---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:25 PM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] South Sudan rejects ’moral equivalence’ over Abyei To: Group <[email protected]>
1. South Sudan rejects ’moral equivalence’ over Abyei April 11, 2012 (JUBA) - South Sudan said on Wednesday it is running out of patience with what it describes as the international community’s moral equivalence in regard to the disputed territory of Abyei. The 16 month impasse over the fertile oil-producing region began when a self determination referendum due for January 2011 did not go-ahead as the two sides could not agree on who was eligible to vote. The referendum is unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future. “This practice of apportioning blames even when those responsible for their acts are known is not helping. This is what is making Khartoum believes that they have a right on Abyei," Daniel Awet Akot, a deputy speaker of the country’s national Assembly said on Wednesday The senior member of the country’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) said not holding Khartoum to account for its actions over Abyei had emboldened the northern government to the extent that it believes it can carryout attacks inside South Sudan with impunity. Exactly where the new nation of South Sudan begins and where Sudan ends is unclear in many areas as the border was not demarcated during the six year peace deal that led to partition in July last year. Over the past two weeks the two countries have clashed over the disputed oil-producing area of Heglig. The international community recognises Heglig as being part of Sudan as it was placed in South Kordofan in 2009 by a tribunal in The Hague. South Sudan’s army (SPLA) took control of Heglig on Tuesday but claimed they acted after being provoked by a joint air and land assault on Unity State. Sudan admits that the SPLA took control of the area but denies attacking first. Independently verifying the claims is difficult due to the areas remoteness and the level of insecurity along the border. On Wednesday Sudan’s ambassador to the UN said his country was "ready to retaliate with the same magnitude of their [South Sudan’s] attack" if council did not call for the SPLA to withdraw from the area. “The government in Khartoum believes in violence as a means to settle any disagreement. They do not believe in dialogue. They use dialogue only as tool to strengthen their positions at the negotiating tables. We have seen this behavior several times even when we were at war," said Awet. >From 1983-2005 the SPLM/A fought various Khartoum governments. Since a coup in 1989 the National Congress Party has ruled Sudan and signed a deal with the SPLA in 2005. But over the six years of power sharing and the nine months since separation the two sides are still to agree on many issues including Abyei, oil, and border demarcation. Rahamatalla Mohamed Osman, Sudan’s undersecretary of foreign affairs told Reuters on Wednesday that he did not see how negotiations could go ahead "in this climate". "What happened yesterday is a violation of international laws and an aggression on Sudan, and we have all the right to defend ourselves and regain the territories which were occupied by government of South Sudan," he added. Awet criticised Khartoum’s decision to walk away from talks. “The position of the government of the republic of South Sudan has always been peaceful dialogue. This dates back to the years of liberation struggle. We have never preferred war as solution. The dialogue has always been our first choice”, said Awet. ABYEI The SPLM Co-Chair of the Abyei Joint Oversight Committee (AJOC), Luka Biong Deng, told Sudan Tribune from Agok in southern Abyei that the humanitarian situation in areas he had visited this week were “horrible”. When the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) took control of the strategic oil-producing region in May 2011 - following an attack by southern forces on a UN envoy escorting northern forces away from the area - over 110,000 people were displaced to Agok in the south of Abyei and into South Sudan. Biong, who is on a trip to assess the situation in the disputed oil-producing region and its surrounding areas, said on Wednesday that he could not understand why the United Nations Security Council has been unable to pass “a clear standing position” on Abyei, particularly with regard to allowing humanitarian assistance. With South Sudan voting to seceded in January 2011 Abyei has been left in legal limbo after its own referendum did not go ahead due to Sudan’s ruling NCP insisting that northern Arab nomads - the Misseriya who enter the region for some months of the year - be allowed to vote. Juba refutes this definition of residents to defined voters in the Abyei poll and says that only the southern-aligned Dinka Ngok should be permitted voting rights. Abyei’s peculiar legal status means that providing humanitarian assistance from those displaced last year and those now returning is hindered as to enter the region humanitarian workers need a Sudanese visa issued from Khartoum. This is making it hard for the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to assist returnees and displaced people, he said. “People in the north of Abyei who returned to their areas are eating wild fruits because humanitarian organisations cannot access these areas from the South”, Biong said. After South Sudan’s independence the Khartoum refused to renew the mandate of the UN Mission in Sudan. UNISFA In June 2011 South Sudan and Sudan signed a temporary agreement for the administration and security of Abyei was signed in Addis Ababa on 20 June 2011, calling for SAF and SPLA troops in the area be replaced by a United Nations force comprised of Ethiopian peacekeepers. The United Nations Interim Security Force in Abyei (UNISFA) has a Chapter VII mandate from the UN Security Council but a Status of Forces Agreement has not been signed by Khartoum, severely restricting the effectiveness of the mission despite it approaching full deployment. However, UNISFA is a military mission that does not have the mandate or capacity of UNMIS to address humanitarian issues. Khartoum has ensured that no employee from UNMIS can be employed in UNISFA. In March UNISFA reported to the UN Security Council that both sides had retained ’unauthorized armed forces in the Abyei Area, in violation of the 20 June 2011 Agreement’. The situation remains tense with the ongoing large-scale migration of northern Misseriya nomads into the region with their cattle and the return of around 3,000 displaced Ngok Dinka in the past two months. MISSERIYA MIGRATION On his trip Biong said he had visited and met with the governors from the three South Sudanese states that border Abyei; Unity, Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal. In Northern Bahr el Ghazal Biong met with state governor, Paul Malong Awan, to discuss the outcomes of a recent peace conference with the Misseriya. Traditionally the Misseriya make an annual migration into Abyei and areas of South Sudan with their cattle to find pasture during the dry season. Biong hopes that this year the