Stakes is High*
I struggled to make sense of Jane Dutton’s underwhelming performance this morning on Al Jazeera English trying to discuss what’s happening in Sudan’s disputed, oil producing region, Abyei. She could not contain two party hacks (from the North and South respectively) as well as an expert in Beirut. In contrast, I found this fact sheet by Andrew Heaven and David Cutler of Reuters, way more helpful:
* WHY ABYEI?
– Abyei sits on Sudan’s ill-defined north-south border and is claimed by both halves of the country. In many ways it is a microcosm of all the conflicts that have split Sudan for decades — an explosive mix of ethnic tension, ambiguous boundaries, oil and age-old suspicion and resentment.
– Northerners and southerners fought hard over it during decades of civil war and have continued to clash there even after the 2005 peace deal that ended the war and set up the referendum.
– Abyei contains rich pastureland, water and, after a recent re-drawing of its boundary, one significant oilfield — Defra, part of a block run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), a consortium led by China’s CNPC.
– It also has emotional, symbolic and strategic significance. A number of leading figures from the south’s dominant party the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) hail from the area. Many southerners see the fight for Abyei as an emblem of their long struggle against perceived oppression.
– For several months a year, Abyei is also used by Arab Misseriya nomads — a well-armed group that provided proxy militias for Khartoum during the north-south war.
– The Misseriya claim centuries-old rights to use the land for their livestock and Khartoum will have to back them to the hilt if it wants to keep them as allies. Abyei’s Dinka Ngok tribe, with its ethnic links to the south, also claims its own historical ownership rights.
* CURRENT STATUS:
– Under the 2005 peace deal, Abyei had a special administrative status, governed by an administration made up of officials from the SPLM and President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s northern National Congress Party (NCP). On Saturday, state media reported Bashir had removed the two heads of the Abyei administration and dissolved the administrative council, without giving further explanation.
– Abyei was also supposed to be watched over by Joint Integrated Units made up of northern and southern troops and police. In reality those units remain far from integrated and soldiers from both sides have been caught up in the fighting.
* SETTLEMENT EFFORTS:
– Abyei proved so intractable that it was left unresolved in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the north- south civil war.
– The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague came closest to solving the first in 2009 by re-drawing Abyei’s boundaries, ceding several other key oilfields to the north. The SPLM and the NCP accepted the ruling but the Misseriya rejected it saying it still put too much of their pastureland inside Abyei. They have resisted official efforts to demarcate the new border.
– The Dinka Ngok and Misseriya also remain at loggerheads over who gets to vote. The Dinka have said only that a handful of settled Misseriya tradespeople count as residents. The Misseriya were demanding equal voting rights to the Dinka.
* FIGHTING RESUMES:
– South Sudan voted to become independent in the January 2011 referendum agreed to under the 2005 peace deal but tensions have built up in the oil-producing Abyei region where both sides have built up forces. However President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had said last month that Abyei would remain part of the north after the south secedes in July.
– Last week North and south Sudan’s armies accused each other of launching attacks in the contested region, marking an escalation of tensions in the countdown to the south’s independence in July.
– Khartoum sent tanks into Abyei town on Saturday, the United Nations said and the next day seized control. North Sudan said it had sent in the troops to clear out southern soldiers that it said had entered the area, breaking the terms of earlier agreements.
* With apologies to De La Soul.
By David Elkins
WASHINGTON, May 24, 2011 (IPS) - Escalating violence in Abyei, the largest of several towns in the disputed borders between North and South Sudan, has displaced thousands of people and, according to U.S. officials, is threatening the viability of both the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the soon-to-be independence of Southern Sudan, set for Jul. 9, as the potential for civil war between the two sides grows.After soldiers from the South's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) ambushed a U.N. convoy traveling through Abyei on May 19, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), under orders from the Northern capital of Khartoum, attacked and occupied towns throughout the territory in an apparent response to the SPLA assault. "We feel that the attack on the U.N. convoy was deplorable and wrong, but we feel that the response of the [Khartoum] government was disproportionate and irresponsible. We think [SAF] forces should be withdrawn," Princeton Lyman, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, said Monday. Oxfam, a human rights group, reports that more people have been killed in Sudan in the first months of 2011 than in all of 2010. According to official estimates from the Sudanese government, 70 SAF soldiers have been killed, a number the U.N. has contested. As the official date approaches for Southern Sudan's independence, which was decided in a January referendum, a number of issues, including the distribution of oil revenues, and the demarcation of a remaining 20 percent of the 2,100-kilometre border between the North and South, remain unresolved. Lyman emphasised that the continued "occupation" of Abyei is a violation of the CPA, and thus poses a risk to the plan for full normalisation of Sudanese relations with the U.S., an arrangement that would include inducements - such as removing Sudan from the U.S.'s State Sponsors of Terrorism list, and a debt relief of up to 38 billion dollars - for a peaceful transition of the largest country on the African continent into two independent nations. "If there is no cost to the Khartoum regime's commission of atrocities and to the dishonoring of agreements, then why would anything change in Sudan?" John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, an advocacy group, asked in a statement on Monday. "Darfur is deteriorating, Abyei is a war zone, and pockets of the South have been set aflame by Khartoum-supported militias. It is time to impose serious consequences for the Khartoum regime's use of overwhelming military force to deal with every challenge it faces," Prendergast added. In a possible sign of Southern government officials' willingness to negotiate a peace deal over Abyei, Luka Biong Deng, a senior Southern minister in Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's national unity cabinet, resigned Tuesday after characterising the violence in Abyei as "war crimes" that have