The border as it stood, not demarcated in 1/1/1956
By Maker Costa
June 30, 2008 — News had it yesterday, 6/28/2008, that the chairperson of the North-South Border Demarcation Commission, Engineer Riek Dogoal Juer briefed GOSS officials on the progress on demarcation. The Engineer was reported as saying that his team could not find a map drawn in that particular year of 1956. The briefing was nothing short of a self-mockery; it simply meant that the team did not fully understood its mission. Why would any person want to make life harder for southerners than it is, specially when that person is a learned engineer? I mean, common, the argument is simple and goes like what follows.
The CPA stipulates that South Sudan shall be the three regions/provinces of Bahr el Ghezal, Upper Nile, and Equatoria as they stood in 1/1/1956. Here is the quote fro the CPA itself, the third article of the power sharing protocol:
PART III
3. Government of Southern Sudan
3.1 In respect of the Southern Sudan, there shall be a Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), as per the borders of 1/1/56, which shall consist of:-
Nothing in this article requires the relevant maps, used in the demarcation process to follow, to have been drawn in 1956. After all, if the rationale is for the maps to have been drawn in 1956, then they must have been drawn in that exact day which is the First of January 1956, because if the maps were drawn in any other day of that year then they will constitute a violation according to the rationale of our good engineer.
Was it the argument, Mr. Riek Dogoal, that the maps must have been drawn in only that specific day (1/1/1956s); please you owe us a lengthy explanation or else we will conclude that you do not understand your mission and thus you should step aside and let others, who know, continue the job. What you have presented was too little, too late, and too erroneous. Simply, we cannot afford another concession like the one we experienced with the census. This is a do-or-die situation.
Here is a suggestion:
You should follow the steps of the Abyei Boundary Commission (ABC) because they have come up with a bias free, professional, and accurate resolution. The ABC experts were right to use all relevant maps other than the ones drawn in 1905, because nothing required them to do otherwise.
The philosophical merits of your briefing in Juba are flawed, illogical, and indicative of something far more serious than meets the eye. Please do not remind us of 1947! We have had enough.
Maker Costa is Southern Sudanese residing in New York, USA