The media in South Sudan must ensure they not only report facts but also promote cohesion and unity among the South Sudanese, the reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission chairman has said.
Speaking during the opening of a two-day workshop in Juba on Thursday JMEC interim chairperson Ambassador Augostino Njoroge said, “As the media, you have an important role to play in helping the people of South Sudan to understand the Agreement through your reporting.
Your being here today is a demonstration that you are also ready to be part of this journey to lasting peace.”
The media has in the past been accused of being partisan in the conflict, either supporting the government or the opposition.
Critics, such as Jok Madut Jok,
a co-founder of the Sudd Institute, says media tends to take a regional or ethnic line.
“Consequently, such stances have negatively affected the objectivity of the reporting and weakened the media’s role as a vital instrument for democracy, justice, and accountability,” Jok says.
Ambassador Njoroge said it’s media’s responsibility to inform the citizens, which in turn enables enable them to unite and together push for the implementation of the agreement,” Ambassador Njoroge added.
Njoroge expressed optimism that the parties, stakeholders and the people of South Sudan will implement the revitalised peace agreement.
“I am greatly encouraged by the demonstrable political will of the parties to implement the Revitalized Peace Agreement in letter and spirit. So far, the signs are good, and there is momentum – but we must keep our efforts up,” he said.
The workshop was themed “Towards Effective and Constructive Reporting of the R-ARCSS” and was organized in collaboration with UNESCO and the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), and brought together 50 journalists in South Sudan.
Media is South Sudan has, however, been intimidated in the past, with the regulator having suspended all press associations in the country in November last year.
In September 2016, the government shut down the Nation Mirror, a leading newspaper after it published details of a report released by a US-based group alleging misuse of state funds by state.
An year earlier in 2015, the National Security Service seized the paper’s copies over an erroneous headline about a rebel attack on government forces in Renk, in Upper Nile state.
JMEC was reconstituted on Monday by the IGAD Special Envoy to South Sudan Ismail Wais, in which Njoroge was confirmed as the interim chairman.
This was against the expectations of many Kenyans, who expected former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka to take over the chairmanship from former Botswana President Festus Mogae who stepped down in August.
Press reports indicated Kalonzo had started his new assignment as a peace envoy in South Sudan.
Kalonzo and Foreign Affairs CS Monica Juma on November 13 flew to Juba, where they delivered President Uhuru Kenyatta’s congratulatory message to President Salva Kiir for implementing the South Sudan peace agreement.
During his father’s burial, Kalonzo said he will not mind being Uhuru’s errand boy
But when the Star contacted a communications at JMEC’s, he said those remained rumours since there was no correspondence to that effect to the Secretariat.
“This august body is now reconstituted, made more inclusive, and bestowed with significant power and responsibility to monitor the Parties’ and stakeholders’ adherence to the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement,” Njoroge said in a statement to the press on Monday.