resulted in 15,000 displaced persons, according to the U.N. Since the CPA's inception, control over Abyei has been a bitter point of contention between the North and South mainly due to its importance as a critical water source - the Kiir River provides priceless sustenance for crops during the dry season - and its once- vast oil reserves in areas bordering the town. The Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling in 2009 on Abyei's borders reaffirmed the Ngok Dinka's (an ethnic group loyal to the South) claim over the majority of the town, essentially guaranteeing that any referendum held on the determination of Abeyi's allegiance would be in favour of South Sudan. A referendum, originally planned to coincide with the national referendum in January, on the self-determination of Abyei has yet to be held, while the terms of the court's ruling - which were widely accepted at the time by all parties involved - left the Misseriya, an ethnic group of Arab descent loyal to the Khartoum government, and the North to defend their own claims to the disputed territory. But some analysts argue that Northern control over Abyei serves more as a point for the Khartoum government's political leverage in the South's secession, particularly given remaining U.S. sanctions on Khartoum's government, and the already decrepit state of the North's economy as it prepares to take even larger losses in oil revenues once the South secedes. "Abyei itself has become the defining issue in north-south relations and the defining issue in answering the question of whether Khartoum will allow for the peaceful secession of the south or not," Dr. Eric Reeves, a regional specialist, told IPS. "Khartoum is now obviously making it look as if the SPLA is the provocateur." Since the national referendum in January, numerous reports have documented the North's buildup of an offensive military capability on their southern border, making discussions over not insignificant issues such as who should be counted as residents of Abyei seemingly irrelevant in the face of what amounted to premature preparation for armed conflict. Whether Southern officials will approach the SAF's occupation of Abyei with a measured political response as they have in past conflicts, or with calls for an armed response in kind, remains to be seen. "One pole would argue that as goes Abyei so go we, we will fight if Khartoum attacks Abyei, now we're still waiting to see what the SPLA military response will be…[T]hey have so far understood that restraint will be the best response," Reeves added. Since President Obama took office in 2009, U.S. policy has officially centred around three pillars – the genocide in Darfur, implementation of the CPA, and the mitigation of the threat from terrorist organisations operating in Sudan. But the violence in Abyei is testing the resolve of U.S. diplomats in securing peaceful negotiations before the Jul. 9 deadline and whether the advantages of normalisation will be enough incentive, or if measures that penalise the aggressive behaviour are necessary. "The U.S. has been excessively cautious. We should be creating a timeline in Khartoum's mind for a withdrawal…and say if this is going to be a negotiated issue, that every day Khartoum stays in Abyei there will be a further postponement in removing them from the list of state sponsors of terrorism," Reeves told IPS.
Showdown in Abyei
Escalating Rapidly
That could be any time - or never. Over the past 48 hours the North has dug into Abyei without any apparent intention of letting go. The argument goes as follows: the North wants to reach a solution to ensure stability, but must first “establish the conditions” for a new agreement. The North has played the U.S. hypocrisy card on SPLA forces, with Ahmed asking, "why on earth, right now, is the United States denouncing us?" Khartoum’s policy, in theory, seeks to eliminate all Southern military forces operating in Abyei under these pretexts. The North simply allowed the SPLA to operate in Abyei, stoking tensions and biding its time before calling the South out. Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein told parliament in Khartoum, "The circumstances need, in our opinion, a new agreement to be signed. We are staying in Abyei until we get an order telling us otherwise, and we will not let go of one inch of land.” He added, "Free citizens, your armed forces will hold all areas which the laws and agreements entrust to it.” From the South’s point of view, the North has attempted to set it up from the beginning. Fearing the North’s military influence in Abyei, the SPLA believed it had no choice except to operate in the region. The North could not be trusted and the SPLA needed to stick its foot in the door. Realizing that it was walking in the North’s trap, Southern leadership is also prepared to play its own international cards, and has tied Abyei into the north’s wider strategy to provoke a conflict before July 9th. This could partially explain the SPLA’s own activity, which isn’t necessarily saintly. "What Khartoum is trying to do now is not just occupy Abyei, they want us not to get to 9th of July," said Anne Itto, deputy secretary general of the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). "What they want is for us to react and drag the whole of Sudan to war, but we will not give them that joy of taking us back to war.” Thus each side has baited each other into the volatile territory since pre-referendum. UN, AU, and Western officials have scrambled to contain last week’s damage, condemning both sides (but mostly the North) for escalating their activity. The North’s potential removal from the U.S. terror list is sinking, while hardline ambassador Susan Rice claimed that the White House “will take the appropriate steps as the situation unfolds." However punitive measures on the North will only reinforce its resolve to control Abyei, and it remains to be seen what measures would create an immediate impact on the ground. Not much time exists between now and July 9th. The White House also had enough trouble in Sudan without the Arab Spring consuming the bulk of its foreign attention. Sincerely addressing and resolving the roots of conflict in Abyei may not be possible within this time. Worst of all, escalation between the North and South could jeopardize the CPA’s completion and throw Sudan into a new round of national strife. Leaving conventional forces in Abyei poses risks for either side, as the international community has an easier time regulating government forces. Though notorious, proxies are generally more difficult to observe and control. While both the North and South need troop density to maintain influence in the territory, and may leave their forces for the time being, unconventional forces could become the eventual troop of choice in Abyei. This strategy would only thicken the fog of war. “I don’t think that means that they’ll go to general warfare between the two, but any kind of warfare,” warned Princeton Lyman, America’s special envoy to Sudan, “and especially over in area – an issue as emotional and difficult as Abyei, is a very dangerous prospect.”