Sudan’s 1956 North-South border map is non-existent – committee
By James Gatdet Dak
June 28, 2008 (JUBA) – The Chairperson of the Southern Sudan component of the North-South Border Demarcation Commission, Engineer Riek Dogoal Juer, said the committee charged with the task to demarcate the North-South borderline based on the January 1, 1956 border could not find or trace any map drawn in 1956, during which the country gained its independence from the British colony, that would indicate the border between the two regions.
Engineer Dogoal’s technical team briefed the Southern Sudan’s Council of Ministers on Friday under the chairmanship of the Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar Teny about the progress and difficulties of the border demarcation process.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed on January 9, 2005 to end the 21 years of North-South war, provides for demarcation of the borderline between the two regions during the interim period based on the 1956 border.
Dogoal explained that the demarcation committee has collected more than three hundred different maps of Sudan from around the world, dating back to colonial era, but could not find any map of 1956.
He further explained that the latest map they found was that of 1953, which only indicates the borders between the present Upper Nile state and White Nile state. He said the committee has been referring to colonial administrative maps drawn before 1956 to help determine where more than 1,000 kilometers long North-South border should be demarcated.
The technical expert added that his team has been consulting with local chiefs and elders inhabiting areas around the border as well as local and state governments with common borders from both north and south, in addition to internal and external sources of information from individual experts and historians.
He said their current stage is to compare all the records and maps they have collected so far and compile the relative information before they could put a preliminary description of the borderline on the paper.
The Council of Ministers, after a four-hour thorough discussion of the issue, resolved to establish a five-member Ministerial Committee to be chaired by the Vice President to work in contact with the technical committee to provide them with political guidance in the next stage of the demarcation process.
In 2005, the National Congress Party (NCP) rejected the international experts’ report of the Abyei Boundary Commission (ABC), arguing that the experts had overstepped their CPA-mandate which, they argued, should have based the demarcation process only on the 1905 boundaries of Abyei.
Similarly, the experts on the Abyei Boundary Commission could not find or trace any map of 1905 as the source of referral as stipulated in the CPA and instead used the 1965 map, which the NCP rejected, and has now been referred to the international arbitration tribunal in The Hague.
The Southern Sudan government says the North-South border demarcation is very important to correctly determine the redeployment of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) across the borders, establish political constituencies along the disputed borders before the 2009 general elections and before the referendum on independence in the South in 2011.
(ST)