Geopolitical situation of Abyei: An ongoing conflict with ethnicities and natural resources as main drivers

Arising tensions
The comprehensive Peace Agreement that has been signed by the SPLM and the Government of Sudan (GoS) in January 2005 ended officially the second civil war in Sudan. The ABC commission presented its report to the Presidency in July 2005. The drawing of their propositions regarding the Abyei boundaries can be seen on figure8. It first defined the northern limit of Abyei as latitude 10°10'N, from longitude 27°50'E to longitude 29°00'E, as described as the area of the nine Dinka Ngok chiefdoms that was annexed to Kordofan in 1905.

Then, it also fixed an area where both Dinka Ngok and Misseriya would share secondary rights to the area between latitude 10°10'N and latitude 10°35'N, and the shared area would be equally divided in two. The limits were settled as: North: latitude 10°22'N; East: longitude 29°32'E; the Southern boundary staying the same that defined during the independence of Sudan in 1956, along the Kordofan-Bahr el-Ghazal-Upper Nile boundary (Abyei Boundary Commission Report, 2005).

The Misseriya rejected the ABC decision on the basis that the new boundaries had taken large tract of their rich pastureland. But the main fact that led to the refusal of the ABC was that the GoS realized that the redrawn boundaries had ceded some of the most lucrative oilfields to South Sudan (Figure9). The SPLM and the Dinka Ngok considered the ABC decision as fair, which is not surprising considering the favorable outcome. They also considered it should be final and binding, according to the agreements signed by both parties. Between 2005 and 2007, this disagreement escalated into tensions, more and more present between the SPLM and the GoS, even if they had signed the Peace agreement just before.

However, by early 2006, a government of National unity has been established between the SPLM and the GoS. But from the start, this coalition had faced lots of issues, including internal divisions within the SPLM, following the death of John Garang (Crisis Group Africa Report, 2006). In May 2006, an agreement has been reached between SPLM and NCP to create a high level executive committee to discuss specific issues from the CPA focused on Abyei, and also to create a political partnership between the two parties. The latter has revealed to be far more ambitious.

Indeed, most of the talks concerning Abyei failed, even if they agreed on other options for Abyei: referring the issue to the constitutional court; recalling the ABC’s international experts to defend their decision; or third-party arbitration (The CPA monitor, 2007). The two first options have been quickly abandoned. Indeed, the GoS was still refusing to recall any experts regarding the ABC and the SPLM gave up the constitutional court option, this one being divided between SPLM and NCP appointees, the issue would remain unsolved. The third-party arbitration seemed to be the only measure that would contribute to solve the issue.

At this time, SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum called for a US arbitration, but this has been refused by the NCP. It seemed then very important to pressure the NCP to accept the ABC agreement than nothing else. An internationally chaired body called Assessment and Evaluation Commission (AEC) has then been created to monitor the CPA implementation, especially the Abyei border issues and its political representation.

The numerous requests from SPLM and NCP bogged down very quickly the talks, for example NCP requesting Misseriya to be part of the temporary administration and SPLM requesting a timeframe for setting permanent boundaries. The AEC though assessed that the NCP was constitutionally obliged to accept the CPA and then to establish the Abyei area’s special status. Since this assessment and all during the year 2007, no breakthroughs were to be seen and both parties carried on discussing on the establishment of a temporary administration, with the powers and parameters set by the Abyei Protocol.

During May and June 2007, NCP changed strategy and tried to suggest the boundaries to be based on the Abyei administrative unit as of 1995, when Abyei province was divided into Abyei, Muglad and Deebab localities. Since then, the GoS changed the boundaries in 2000 and again in 2005 (before the CPA), establishing two more localities: Heglig and Sitep. The size of Abyei locality became smaller, especially because seeing a likely scission with the South, the GoS took away the oil areas at the benefit of their territory.