South Sudanese officials keen to implement peace-building lessons from Rwanda

South Sudanese officials have expressed keenness to implement peace-building lessons from Rwanda on their journey of dealing with challenges of political conflict, divisionism, among others. Since last week, 25 high-ranking political and military leaders from South Sudan have been in Rwanda for a post-conflict seminar held at the Rwanda Peace Academy in Musanze district. The team included 4 ministers, 4 members of parliament and 16 military generals. They took part in a 5-day training focusing on post-conflict peacebuilding, reconstruction and stabilization, where they were mainly learning from Rwanda’s post-genocide experience. Having concluded the training, on Saturday, December 4, the officials paid a visit to Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente at his office in Kigali, where they also met with other Rwandan government officials. Speaking in an interview with media after the meeting, Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro, South Sudan’s Minister of Cabinet Affairs, who was the leader of the delegation that came to Rwanda, described the training as a “very useful” one. “We have gone through similar challenges like Rwanda, and we have chosen it to be the best place to learn from, so that we can also surmount the challenges that we have after the internal conflict that we had,” he said. He cherished the lessons learnt in regard to how to develop and professionalize their military, building peace and reconciliation, developing home-grown solutions to conflict, among others, saying his team is going back “enriched.” He noted that they are going to put together a report and submit it to their council of ministers, have some resolutions about it, and embed it within their governance system. Speaking about the meeting that the South Sudanese officials had with the Premier, Dr. Vincent Biruta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said they appreciated the training, and spoke about how important Rwanda can be in their journey of building sustainable peace. “The Prime Minister told them that we are ready to accompany them on that journey, especially using the lessons we learned from the journey we had here in Rwanda,” he said. Biruta noted that after the training, the officials should go and try to implement what they have learnt, in line with the context of their country. During their stay in Rwanda, the South Sudanese officials, among other activities visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the Kinigi model village, and the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) Centre in Mutobo, Musanze District. They also visited the One Stop Border Post in Rubavu District where they were briefed on border operations.

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South Sudanese officials keen to implement peace-building lessons from Rwanda