Any new conflict over Abyei will end in Kordofan – South Sudanese official

By Ngor Arol Garang

March 31, 2011 (WAU) – A key official from the regional government of South Sudan on Thursday warned that any next war involving the north against the south could involve fighting in the Misseriya town of Muglad in South Kordofan.

Tensions have been running high in Abyei since January’s independence referendum for South Sudan, in which majority voted overwhelmingly to endorse formation of the new independent nation out of the North.

Under the 2005 peace deal which ended over two decades of north-south conflict, the people of Abyei, like the people of South Sudan, were granted the right – in the Abyei protocol – to hold a simultaneous plebiscite on its own future, as to whether it would want remain part of Kordofan in Central Sudan or return to the South from where they were transferred in 1905.

The vote was postponed indefinitely, with Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the South’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) failing to reach a consensus over who should be eligible to vote.

The renewed accusations and a build-up of military weapons in the oil producing region by forces from both north and south Sudan is raising fears of further violence in the flashpoint border region.

On Wednesday, General Moses Obi, the force commander of the United Nation Mission in Sudan told reporters in the national capital Khartoum that, with the northern and southern armies deploying extra troops near the volatile region, and in the absence of a political solution, the situation in Abyei could quickly deteriorate.

“Both sides have their formations not too far from Abyei. They are all within their rights to deploy. But if the Abyei situation is not addressed, those deployments are near enough to influence Abyei at short notice,” he said. “Since early January there have been deaths, there have been displacements. And if the stalemate continues politically, the risk of confrontation remains and could escalate.”

Brigadier General, Yel Mayar Mareng, deputy of Warrap State warned in an interview with Sudan Tribune on Thursday from Kuajok, capital of Warrap State that any another attack on Abyei would escalate into large scale of conflict that he said would last in Muglad.

“There are people in the north who says the issue of Abyei is only an issue for Dinka Ngok. This concept is wrong and those with such thinking need to be told openly that Abyei is part and parcel of South Sudan. It belongs to the South by all definitions and if there is an attack and fighting in Abyei it means a fighting against the south”, said Mareng.

The senior official of the SPLM said the Misseriya do not deserve a single right to vote in the referendum because they are not Dinka Ngok transferred to Kordofan from Bahr el Ghazal in 1905 and do not have legal claim in the area.

“I repeat the so call Misseriya do not have any right to claim in Abyei because they are not part of the Dinka Ngok transferred to Kordofan from Bahr el Ghazal in 1905. The vote is the Dinka Ngok seeking to return [to] Bahr el Ghazal from where they were transferred to Kordofan by the British in 1905. Was the Misseriya part of Dinka Ngok? If they need water the government of south Sudan recognizes this on humanitarian ground and cannot be forced,” said Mareng.

The senior government official said Misseriya should not allow themselves to be deceived by individuals in the NCP government in Khartoum to fight the war on their behalf; they only needed to know where their interest is.

“The Misseriya should not allow Khartoum to use them to fight their war. They need to know where their interest is and if they accept to be used the next war between the south and north would end in Muglad,” warned Mareng.

“The Misseriya need to know this and the importance of peaceful coexistence and if they do not know they have prepare for war, may God prohibit, will end in their area,” said the senior official from Southern state of Warrap.

Mareng is the first senior government official from southern Sudan to adopt war like words and threatens to take war to Misseriya land. His reaction appears as response to President Bashir’s insistence to include Misseriya in Abyei referendum vote. President Bashir, in statements broadcasted from the Qatari capital, Doha, by Sudan TV said the problem of Abyei cannot be solved without Misseriya participation in the referendum vote.

“The problem of Abyei cannot be solved without the Arab Misseriya nomads participating in a referendum on the status of the disputed border region.”

“We are saying, loud and clear, that there will be no referendum on Abyei without the Misseriya,” Bashir said in Doha late on Wednesday, a speech broadcasted live on Sudanese National Television and published in Thursday’s newspapers.

“The Abyei protocol states clearly that the inhabitants of the region, the Ngok Dinka and the other citizens, have the right to participate in the referendum.”We refuse this division between first and second class citizens, between settled and nomadic. They are all Sudanese and they have the same rights,” he added.

Heavy fighting erupted in the disputed region last January allegedly over rumors that Dinka Ngok planned to unilaterally join the South erupted between the two rival groups. Dozens were reported to have been killed and several injured.

However, the traditional leaders reacted swiftly to contain the situation resulting in the Kadugli Agreement which they signed on 13 and 17 January 2011.

But, the area witnessed resumption of another heavy fighting which saw the use of heavy machine guns and other military weapons mounted on vehicles, between the armed groups from the Nine Dinka Ngok and rival Misseriya, allegedly backed up by the pro government militiamen known as Popular Defense Forces, in more than three different locations along the Abyei border in late February and in the first week of March 2011.

Officials and locals from Abyei said over 100 people were killed as several others sustained injuries on both sides. Both North and south Sudan have also traded accusations of each sending “irregular” soldiers to the disputed region, in a violation of a January peace accord, which calls on all forces to withdraw from the area except for special joint units of northern and southern troops alongside UN peacekeepers

The SPLM officials in the Abyei administration and the local chiefs accuse the Misseriya of violating Kadugli agreement while the Misseriya claim their cattle herders were blocked by the SPLA from going further south to access water and pasture by armed groups from the Dinka Ngok.

Khartoum warned two weeks ago of possible armed confrontation if the southern army does not pull its troops out of the oil-producing region. The warning came in response to the SPLM’s charges that Khartoum was arming Arab tribes all along the north-south border with the intention to annex areas containing oil wells.

(ST)