U.S. warns Sudan that normalization of ties in jeopardy after Abyei seizure
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May 23 2011 (WASHINGTON) – The United States on Monday warned the
Sudanese government that the process of normalizating ties will come
to a halt unless it withdraws its forces from Abyei which lies on the
North-South borders.
JPEG - 31.1 kb
In this photo released by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS),
homes are seen burning in the town of Abyei, Sudan, Monday, May 23,
2011
On Saturday Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) made a quick and successful
takeover of the contested region forcing troops from the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) to withdraw southwards.
On the same day president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir issued a decree
dissolving the Abyei administrative council without consulting with
his first vice-president Salva Kiir who is also the president of
Southern Sudan.
Khartoum said the military offensive was in response to an attack by
the SPLA on a SAF convoy escorted by UN peacekeepers last week which
led to heavy casualties within its ranks. The United Nations Mission
in Sudan (UNMIS) at the time condemned the attack but declined to
assign blame.
A visiting delegation from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
deplored the attack by what it described as Southern forces on SAF
convoy but also demanded Khartoum’s withdrawal from the oil-rich
region and reinstatement of the Abyei council.
Western countries were quick to condemn the SAF’s seizure of Abyei
calling it a violation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)
that was signed between the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and
the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) that ended more than two
decades of civil war.
South Sudan voted almost unanimously for secession in the referendum
stipulated by the CPA. A simultaneous exercise was supposed to be
conducted in Abyei by its residents who were to decide whether they
want to be part of the North or South.
However, the ex-foes were unable to reach an agreement on who is
eligible to vote between the Dinka Ngok, who are permanent residents
of the region, and the Arab Misseriya who spend part of every year in
Abyei as they seek pastures for their cattle.
The Sudanese government over the weekend said that it will not
withdraw from Abyei until new security arrangements are reached with
the South and after the residents decide their fate in the referendum.
Today the Sudanese parliament overwhelmingly approved the SAF
incursion into Abyei after a briefing by the defense minister
Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein. The latter stressed that the army will
not withdraw "one inch" without new arrangements.
Only the lawmaker representing the Popular Congress Party (PCP) headed
by Islamist opposition figure Hassan Al-Turabi objected to the defense
minister’s remarks. MP Ismail Hussein described the national
assembly’s support as a "political blackmail" and accused the
politicians of seeking to drag the country into war.
He said that the lawmakers’ approval does not suit the price paid by
the country in the form of losing the south. The remarks drew strong
rebuke from the speaker Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Tahir accusing the MP of
being "droopy" and added that he is not surprised because the PCP is
an ally of the SPLM "outwardly and inwardly"
In Washington the U.S. special envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman said
actions undertaken by Khartoum in Abyei endanger the North-South
negotiations on post-referendum issues before the South officially
becomes independent next July.
"We feel that the attack on the UN convoy was deplorable and wrong,
but we feel the response of the government was disproportionate and
irresponsible. We think those forces should be withdrawn; the civilian
administration, which President Bashir unilaterally dissolved, should
be recreated; and we have urged that President Bashir and Vice
President Kiir, who is head of the Southern Sudan administration,
immediately come together and calm this situation down and restore the
level of cooperation they talked about after the January 9th
referendum. They have not been meeting recently and so far have not
been in direct touch, and we feel that’s an extremely important thing
for them to do" Lyman told reporters at the State department today.
Lyman further said that normalization of relations is now complicated
by the SAF takeover of Abyei.
"[I]n our roadmap toward normalization, it includes specifically a
resolution of the Abyei problem, which has to be a negotiated
solution, and it involves full implementation of the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement. So this action complicates both of those conditions,
and what it means is that our ability to move toward normalization is
going to be complicated as well" he said.
"We had started the process, as you know, of looking at how to take
them off the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. We’ve been working
with the World Bank and others on the debt situation. We’ve been
looking at the prospect of naming a full ambassador after July 9th in
Khartoum. All of these are important steps in normalization. They
can’t be fulfilled if we don’t have a successful CPA" Lyman added.
