أخيرا إعترفت الحركة الشعبية لتحرير السودان بالأسباب الحقيقية لقضية الصراع حول أبيي

Quote: May 3, 2006 — Slow implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Northern and Southern Sudan is a matter of growing concern. One major issue is the impasse over Abyei, the area over which authority was transferred from the South to the North in 1905 and today is claimed by both. This issue is seen as a test of the intentions of the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the two partners in Sudan’s new government of national unity. Very troubling is the possibility that if not resolved, the Abyei issue could lead to warfare. Straddling the Bahr el-Arab River, for over two centuries Abyei was used for cattle grazing by the Ngok Dinka and their northern neighbors, the Misseriya Arabs. In 1965, fighting during Sudan’s first civil war reached Abyei, and since then the area has been disputed. The Misseriya have come to regard Abyei as rightfully belonging to them, a claim rejected by the Ngok Dinka, who see themselves as the true inhabitants of the land. The sensitivity of the Abyei Area issue was recognized in a special protocol to the CPA. This stipulated that in six years, when Southern Sudan votes whether it will become independent, the residents of Abyei will vote whether they wish to become part of the South or remain with the North. The Misseriya fear that, even though the Abyei Protocol specifically recognizes their grazing rights, their access to pastures will be blocked if the Ngok, by far the majority of Abyei’s population, vote to join the South. Oil also complicates the picture. At present the oil fields of Abyei lie within northern Sudan. But if the South votes for independence and, concurrently, Abyei voters opt to become part of the South, the resultant new international boundary would transfer these fields from Sudan to the newly independent Southern Sudan. Northern and Southern negotiators agreed on how Abyei will be administered and how the area’s oil revenues will be shared. But they failed to agree on Abyei’s boundaries. Consequently, the Abyei Protocol stipulated that the area’s boundaries would be defined by an Abyei Boundaries Commission (ABC). Beginning its work in April 2005, the Commission was composed of five members from the government, five from the SPLM, and five international experts. The ABC’s mandate was to define and demarcate the territory of the Ngok Dinka as it was when transferred from the South to the North in 1905. If the members representing the two sides could not agree on a boundary, the decision would rest with the international experts, whose decision would be “final and binding.” And that is what happened. The experts interviewed over 125 persons and reviewed official documents in archives and libraries in Khartoum and the United Kingdom. Their decision was based not only on historical evidence, but also on legal principles that regulated common land use during the period of British administration. These principles recognized “dominant” rights, where a community had its permanent settlements, “secondary” rights for seasonal use of land, and “shared secondary” rights, where two or more communities shared use of land. In making its case to the experts, the government held that only a small strip of land south of the Bahr el-Arab had been transferred in 1905, and that Ngok occupation of the territory north of the river post-dated that transfer. The SPLM stated that Ngok territory lay both north and south of the Bahr el-Arab, in fact well north of that river. Conclusive evidence convinced the experts that the government’s explanation of what was transferred in 1905 was based on a misreading of contemporary documents. In particular, the government’s position regarding the location of the Ngok Dinka was anchored largely in a misinterpretation of a trip report written by a British official in 1902. In contrast, there was firm historical evidence attesting to the permanency of Ngok settlements in pertinent areas north of the Bahr al-Arab and to the lack of Misseriya permanent settlements in the same locale. Solid evidence supported the Ngok’s claim to dominant rights along the Bahr el-Arab and its northern tributaries in 1905. The record also showed that the former British administration recognized a continuity of Ngok Dinka permanent settlements throughout the years of imperial rule and a progressive expansion of the Misseriya’s secondary rights into Ngok territory after 1905. The experts therefore placed the boundary between the Ngok and Misseriya within an area of recognized shared secondary rights, where neither community had permanent settlements. The decision, rendered in July, was denounced by the government members of the ABC and repudiated by Misseriya representatives, some of whom threatened to go to war if the decision was implemented. Sudan’s First Vice-President, the late John Garang, confirmed that the report’s decision was final and binding and insisted on its implementation, as has his successor, Salva Kiir Mayardit. President Bashir, however, disagreed with the decision. Some have charged that the ABC experts were biased against the Government of Sudan and the Misseriya. This is totally baseless. From my own standpoint, beginning in 1997 I was involved in efforts to put U.S. policy toward Sudan on a different course from that of the Clinton administration at that time. I was motivated by a desire to see an end to the war and also to see an improvement in relations between Sudan and the United States. It was in that spirit that I agreed to become the Chairman of the ABC. As chairman, I was determined to discharge my responsibility with absolute impartiality and with the best interest of Sudan in mind. As for my colleagues’ impartiality, it was clear from the outset, after we first met in Nairobi in April 2005 that, like me, none of them had any preconceptions about Abyei. These men are of the highest character and have impeccable academic backgrounds. Our awareness of the possible ramifications of whatever decision we reached made us all the more mindful of the need for complete impartiality and for arriving at a decision based solely on research and a scientific analysis of the written and oral material made available to us. It is instructive that professors Godfrey Muriuki, Kassahun Berhanu, and Shadrack Gutto, Dr. Douglas Johnson, and I unanimously came to the same conclusions about the evidence we had gathered. And our decision on the boundaries was equally unanimous. All five of us are convinced of the integrity of our methodology and the correctness of our decision. Some have charged that we exceeded our mandate, which was “to define and demarcate of area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred from Bahr al-Ghazal Province to Kordofan in 1905.” That is not the case at all. We scrupulously kept that mandate in mind as we carried out our work. Because of the disagreement, the terms of the Abyei Protocol have yet to be implemented. Abyei has the potential of becoming a flashpoint, with dire consequences for the implementation of the CPA as a whole. If the two sides cannot agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, what guarantee is there that they will be bound by any of the rest of the CPA? Without full implementation of all aspects of the CPA, the Abyei Protocol especially, there will be no prospect of a stable peace in Sudan. I believe that if the determination and spirit of cooperation that led the Government of Sudan and the SPLM to achieve the Comprehensive Peace Agreement can be applied to Abyei, the impasse can be ended. I also believe that if the Peace Agreement is carried out with the same goodwill that underlay its creation, southern Sudanese will likely choose to remain in a united Sudan in 2011.