Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 21 June 2018, the President of the Republic of South Sudan, General Salva Kiir Mayardit, and his former vice-president and current armed opposition leader, Dr Riek Machar Teny, met for the first time in two years under the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Addis Ababa, where peace negotiations between the warring parties have been taking place since December 2013, two years after the independence of South Sudan. On 27 June this year, both leaders signed an agreement in Sudan's capital city, Khartoum, with high expectations for ending five years of deadly conflict in the world's youngest nation. This civil war has devastated the young nation, taking thousands of lives and leaving more than four million people displaced within and outside the country. The South Sudan Australia Peace Initiative, another community-led reconciliation effort in the diaspora, are monitoring the situation closely as South Sudanese Australians and South Sudanese communities around the world are affected by what goes on in their home of origin, due to close family connections they still have there.

I'd like to congratulate South Sudanese Australians and the South Sudanese communities around the world and especially the founders of the South Sudan Australia Peace Initiative, Mr Nyok Gor and Mr Kaka, for the crucial role they've played in contributing to this peace process. They worked with my office, the office of the member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent, the former member for Chisholm, Anna Burke, and Anthony Byrne, the member for Holt, in an effort to set up the Parliamentary Friendship Group of South Sudan. I also commend the President and opposition leader of South Sudan for taking this important step towards peace.