---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Eric Reeves <[email protected]> Date: Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:15 AM Subject: What Occurred in the Clash at Dokura (Abyei), Thursday, May 19, 2011? To: Eric Reeves <[email protected]>
What Occurred in the Clash at Dokura (Abyei), Thursday, May 19, 2011? May 23, 2011, 6pm—Abyei blog entry Eric Reeves What intelligence served as the basis for such hasty UN condemnation of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) for “criminal acts”? Although we still do not have all the details of the May 19 clash between an SPLA unit and a contingent of some 200 Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) troops under UNMIS escort, the following account—from a very well placed and highly reliable source—has a great deal more plausibility than the account the UN has acted upon. In fact, the authority of the UN narrative is highly suspect. UN political officials in New York were informed of the events at Dokura by Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s Special Envoy for Sudan (SGSR), Haile Menkerios of Eritrea. Menkerios has received poor marks during his fifteen months in office (he was appointed in February 2010), and seems only fitfully engaged on critical issues. Menkerios reportedly did not want the job, and was persuaded to take it only on the condition that his stint be relatively short. During his tenure he has developed a reputation for instinctively siding with Khartoum over Juba. Menkerios’ account of the events of May 19 is reported to have come exclusively from two SAF officers—in short, representatives of one of the combatant parties. If indeed their concoction of events was taken at face value, this is deeply revealing of Menkerios’ general attitude. But in this case, the SGSR will have laid the groundwork for an extraordinarily misguided UN condemnation of the SPLA for “criminal acts,” which condemnation in turn provided Khartoum with a plausible casus belli. This is a major diplomatic disaster, although we may expect the UN to close ranks around one of its own, however disastrously consequential his errors. So what really happened? Again according to a source that is both highly reliable and especially well-placed, there is a very different set of facts and circumstances. Several days before the May 19 clash, soldiers from an SPLA “Joint Integrated Unit” (JIU) were ambushed in Abyei by Misseriya militia, an attack that left four SPLA soldiers dead. Following this incident of May 15, the SPLA and SAF agreed that the SAF JIU would be stationed further north in Abyei at Goli and another town (notably, Goli has served as a forward military base for the PDF militia); the SPLA JIU would be stationed in Dokora (Dokra) in the south of Abyei, about five kilometers north of Abyei town. The parties further agreed that the SAF would escort the SPLA units to their location, and the SPLA would later escort the SAF units to their location. Immediately prior to the fighting, the SPLA units began to argue among themselves about the wisdom of escorting the SAF, given the recent attack they had suffered at the hands of SAF-allied Misseriya militia, and the well known presence of Popular Defense Forces (PDF) militia in Abyei and South Kordofan, and Goli in particular. At one point a single bullet was fired in the air. Immediately the SAF began to fire on the SPLA with anti-tank weapons (RPG-7s), an enormously destructive weapon. A number of Dinka Ngok civilians were killed, as were a number of SAF soldiers when one of their troop-carrying trucks was accidentally hit by one of the RPG’s—in short, a case of so-called “friendly fire.” This is not the narrative of a “criminal act” on the part of the SPLA. That Menkerios would represent the clash in such one-sided terms was deeply irresponsible, and in the event, extraordinarily consequential. He should be immediately relieved of his position, and a serious evaluation of reporting mechanisms needs to be undertaken as soon as possible. It is intensely dismaying that US special envoy for Sudan, Princeton Lyman, should still be making statements on the basis of the Menkerios account: “There was an incident on May 19th in which ***Southern forces attacked a UN convoy*** that was carrying Northern soldiers to the town called Goli. And ***that convoy was attacked***” (May 23, 2011, special briefing by Princeton Lyman, special envoy for Sudan, Washington, DC at http://www.state.gov/s/sudan/rem/2011/164107.htm; emphasis added). To be sure, Lyman is firm in his condemnation of Khartoum’s use of the incident to seize all of Abyei militarily, and makes clear that the status quo will not satisfy U.S. demands that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement be fully respected. But Lyman also continues with a narrative that at this point has been very seriously challenged, and the nature of the “attack” is very much in question. This is ultimately a form of deference to Khartoum, an act of appeasement in the face of extreme, large-scale, and unjustified military actions. This is not the road to peace, or a military withdrawal by the regime from Abyei. Indeed, it convinces the SPLM leadership that they are alone in confronting this military occupation of Abyei—which now includes wholesale looting and burning, as well as civilian intimidation and abuse, all reminiscent of the May 2008 attack on Abyei by the infamous SAF 31st Brigade (http://goo.gl/woyn0 ). This is an extremely dangerous situation that grows more dangerous by the hour. [for previous entries, see http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article326.html ] ************** [For the text of the Abyei Protocol (2004) that is a linchpin of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) (2005), see http://www.sudantribune.com/Protocol-between-GoS-and-SPLM-on,3134 ] [For the text of the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on Abyei (July 2009), see http://www.pca-cpa.org/showpage.asp?pag_id=1306 ] [For a scalable, highly detailed map of Abyei, see http://avidpdf.com/ebook/agany-pdf.html ] _____________________________ Eric Reeves Smith College Northampton, MA 01063 [email protected] 413-585-3326 www.sudanreeves.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
