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Sudan Tribune

Plural news and views on Sudan

Abyei: The possible “ticking time bomb”

By Zechariah Manyok Biar

December 4, 2010 — South Sudanese are justified in many ways in their determination to vote for secession in the upcoming referenda in South Sudan and in Abyei. Northern government leaders like President al-Bashir still do not know the importance of the rule of law, and there is no good country without law-abiding leaders.

In his recent address to the National Congress Party’s (CPA) consultative council at its opening session in Khartoum on Thursday this week, President Bashir made it clear that his Government will not accept the conduct of a referendum in Abyei area which excludes the Misseriya from voting and that they will reject the treatment of Misseriya as second class citizens in their lands. President Bashir even warned that “Any attempts to impose a unilateral solution to the deadlock over Abyei will lead to disastrous results.”

The question one would ask is whether or not President Bashir respects The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling on Abyei that Mutrif Siddig of NCP once called a “step forward.” The answer depends on how one looks at it. But I think that President Bashir does not respect the ruling because he is not different from other Northern leaders who often believe that the only way of cheating Southerners is to sign agreement with them and then disrespect the agreement when the time of the implementation comes, leaving them without any other choice apart from giving in to Government’s unfair demands. This was the way that Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 was abrogated in 1983 by President Nimeiri. It is the same thing that happened to 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement of Dr. Riek Machar Teny.

What President Bashir does not know, though, is that people learn from history. Those who signed the above mentioned disrespected agreements are still alive and have powers of decision-making in Southern Sudan. They cannot see themselves cheated by Northerners for the third time.

On legal ground, nothing would put the issue of Abyei back on the negotiation table like it is going on now. Before the Court issued its ruling in July 2009, both NCP and SPLM agreed and promised the Court and the international community that the decision of the Court would be “final and binding” for them. It was clear that the Court was given powers to define and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.

In its ruling, the Court defined the area of Ngok chiefdoms and Al Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed of NCP was reported as saying that “the [Tribunal’s] decision supports NCP’s vision regarding the [border’s] demarcation.” If the NCP believes in what the Court did as indicated by their statements, then they know that Abyei belongs to Dinka Ngok chiefdoms that were transferred to Kordofan in 1905 and the Court made this clear during the ruling. The Court defined the owners of Abyei as “Members of the Ngok Dinka community and other Sudanese residing in the area.”

Even though the nomad Arab Misseriya pastoralists were given grazing rights in Abyei and Northern Bahr el Ghazal areas, they were not specifically mentioned as residents of Abyei by the Court. The phrase “other Sudanese residing in the area” does not give nomad pastoralists the rights to vote with Abyei residents in the upcoming referendum, because the law everywhere in the world has clear criteria for residency. A resident must have a legal house in an area and must have stayed in that place for a longer period of time. The nomads hardly meet these requirements.

The above details show that President al-Bashir and his NCP do not respect the Court ruling on Abyei even though they agreed with the ruling initially. If anything happened to take the country back to war, then the international community must be aware that the law is on the side of the Ngok Dinka community in Abyei. It is unfair to put the owners of Abyei in danger because of their natural resources that the NCP’s government wants to hang onto.

The people of Abyei have the rights to determine their future, whether by law or by force if forced into unfair conditions. It is also clear that the Government in Southern Sudan will not stand and watch Abyei residents killed by those who do not want to see them exercise their rights. Therefore, Abyei currently remains as a “ticking time bomb” between Northern and Southern Sudan. The international community must be aware of this fact.

Zechariah Manyok Biar, BA. Edu., MACM, MSSW. He can be reached at [email protected]

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