Sudan’s NCP says no recognition of South Sudan state without border demarcation
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May 26, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in
North Sudan added a new layer of tension on Thursday by declaring that
they will not recognize the independence of the South next July unless
borders are demarcated.
JPEG - 27.8 kb
Indian soldiers serving as part of the Force Reserve Battalion with
the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) stand together as they
prepare to depart on a patrol in Abyei town May 25, 2011 (Reuters)
The head of the NCP’s political mobilization bureau Al-Haj Magid Siwar
said the process must be completed on the ground before they give
their blessings to the new state.
"How can we approve and recognize a new state separate from us that we
don’t know where their borders begin or end," Siwar said.
He stressed that there are six problematic border points slowing the
process but he also accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
(SPLM) of deliberately stalling their resolution.
In the past NCP officials have echoed Siwar’s assertions but later
appeared to have dropped this condition.
If the North insists on completion of borders before the South’s
split, it will further deepen the already growing crisis between the
two sides following the takeover of Abyei by the Sudan Armed Forces
(SAF) last weekend.
The Northern army said they seized the border region in retaliation
for the ambush on their troops last week by Southern units near Abyei
which they claimed left 197 soldiers either missing or dead. The SAF
convoy was being escorted by United Nations peacekeepers when the
attack took place.
While the United Nations acknowledged that is likely Southern units
which fired on the units, they downplayed the casualties figures given
by Khartoum saying that it is "much smaller".
Today the United States ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice
said North’s move on Abyei appears to be premeditated.
"There’s real concern that the government of Sudan may have taken a
decision to continue to occupy Abyei for its own political advantage
for an indefinite period," Rice said in a conference call after
returning from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) trip to
Africa that included visits to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and
South Sudan’s capital, Juba.
"Everybody is in agreement that this is a very destabilizing and
unhelpful development and a violation" of the 2005 peace agreement
that ended more than two decades of civil war between the north and
the south, Rice said.
The U.S. diplomat said Abyei’s occupation won’t affect South Sudan’s
independence on July 9 but she warned that if northern forces don’t
withdraw, the UNSC is likely to consider action in response.
The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir has vowed not to pull out
from the region and stressed that Abyei belongs to the North.
"Abyei is Sudanese land, Northern land [and] we will not withdraw from
it," Bashir addressed a meeting of educational workers and vocational
teachers on Tuesday. He also disclosed that he gave SAF the green
light to respond to provocations by the Sudan People Liberation Army
(SPLA) anywhere.
Western countries as well as the UNSC have urged Khartoum to withdraw
from Abyei unconditionally and reinstate the area’s administration
council dissolved unilaterally by Bashir last week.
Washington warned Khartoum that unless Sudan withdraws from Abyei the
process of normalizing ties and lifting the country’s name from the
list of states that sponsor terrorism would be stalled.
But Bashir said yesterday that he is not concerned with the U.S.
"sticks or carrots".
The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) promised Abyei residents
a referendum over whether to join north or south, but that did not
take place as neither could agree on whether members of the
north-associated cattle-herding tribe of Misseriya should be allowed
to vote alongside the south-linked tribe of Dinka Ngok.
Human Rights Watch said Thursday the Sudanese government urgently
needs to halt looting and destruction of civilian property by its
forces in the town of Abyei and hold those responsible to account. It
also demanded that the government allow United Nations peacekeepers
access to the entire Abyei area.
The U.N. Country Team in Sudan said late Thursday that the premises of
U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations in Abyei town have been
looted of medical supplies, surgical equipment, 800 metric tons of
food which is enough to feed 50,000 people for three months, water and
hygiene equipment.
The team said tens of thousands of people who fled Abyei have arrived
in southern Sudan and are in need of urgent assistance.
Humanitarian agencies are trying to distribute food and emergency
items, the U.N. said. But an unknown number of people have fled into
the bush while in Turalei, 130 kilometres from Abyei town, 15,000
displaced people are living in the open.
SAF PREPARING ATTACK
On Thursday the SAF Chief of Staff General Esmat Abdel-Rahman said
that the army will carry out a major operation next week to expel any
Southern troops inside the North.
"We are addressing the SPLM; they have to withdraw any illegal troops
that remain north of the 1956 border," he told a student rally outside
army headquarters in Khartoum. He stressed that this must be done by
next week and noted Bashir’s directive authorizing the army to take
any steps necessary without needing new orders.
He said Sudan’s armed forces were ready to open training camps for
students so they can join efforts to impose law and order in northern
territory.
"We have prepared the weapons and the logistics," Abdel-Rahman said.
In a related issue the Southern minister of regional cooperation Deng
Alor was quoted by local media as saying that the SPLM has decided to
suspend post-referendum negotiations with the North currently underway
in Addis Ababa.
"The control of Abyei by Khartoum closed the door to dialogue on all
the remaining issues of Naivasha and the arrangements for
post-referendum" Alor said.
"Without Abyei there is no dialogue on the remaining issues and we
will not waste time on [discussing] debt or nationality or the
resources or the oil," said Alor who is from Abyei.
The Southern official warned that they have the right to stop oil
flowing into the North and rejected calls by NCP for negotiations on
Abyei.
He also noted Bashir’s acknowledgment that the North closed borders
for a week which stopped flow of goods into the South.
(ST)
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