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Khartoum (Agenzia Fides) - “Abyei is the key to peace in Sudan,” has been the claim of a study made by the ENOUGH Project, an American action group for ending wars and genocide. At the end of January, the group published an article entitled, “Abyei: Sudan’s Kashmir,” reminding the experts on African affairs of a crucial pressure point that could have an influence, as well, on the present crisis in Chad and the neighbouring region of Darfour, Sudan.
Abyei is located roughly 500 miles southwest of Khartoum and has served as a bridge between north and south Sudan, between the Sudanese Arabs, and the Christians and animists. Abyei is one of those regions that remains unresolved in the dialogue between Khartoum’s government and the Southern People Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), that in 2005 signed an accord placing an end to the 20-year war in southern Sudan. According to the agreements, an autonomous administration has been established in Khartoum and in 2011 there will be a referendum in order to decide if this territory will continue as part of Sudan (with a considerable autonomy) or if it will become independent. However, no agreement was ever met regarding some of the border zones and it is unknown whether they are part of the north or part of the south of Sudan. Abyei is among these border zones. Officially speaking, it belongs to the north, however, its population includes 280,000 people from southern tribes that, during the war, fought against Khartoum’s regime.
The recent crisis in the government, that has witnessed SPLM’s suspension of its participation in the Government of National Unity (a crisis that was positively resolved), occurred precisely over the question of respecting the “Abyei Protocol.” The Protocol was an agreement signed apparently under pressure from the United States in 2004 in Naivasha (the Kenyan city currently suffering from ethnic fighting, irony of history), prior to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, in efforts to overcome one of the main obstacles in reaching an agreement between Khartoum and the SPLM. The Abyei Protocol, in short, calls for: a special administrative status for Abyei, a mechanism for local governance until 2011, a process for determining Abyei’s boundaries, a share of oil revenues, a referendum in 2011, simultaneous with the south’s referendum, to determine if Abyei will thereafter be part of the north or the south.
In spite of the fact that according to the Protocol, the borders of Abyei had already been determined, the Khartoum government rejected the results. The problem now is the dispute for the control of oil resources in the area: in 2006, Sudan made 670 million dollars in oil exports from Abyei, about 13% of all the oil exports of Sudan for that entire year.
“If the political crisis regarding Abyei is addressed, there is potential for peace in the entire country. If it is mishandled, it dramatically increases the possibility that Sudan’s current conflicts—from Darfur to the South to the East—will explode over the coming few years into a national war with regional implications and historically devastating repercussions for its people,” the article claimed. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/2/2008 righe 38, parole 517)
