{"id":92602,"date":"2026-05-18T13:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T13:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/yakani-urges-leaders-to-use-spla-day-for-reconciliation-dialogue"},"modified":"2026-05-18T13:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T13:51:21","slug":"yakani-urges-leaders-to-use-spla-day-for-reconciliation-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/yakani-urges-leaders-to-use-spla-day-for-reconciliation-dialogue","title":{"rendered":"Yakani urges leaders to use SPLA Day for reconciliation, dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A civil society leader, Edmund Yakani, has called on the country\u2019s leaders to use the SPLA Day commemoration to promote reconciliation, forgiveness, and inclusive dialogue among citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking yesterday ahead of the 43rd anniversary of the founding of the Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Army (SPLA) on May 16, 1983, Yakani reflected on the progress made since the start of the liberation struggle.<\/p>\n<p>Yakani, the Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), questioned whether the current situation in South Sudan reflects the original goals of justice, equality, and prosperity that inspired the movement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy question before the speakers of tomorrow\u2019s event is What we are facing today, does it define the founding objectives for 16th May, where we can see civil servants have gone for quite a number of months or years without salaries, where we have seen safety and protection of civilians is no longer a priority of those who are in uniform with ranks, where we have seen corruption on the peak of everything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd we have seen ourselves detaining each other and arresting each other and keeping each other as detainees. Was it not the same objectives that on 16th May we stood up against, what I define as oppression and marginalization?\u201d he wondered.<\/p>\n<p>Yakani also appealed for the release of detainees and renewed dialogue among South Sudanese as a way of addressing the ongoing political and security challenges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo our appeal to you is, can we use the day of tomorrow to pronounce reconciliation and forgiveness where our own brothers and sisters whom we detain across the country should be free and then we see it on the table of talking to each other as South Sudanese,\u201d he appealed.<\/p>\n<p>Yakani said South Sudan\u2019s past conflicts were resolved through dialogue and urged leaders to prioritize peaceful engagement instead of violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A civil society leader, Edmund Yakani, has called on the country\u2019s leaders to use the SPLA Day commemoration to promote reconciliation, forgiveness, and inclusive dialogue among citizens. Speaking yesterday ahead of the 43rd anniversary of the founding of the Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Army (SPLA) on May 16, 1983, Yakani reflected on the progress made since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":92601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Yakani urges leaders to use SPLA Day for reconciliation, dialogue - South Sudan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-sudan\/all-news\/yakani-urges-leaders-to-use-spla-day-for-reconciliation-dialogue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Yakani urges leaders to use SPLA Day for reconciliation, dialogue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A civil society leader, Edmund Yakani, has called on the country\u2019s leaders to use the SPLA Day commemoration to promote reconciliation, forgiveness, and inclusive dialogue among citizens. 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