SPLM calls on international community to press for SAF withdrawal from Abyei

August 14, 2011 (JUBA) – The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) on Sunday called on the international community to exert more pressure on the government of Sudan to consider immediate withdrawal of the Sudan Armed Forces in the oil contested region of Abyei.

Chol Deng Alaak, a senior member of the SPLM and a chair of Abyei Referendum – a group advocating for a democratic the settlement of the dispute over the region – said the international community needs to put more pressure on the government in Khartoum to effect immediate withdrawal of the Sudanese armed forces he accused to have invaded his home area.

Alaak said the Sudan Armed Forces were supposed to leave the border area after arrival of the Ethiopian troops whose deployment was agreed by the two parties in an agreement which they signed in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in July.

“The framework agreement which the two parties signed in Ethiopia was very clear, as it was broken into three phases. The first phase includes withdrawal of the forces and deployment of the UN peacekeeping troops. The second phase looks at issues surrounding at establishing joint interim administration. The third phase looks at mechanisms associated with means and issues connected to return of civil population displaced from the area”, Alaak explained.

He, however, accused of the government in Khartoum of advising the army to remain in the area as part of the bargaining tool on issues limited not only to Abyei but also post-independence issues such as border demarcation, debt and oil.

“The issue of Abyei is not addressed in isolation of other pending issues in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The issue of Abyei is one of the issues which the two parties must address with involvement of the international community”, he said.

The prominent member of the Mannyuar, one of the clans of the nine Dinka Ngok chiefdom’s of Abyei, said the conflict over his ancestral home land is about oil and not over territorial boundaries.

“The issue of Abyei is being misunderstood by some members of [the] public in the international community. Some of the people do not have clear information as they are depending on information often made available to them by the government in Khartoum. The information released by members of the National Congress Party is always not correct. Information about Abyei is always a fabrication designed to support claims on the area”, he explained, describing Abyei as an area belonging to the nine Dinka Ngok chiefdom.

Miyen Alor Kuol, another member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement from Abyei in a separate interview with Sudan Tribune on Sunday, also said that the conflict over the area remains over oil wealth.

However reports suggest that oil production is decreasing and most the known oil in the area was placed outside the region in a ruling of the permanent court of arbitration.

But Kuol argues that: “Much of the oil has not been discovered. Most of it (oil) lies in areas around Kej which they now call Diffra”.

He accused the government in Khartoum of having adopted strategy used in Darfur to settle members of the Arab tribes brought into the area from other neighboring countries to be settled in Darfur in Abyei.

“The government in Khartoum is using the same strategy it has applied in Darfur in Abyei now. It was using Misseriya to claim the area but resorted to using the army when it could not succeed”, said Kuol.

He accused Khartoum to have adopted provocative words to name some of his villages.

“They are naming some of our villages to mean their villages. I believe you know some of them. One of our villages they have named if you can recall is Kej, which they now call Diffra. The word Diffra in Arabic means push”, he said.

As part of the 2005 peace deal that allowed South Sudan to secede in July this year, Abyei was due to hold a referendum to decide the future of the region in January.

The area was transferred to North Sudan by the British colonial administration in 1905. The residents of the area the Dinka Ngok, a branch of South Sudan’s largest tribe the Dinka, would be expected to vote to join South Sudan should the vote go ahead.

Khartoum’s assertion that the Misseriya tribe – who pass through Abyei on seasonal migration routes with their cattle – should be allowed to take part in the vote has been the main cause of the delay to the referendum and the consequent inertia on the resolving the Abyei issue.

(ST)