US Congressmen ask to end normalization talks with Sudan

May 25, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — US Congressmen urged Bush Administration to end normalization talks with the Khartoum government as result of Abyei fighting between the northern and southern Sudanese armies and the displacement of the local population.

Two Congressmen, Michael Capuano, and Donald Payne, both from the Democratic Party, condemned in a statement issued on Saturday the “deliberate, brutal, and systematic attacks against innocent civilians in Abyei and the surrounding communities.” They also said that the objective of this violence is to “permanently displace the civilian population.”

The lawmakers said the US had warned Sudan, in a position paper, that it would end negotiations to improve bilateral ties “if new violence is initiated in or by Sudan”. Based of this position, Payne and Capuano stated that “The Bush Administration must end normalization talks with the Bashir regime in light of what has taken place in Abyei.”

They further asked to force al-Bashir government to implement Abyei Protocol and all provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement sponsored by Bush Administration.

“We strongly condemn any move toward normalization of relations until the provisions of the CPA are implemented, peace is restored in Abyei and Darfur, and the outcome of the Southern and Abyei referendums are respected;” said the two Congressmen.

A delegation led by the US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson will travel to Khartoum next Friday for the second round of negotiations on normalizing ties. Both sides will discuss the situation in Darfur, Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the bilateral relations.

Williamson met with in Rome last April with a Sudanese delegation headed by Sudan Nafi and included Sudan’s spy chief Salah Gosh as well as foreign minister Deng Alor.

News of the meeting drew widespread in the US from lawmakers and Darfur advocates who think that the Sudanese government has not lived up to its previous commitments with regards to Darfur and partially to the North-South agreement.

Democratic White House contender Barack Obama issued a statement saying he was “deeply concerned” over reports that the Bush administration is negotiating with Sudan over normalizing ties.

At the core of the crisis in Abyei is the rejection of the National Congress Party to implement the Abyei Boundary Commission (ABC) recommendations three years after the ABC decision. The ABC was mandated to “define and demarcate” the area known as the nine Ngok Dinka Chiefdoms transferred in 1905 to Kordofan in North Sudan.

However the northern Sudan ruling party says that the ABC experts exceeded their mandate and rejects their binding recommendations. The NCP says that the ABC was mandated to define the administrative boundary between Kordofan and Bahr al-Ghazal in 1905 only, and that the Abyei Protocol limited the ABC to examining an ‘administrative’ boundary, and not a ‘tribal’ boundary.

However, the Abyei Protocol makes no reference to an administrative boundary in 1905. It refers, instead, to ‘the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms’. The mandate required the ABC to define the territory of the Ngok Dinka in 1905, which involved defining the tribal territory.

UN reports say the fighting in Abyei has resulted in 90,000 people displaced by fighting in Sudan’s contested area of where the United Nations is racing against time to provide aid relief and prevent a return to civil war.

(ST)