Misseriya will be persuaded to take a route into South Sudan that avoids creating "traffic" in the tense Abyei area. "I also visited Unity State and met with Governor Taban Deng Gai and we discussed the same. This is to avoid pressure on Abyei”, he explained. Biong also wondered why the UN Security Council has not exerted more pressure on the government in Khartoum, to sign the Status of Force Agreement (SOFA), which he said would legalise mandate of UNISFA. He echoed remarks of the deputy speaker wondering as to why the international community, particularly the security council of the United Nations as always been “so soft” on Khartoum for not withdrawing its troops from Abyei. “I really do not understand why the security council, whenever they are releasing a statement or a resolution continues to call for withdrawal of the two forces when in actual fact they fact know very well Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) are no longer in the area. The SPLA have already withdrawn. It is now the Sudanese Armed forces which are currently in Abyei”, Biong explained. The most recent UNSC report on Abyei said that both sides had unauthorised forces in the area. Biong, a native of Abyei, served as the cabinet affairs minister in the the power sharing government - between the south’s SPLM and Khartom’s NCP - that lasted for six years until South Sudan seceded in July last year - a month after SAF took control of Abyei. (ST) http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-rejects-moral,42213 END1 2. SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN: Abyei displaced struggle to survive in impoverished villages ABOTHOK, 10 April 2012 (IRIN) - Almost a year after fleeing fighting in Abyei, a disputed region on the border between South Sudan and Sudan, thousands of civilians are struggling to get by in villages such as Abothok in South Sudan. Abothok local administrator Kat Kuol, at work in his mud hut office, says the village's population grew to 10,000 after an influx of 6,000 people from Abyei in May 2011, when Sudanese troops occupied the region. "It's really difficult here as the people that ran away don't have food and accommodation. All the food stocks and what the UN was providing is now lost," he said. Sudan's occupation prompted more than 100,000 Ngok Dinka, the region's main permanent residents, to flee southwards. Sudanese troops remain in Abyei, despite a September agreement for them to leave. Some 3,800 troops of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) are also deployed there. "The people here had a small amount of food and space, and then when their relatives [from Abyei] came, they used it; then the livestock were sold for food," said Kat Kuol. According to the latest Abyei update [ http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/facts-figures-abyei.php ] published by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research group, a few thousand Ngok Dinka have returned to the region, although movement is fluid, with many people travelling back and forth, to assess the state of their property and overall security. Imminent rains mean "it is unlikely that large-scale returns will occur before the next dry season in October/November 2012," the update said, adding that any such population movement also depended on the withdrawal of Sudanese forces. In the village of Nyintar, near Abothok, Aciei Lual, one of the displaced, said in Abyei she used to grow maize, sorghum, groundnuts and beans to feed her family and earned around US$30 selling the rest. Since fleeing, she says she has been feeding her seven children on lalop, a small bitter fruit, and whatever she can get from kindly villagers. Andrea Anselmi, an official ("economic security delegate") with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said these villages were facing huge food shortages. "Almost all the residents [of Abyei] moved south . so most of these people didn't cultivate last year, so they didn't have a harvest or they don't have seeds now to cultivate this year. I asked whether they had had a harvest, and there were only some women - not more than 20 or 30 people out of some 220 families - that answered yes." Survival options limited Most people have been relying on the help of relatives or the kindness of strangers, but with the rainy season coming and stocks depleted, survival options in these villages are running out. "They were fishing but at the moment the river is almost dry. They rely on wild vegetables and wild fruits, and in many places they are just collecting firewood and making charcoal to sell these things to the market," Anselmi said of the displaced community, which includes many women recently widowed. Lual said her brother-in-law was shot dead as the family fled her home and that she is too traumatized to go back to Abyei until there is peace. "I saw people falling left and right. and I could not tell from the people who fell whether they died or were injured. I just prayed to God that it would not be my time," she said. "After what I've seen in Abyei, I'm not ready to go back there." She admits her family depends solely on cultivation and that "if there are no seeds, we cannot have any kind of life." ICRC aid ICRC has distributed seeds and tools to over 2,300 households in 15 villages near Abyei to try and help some 15,000 residents and displaced people rebuild their lives. The organization has also distributed half rations of staple grains, oil and sugar for up to three weeks to prevent people eating the vegetable and grain seeds and to give them energy to plant. Aciei Arop, whose family of five has been living on one cup of sorghum a day, says she can now start rebuilding her life. "It will change my life as I'm going to cultivate. When the harvest comes I will get a variety of items to eat at home, and the rest I can sell so that I can save my life", she said, slowly hauling the sacks of maize and sorghum home while others guarded her precious seeds. "After all I've got now, it's sure that I can cook for myself, I'm ready to go and cultivate", she said. Arop said many of her relatives were still missing after the family heard gunfire and fled, and that until she is sure it has stopped, Nyintar is her home. In Abothok, Amou Manyuol said she wanted to go back to Abyei, where there used to be enough clean water and food for everyone, despite the fact that she lost three brothers there. "My three brothers were killed when we were escaping. We were taking off from our home when the bomb landed in between us and they were killed right away on the spot. "Life in Abyei before was good, and now we are suffering. We are now depending on relief from organizations like ICRC," she said, as some of the hundreds of other women waiting for food distributions crowded around nodding their assent. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95261 END2 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan, South Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +27 82 050 1235 (South Africa mobile) +44 750 304 1790 (UK/international) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. 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