses himself by saying “This is the right time for us to come together and discuss like relatives. Long time ago before these problems occurred, Murle, Anyuak and the Kachipo used to live under one umbrella in Pibor were they study as one family without any difficulty in schools. Even if there are some abduction and killing among ourselves, I still believe that there is peace between us.”

As Hon.Kennedy Gaine, Council of state MP putted it what King Adongo Agada did in building peace between the two communities we need to further strengthen it. He further said, “Late king Adongo Agada was brilliant and charismatic King who could only look for solution to the problem in diplomatic way. When Murle youth abducted an Anyuak child, he, the late King Adongo could informed his people to come down and try to fetch for possible answer to problem on ground by calling in some chiefs from Murle people to investigate in to the matter. The loss of our late king is a big problem not only to Anyuak and also the entire Murle community. He left the gap behind him which cannot be bridged.”

In conclusion of the meeting, both sides agreed that they have to go to build peace among the two communities and they call upon the NGOs and others stake holders to come and support the proposal of coming meeting in March 2012 that will be held in Otalo, Pochalla County by the entire both communities.

In the last few months, Jonglei state was known as the center of ethnic conflict zone. In the last month only, revenge attack claimed over more than 300 lives of innocent people in Jonglei state. But with retaliation attacks occurring more and more frequently, there is little hope for an end to these clashes. Cattle raiding is at the heart of the tribal clashes.