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Abyei: Sudan’S “Kashmir”

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Abyei: Sudan’S “Kashmir” www.enoughproject.org ABYEI: SUDAn’S “KAShmir” By Roger Winter and John Prendergast ENOUGH Strategy Paper #11 January 2008 udan is an incredibly complex country. Wars UN-AU Darfur force, called by its French acronym, and coups have marked its history since it MONUC, and other Darfur agreements. However, Sgained independence in 1956. The country is in the past, when there have been meaningful con- littered with killing fields, some localized and some sequences for such actions, the NCP has changed with national and regional implications. course.2 But if there continue to be no costs for the NCP’s efforts to undermine peace and security in Perhaps no area is more volatile and carries more Darfur and the South, then the cycles of violence implications for Sudan’s future than the oil rich will continue. The only chance for peace in Sudan region of Abyei—Sudan’s “Kashmir”—astride the will come if the United States, France, and Britain, boundary between North and South roughly 500 backed by strong support from the region, work miles southwest of Khartoum. There lies one of together to overcome China’s and Russia’s objec- the most potent of tripwires in all of Sudan. If the tions at the UN Security Council and impose a real political crisis regarding Abyei is addressed, there cost for this pattern of obstruction. is potential for peace in the entire country. If it is mishandled, it dramatically increases the possibility President Bush must take a leadership role in that Sudan’s current conflicts—from Darfur to the imposing that cost—in the form of UN Secu- South to the East—will explode over the coming rity Council sanctions, U.S.-EU cooperative pressure few years into a national war with regional impli- and provision of comprehensive information to cations and historically devastating repercussions the International Criminal Court—in support of for its people. CPA implementation, UNAMID deployment, and peacemaking in Darfur. Furthermore, President In our last strategy paper,1 we outlined the reasons Bush and the UN Security Council need to publicly why Darfur and Southern Sudan were linked and and privately state that the Abyei Boundary Com- argued that a prerequisite for peace in Darfur is mission determination is the “final and binding” the faithful implementation of the Comprehensive demarcation of the border for Abyei, and that the Peace Agreement, or CPA, which in January 2005 NCP is obligated to accept this. The silence from ended the 20-year-long most recent phase of war Washington on this issue is deafening. between North and South. We discussed the reasons why the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or It is a legacy issue for the Bush administration, SPLM, had suspended its participation in the Govern- given its level of engagement on Sudan over the ment of National Unity, or GNU, created by the CPA. last seven years. On Abyei specifically, it is an issue On December 21, 2007, after two and a half months of honor and duty, given that the United States di- of tough negotiations, the SPLM announced that it rectly negotiated the Abyei Protocol which helped would return to the GNU, suggesting an agreement nail the CPA deal. had been reached on all the issues except for those CPA provisions related to Abyei. A SHORT HISTORY OF ABYEI The ruling National Congress Party’s, or NCP, non- Abyei repeatedly surfaces as a key factor in Sudan’s implementation of its commitments on Abyei and North-South struggle. Why is Abyei so key to other elements of the CPA is part of a pattern of peace in Sudan and what does its experience since obstruction that is at the core of its governing strat- independence demonstrate about the value of an egy and is linked closely to its obstruction of the agreement with Khartoum for the people of pe- 1 See Roger Winter and John Prendergast, “An All-Sudan Solution: Linking Darfur and the South,” ENOUGH Strategy Paper #9, November 2007. Available at www.enoughproject.org/files/reports/allsudan_20071114.pdf. 2 See ENOUGH’s first report on Sudan, “The Answer to Darfur: How to Resolve the World’s Hottest War,” March 2007, at www.enoughproject.org. 1 ripheral regions of Sudan such SAUDI ARABIA as Darfur, the South, the Nuba EGYPT Lake R SUDAN E Mountains, and the East? Nasser D Halaib S E Wadi Halfa A Abyei is very near the border Selima Oasis Lake Salala Nubia of what is now South Darfur. Muhammad Qol Laqiya Arba’in Port Sudan Historically, Abyei was unique, Kerma Abu Hamed e Suakin Nukheila Dongola il having developed a reputation Karima N RED SEA Merowe Tokar El’Atrun Haiya NORTHERN Karora as a bridge between North and Atbara Gadamai ar ow NILE Ed Damer South Sudan, especially