In 2005, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended two decades of civil war that claimed countless lives and displaced millions. Besides the international mediators, Sudanese churches were instrumental in preparing the ground for the peace agreement, just as they had been in the 1972 Addis Ababa Peace Agreement. 

On 22 June 2016, the Rift Valley Forum launched Reconciliation in the Sudans, by Stein Erik Horjen.

The book, which details the suffering of the Sudanese people during Sudan’s recurrent conflicts, describes how the Sudanese churches took up the plight of the voiceless, challenged the military and political leaders and their abuse of power, and supported a grassroots ‘People to People’ peace process, that helped ensure the success of the peace talks. However, the author argues that the absence of reconciliation mechanisms within the CPA also helps explain why conflict erupted again in South Sudan in 2013.
 

Moderator

Philip Winter
Rift Valley Institute
 

Panellists

Stein Erik Horjen
Author 

General Lazaro Sumbeiywo

Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro 
Catholic Diocese of Yambio