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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Aug 03 2010 - 13:09:35 EDT
Unrest feared as Sudan talks stall
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
The ruling party in Sudan has sought to play down concerns about potential
violence after talks between officials from the north and the south stalled
over a referendum in the disputed oil-producing Abyei region.
A senior member of the National Congress Party (NCP) told Al Jazeera on
Monday that there was no reason that the collapsed talks should escalate
into a new conflict.
"I think the Abyei problem will be solved and I don't think there is any war
to be expected," Rabie Abdul Atti said.
As South Sudan holds a referendum on a possible return to independence in
January, Abyei will simultaneously vote on whether the region should belong
to the north or the south.
But the NCP and Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which governs the
south, cannot agree on who will be eligible to vote.
"The issue of the Abyei referendum has come to a standstill," Deng Arop, a
SPLM representative who heads Abyei's administration, told reporters on
Sunday.
"This has the potential to ... cause a regional and international conflict."
More than two decades of bitter war between north and south Sudan left an
estimated two million people dead. A peace deal signed in 2005 created a
federal unity government that shared power between the north's ruling party
and the former southern rebels.
Tribe controversy
Abyei's referendum law gives the right of vote to members of the southern
Dinka Ngok tribe and it is up to the referendum commission to decide which
"other Sudanese" are considered residents of the region and therefore
eligible to vote.
The ruling NCP says the Misseriya, a big pro-unity nomadic tribe which
grazes its cattle in the south during the dry season, should also vote.
The SPLM says the tribe as a bloc should not be allowed to vote, but that
individuals with long-term residence in the region should be able to do so.
"The Misseriya ... are in no way meant to vote in the Abyei referendum
because they are not residents. They are meant to be nomads," Arop said.
He said Misseriya had begun to settle 75,000 people in the north of Abyei to
change the demographic of the region and influence the vote.
Arop estimated there were about 100,000 original Abyei residents excluding
the Missiriya.
He called on the NCP to stop the settlements.
"If the government is not supporting this then it should take action to stop
it," he said.
Abyei has been a contentious issue between the SPLM and the NCP both
before and after the 2005 peace deal.
Border arbitration
Deadly clashes between the Sudanese army and the SPLM in Abyei in May 2008
raised fears of a return to war between north and south Sudan. Both parties
decided to take the matter of the sensitive border to arbitration in The
Hague.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration refined the borders, leaving the Heglig
oil fields in the north, out of the Abyei region.
Both north and south authorities have accepted the ruling, but it was
criticised by the Misseriya tribe.
Douglas Johnson. a former former member of the Abyei Boundaries Commission,
told Al Jazeera that the threat of renewed violence in Abyei is "very
serious".
"There have been clashes on the border, there have been clashes within
Abyei, and this latest report of movement in large scale of Misseriya into
northern areas of is very worrying," he said.
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