Abyei

Abyei is a region of south-central Sudan that is considered a historical bridge between northern and Southern Sudan. The Protocol on the resolution of Abyei conflict in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War in 2005 defined it as "the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905". The failure to implement the Abyei Protocol has been cited as a key in the increase in tension between the signers of the CPA.

History

From at least the eighteenth century Abyei was inhabited by Ngok Dinka, kin to the Dinka of Southern Sudan. They were bordered to the north and northeast by the lands of the Messiria, a nomadic people who grazed their cattle through Abyei in an annual cycle. Records from this time state that the Ngok Dinka and Messiria had amicable relations. At the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, the Messiria were located in the province of Kordofan (considered "northern"), while the Ngok Dinka were located in Bahr el Ghazal (considered "southern"). However, in 1905 the British redistricted the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms into Kordofan.

The two peoples began to take separate paths with the onset of the First Sudanese Civil War (1956-1972), in particular the 1965 massacre of 72 Ngok Dinka in the Misseriya town of Babanusa. The Ngok Dinka were thus drawn to the Anyanya, while the Messiria were favored by the Khartoum-based government and became firmly associated with the north. The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement that ended the war included a clause that provided for a referendum allowing Abyei to choose to remain in the north or join the autonomous South. This referendum was never held and continued attacks against Ngok Dinka led to the creation of Ngok Dinka unit in the small Anyanya II rebellion, which began in Upper Nile in 1975. The discovery of oil in the area, among other north-south border regions, led President Gaafar Nimeiry to try the first of many initiatives to redistrict oil rich areas into northern administration.

The Ngok Dinka unit of Anyanya II formed one of the foundations of the rebel movement at the beginning of the Second Civil War in 1983. Many Ngok Dinka joined the rebels upon the outbreak of hostilities. Partially as a result of their early entry into the war, many Ngok Dinka rose to leadership positions in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), becoming closely associated with John Garang. In contrast, the Messiria joined the hostilities on the side of the government in the mid-1980s. They formed frontline units as well as Murahleen, mounted raiders that attacked southern villages to loot valuables and slaves. By the end of the war the intense fighting had displaced most Ngok Dinka out of Abyei, which the Misseriya state as justification for ownership of the area.

The Abyei Protocol in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

The status of Abyei was one of the most contentious issues in the negotiation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The first protocol signed, the 2002 Machakos Protocol, defined Southern Sudan as the area as of independence in 1956. It thus excluded the SPLA strongholds in Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, known collective during the talks as the Three Areas. The SPLA negotiators then spent several years attempting to give these regions the right to a referendum in which they could decide if they want to be under the administrative control of the north or south. This would potentially mean that these regions would become part of a nation of South Sudan after the 2011 independence referendum. The government blocked these attempts, stating that the Machakos Protocol had already delineated the border for the Three Areas in northern favor.

The deadlock was finally broken by pressure from the United States. U.S. presidential envoy John Danforth circulated a draft agreement, which the U.S. convinced the government to sign despite its inclusion of a referendum. The Protocol on the resolution of Abyei conflict put Abyei into a special administrative status government directly by the presidency. The precise borders of the area were to be determined by a Abyei Borders Commission (ABC), followed by a referendum commission to identify Messiria that are resident in Abyei and could thus vote in local elections in 2009; all the Ngok Dinka were to be considered resident, it being their traditional homeland. Almost none of the items in the protocol have been implemented. According to an annex to the protocol adopted in December 2004 ABC was to be composed of 15 persons: five appointed by the government, five by the SPLA and three by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, and one each by the United States and the United Kingdom. Only the five impartial experts could present the final report. The five appointed were: Godfrey Muriuki of the University of Nairobi; Kassahun Berhanu of the Addis Ababa University; Douglas Johnson, an author of several works on southern Sudan; Shadrack Gutto, a lawyer from South Africa; and Donald Petterson, a former ambassador to Sudan. When the ABC presented their report to the president on 14 July 2005, whereupon it was immediately rejected by the government, who accused the experts of using sources after 1905 in their determination of the boundaries. The death of John Garang later that month pushed all other issues off the national agenda, but the SPLA maintains that the terms of the Abyei protocol must be held to. Government resistance to an agreement is largely based on an attempt to hold onto the oil reserves and oil pipelines in the area.

In October 2007, rising tensions between the SPLA and government resulted in the SPLA temporarily withdrawing from the Government of National Unity over several deadlocked issues, notably Abyei. Some analysts note that the CPA as a whole is suffering the effects of being largely forced upon the signatories by foreign pressures. The International Crisis Group states, "What happens in Abyei is likely to determine whether Sudan consolidates the peace or returns to war."

External links

• Template:PDFlink, United Nations Development Programme, 29 November 2005
• "South Sudan Abyei now or never", opinion piece by Isaiah Abraham in the Sudan Tribune, 3 March 2007