Nuer Elders Call For Peaceful Resolution of Darfur’s Conflict

Press Release

Nuer elders in Europe, Canada, U.S. and Australia

Nov. 11, 2006

We the Nuer elders in Diaspora are hereby informing the Sudanese and the international communities that the press release issued by Union of Nuer Community in North America (UNCONA) on Nov. 10, 2006, should not be interpreted as a position of Nuer ethnic group in relation to Darfur humanitarian crisis. As the guides of Nuer community, the elders prefer peaceful resolution of Darfur conflict to military confrontation between the Government of National Unity (GONU) and the Darfur’s National Redemption Front (NRF).

We would like to correct UNCONA’s call for military resolution of the conflict as a position taken in haste by the organization’s Supreme Council without consultation with elders worldwide. We are mindful of the fact that the leadership of UNCONA is composed of young men who might have been made emotional by the flight of civilians in Darfur. However, the elders are in a position that the appropriate channel to end the flight of Darfuris is for both the GONU and the NRF to workout modalities of implementing Darfur Peace Agreement.

Based upon our traditional status, we warn the leadership of UNCONA to conduct a fund raising event that would only further the implementation of Darfur Peace Agreement rather than perpetuating armed conflict in detriment of the peaceful resolution of the crisis.  Cognizance of the suffering of civilians in Darfur, it is our position that the situation demands peaceful resolution instead.

We call on both the GONU and the NRF to demonstrate statesmanship by rising above parochial and personal differences to resolve the problem so that the international aid agencies would have an opportunity to avert the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The Nuer elders are more than willing to mediate between both sides if officially invited. The need to end the flight of innocent civilians in Darfur is a concern of every Sudanese.

We also require both GONU and NRF to respect basic human rights enshrined in international treaties signed by the state of Sudan. Commission of crimes against humanity by any group in Darfur runs contrary to international treaties and leads to violations of the right to life, security of the person and pursuit of happiness.

We therefore call upon all ethnic communities in the Sudan to resolve their differences via peaceful means in order to transform the country from a failed state to a peaceful one that is capable of resolving political and socio-economic conditions, which caused most conflicts in Sudan.

For Contact:

Eng. Daniel Koat  Mathews,

Chair person of Nuer elders in Diaspora, Former Governor of greater Upper Nile, (Unity, Jonglei & the Upper Nile States), Former Commander & Secretary for Peace, SSIM/A, Former representative of SPLM/A in Scandinavia based in Sweden prior to the Nasir Declaration, Former mediator between Anya-Nya II and the SPLM/A (1987).

Email: [email protected]