during CHAD i H ad W Shendi the later British colonial period. ERITREA Abu’Uruq KKHARTOUMHARTO M KASSALA NORTHERN Omdurman Halfa al Kassala This is because it was an enclave DARFUR NORTHERN KHARTOUM Gadida Miski KORDOFAN EL GEZIRA Wad Medani of perhaps 280,000 non-Arab Sodiri Gedaref Umm Badr El Geneina Al Fasher Southerners who had adopted El Obeid GEDAREF Sinnar WESTERN Kosti En Nahud some Arabic cultural practices. DARFUR WHITE SENNAR Nyala NILE T'ana Abu Zabad Hayk' The group was living within Renk Ed Damazin SOUTHERN Al Fula SOUTHERN e l DARFUR KORDOFAN i BLUE Ed Da’ein N Famaka Kordofan, a northern state thor- Tullus Muglad e t Kologi i NILE Buram h Kadugli W Talodi Paloich oughly dominated by Sudanese Radom Abyei UPPER NILE UNITY Arabs. That linkage dynamic Kafia Kingi NORTHERN BAHR Malakal EL GHAZAL Bentiu Kigille ETHIOPIA Aweil persisted for decades despite Raga WARRAB CENTRAL Fathai periodic egregious pogroms by Wau Akobo AFRICAN REPUBLIC WESTERN BAHR LAKES EL GHAZAL JONGLEI Baggara Arab militia and local RumbekW Ukwaa h WESTERN i t e Bor EQUATORIA N Towot SUDAN i government security forces, l Amadi e EASTERN EQUATORIA National capital Li Yubu but began to change dramati- Maridi Kapoeta State (wilayah) capital Yambio Juba CENTRAL Torit Ch'ew Bahir Town EQUATORIA cally after independence. This Nagishot Major airport Yei e L. Turkana is because, from that point International boundary il (L. Rudolf) N DEMOCRATIC t r State (wilayah) boundary e UGANDA b REPUBLIC OF l until today, Khartoum, though A Victoria Proposed separation N i l between North and South THE CONGO e the national capital, has func- L. Albert KENYA L. Kyoga tioned as a partisan Sudanese Source: Map adapted from United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations Cartographic Section, Map No. 3707 Rev. 10. Arab capital, with most other The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. Sudanese non-Arab populations politically marginalized and ef- fectively powerless. As Southern nationalism grew, and Abyei won a referendum promising its popu- particularly as a result of the first phase of the lation the free choice either to remain in Kordofan North-South civil war (1956-73), the identity of the or to be integrated into South Sudan. But that ref- Ngok Dinka of Abyei as Southerners surged. The erendum was never held. Khartoum’s pattern of participation of many Dinka from Abyei in that signing agreements with adversaries and then fail- first Southern war positioned many of them to as- ing to implement them is well established in the sume leadership positions in the second Southern South—going back at least three governments— war, which began in 1983 led by Dr. John Garang. and now more recently in Darfur. Until there is a wider sharing of power and more democratic and The first North-South war ended in 1972 with the transparent decision making in Sudan, it is likely Addis Ababa Agreement in which the South won no agreement providing for meaningful change regional autonomy, which was later abrogated, will be honored. 2 The “second” North-South war, which lasted 20 There was one exception: Abyei. years, resulted in more than 2 million civilian deaths, the displacement of more than 4 million The heated disagreement between the Parties over others, and virtually the total destruction of the Abyei became the potential undoing of the entire South, the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile CPA negotiation process. Determined not to let and Abyei. In fact Abyei became essentially unin- the talks unravel, the United States decided that habited; it ceased to exist except in the hearts and it would draft the text of an Abyei agreement and minds of the surviving Ngok Dinka, scattered to the pressure the two sides to sign. The U.S.-drafted text four winds, and, of course, oil entrepreneurs. was presented to the Parties at a hotel in Naivasha, Kenya in March 2004. The SPLM accepted the text Today, Abyei remains tense. According to the In- on the day it was presented; the reluctant GOS did ternational Crisis Group, Abyei’s oil fields grossed so subsequently. roughly $670 million for Sudan in 2006, approxi- mately 13 per cent of the country’s total income In brief, the Abyei Protocol provides for: from oil exports that year.3 While oil in the area is reportedly being extracted hurriedly and depleted • A special administrative status for Abyei rapidly through aggressive exploitation and oil revenues from Abyei beyond 2007 are estimated • A mechanism for local governance until 2011 to drop significantly, revenue from Abyei’s existing fields remains a critical priority for the NCP. • A process for determining Abyei’s boundaries THE CPA’S ABYEI PROTOCOL • A share of oil revenues to meet the needs of AND THE U.S.
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