A senior U.S. official, who spoke to The Washington Times on
background citing the sensitive nature of the developments, said the
United States had offered a road map to the Bashir government for
delisting.
It required Sudan to meet specific conditions to get off the list of
state sponsors of terrorism and regain full diplomatic relations with
the United States. The criteria included a political settlement for
Abyei.
“Abyei was probably the most important element of [the conditions] if
you had to rank them, and [recent developments in Abyei] are a serious
setback,” the U.S. official said.
Fatahelrahman Ali Mohamed, deputy chief of mission at the Sudanese
Embassy in Washington, said it is “unfair” for the Obama
administration to link the removal of Sudan from the terrorism list to
Abyei.
“Our country is ready and committed to work with the United States,
but it is not helpful if the U.S. is perceived as being tilted toward
the south,” he added. “The Sudanese military forces went into Abyei to
restore peace.”
However, U.S. and Sudanese officials, from the north as well as the
south, downplayed fears of a bigger conflict.
The senior U.S. official noted that northern forces easily pushed out
southern troops from Abyei and that the south lacks the ability to
respond to northern aggression.
“I don’t think that the south is prepared for a full-scale war. That
said, I don’t think the north is, either,” he said, describing the
northern Sudan Armed Forces as a “broken institution.”
Enoch Awejok, acting head of the Southern Sudan mission in Washington,
agreed that there was “no opportunity for war”.
“Neither side is blameless,” said the U.S. official. “Our first order
of business is calming them down and getting them to talk to each
other.”
Another U.S. official speaking to the New York Times said the South is
treading carefully for fear of disrupting their breakup process from
the North.
“They really don’t have any good options,” said an American official
who works on Sudan but was not authorized to speak publicly. “They’re
so close to getting what they worked so hard to get, and a war could
risk all that. But I can tell you they’re very, very mad, at the
highest levels.”
BURNING & LOOTING IN ABYEI
The United Nations peacekeeping operation in Sudan strongly condemned
what it claimed was "burning and looting currently being perpetrated
by armed elements in Abyei town".
"The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) are responsible for maintaining law and
order in the areas they control" said a statement by UNMIS.
UNMIS called on the Sudanese government to "urgently ensure that the
Sudan Armed Forces fulfill their responsibility and intervene to stop
these criminal acts".
Kouider Zerrouk, a spokesperson for UNMIS, said most of the residents
have fled towards the town of Agok in Southern Sudan.
“We can’t ascertain the exact number,” he said, but added that
hundreds of thousands of people may have been displaced by today’s
attacks and the recent clashes in the wider Abyei area.
Mr. Zerrouk said the identity of the armed groups conducting the
looting and burning was not clear, but they were likely to be
pro-northern.
“We don’t know who they are in terms of whether they are organized
militias or just a group of civilians taking the opportunity of having
an empty town and looting and burning the place".
"The SAF are still occupying Abyei and they continue to bomb," Deng
Arop, the sacked region’s administrator who fled the violence and took
shelter in Wau, a town almost 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of the
disputed area, told Agence France Presse (AFP).
Arop said that bombings of east and south Abyei proved the northern
army intends to "advance further south" and that the continued
"indiscriminate bombing" would only aggravate the "humanitarian
crisis."
In Juba, around a hundred Southerners marched through the city
decrying the "invasion" of Abyei by SAF.
"The north must leave, this cannot be allowed," said demonstrator
Choul Deng, who comes originally from the region on the north-south
border.
"The north are acting like they did during the days of the civil war,
bombing and attacking our people."
In Khartoum the largest Northern opposition party provided a statement
to the UNSC proposing a set measures to resolve the crisis in Abyei
which included a ceasefire accord, declaring Abyei a demilitarized
zone, replacing the dissolved Abyei council with a national commission
to run the region, postponing the Abyei referendum to be held in a
’healthy environment’ and holding a national conference to discuss
urgent issues such as grazing rights, water, oil, security and
citizenship.
(ST)
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