Abyei Solution Key to South Sudan Stability
Disputed area of southern Sudan remains a potential flashpoint– but not because of its oil resources.
Abyei Solution Key to South Sudan Stability
Disputed area of southern Sudan remains a potential flashpoint– but not because of its oil resources.
Blake Evans-Pritchard
IWPR Africa editor
With South Sudan heading rapidly towards independence, now is the time to start talking seriously about Abyei, because until something is done about this contested region peace cannot be guaranteed.
Abyei, a fairly small strip of land in the centre of the country, has been an integral part of the north-south civil war, partially because of its strategic position but also because of the vast reserves of oil that have been extracted from under its surface.
In recent years, though, Abyei’s oil-production has significantly declined, and portraying it as a vital oil-producing region is no longer accurate.
This is a crucial point. In the past, the question of oil wealth has dominated discussions to find a lasting solution to Abyei. Now, any future settlement must address the grievances of the individual tribes, which so far has not been adequately done.
In 2003, when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA, was signed, Abyei accounted for a quarter of the country’s total oil production (69,303 barrels per day), according to figures published by the International Crisis Group, ICG, although the opacity of the oil industry in Sudan means that data is not always reliable.
Six years on, Abyei almost certainly accounts for a much smaller amount of the country’s overall oil wealth.
This is partly because production in Abyei has declined – oil experts say that extraction peaked a few years ago – but also because other oil fields have since opened up across the south.
Moreover, in 2009, a landmark ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, PCA, redrew Abyei’s borders so that the two largest oil fields – Heglig and Bamboo – fell within territory belonging to the north.
The only major oil field that still remains within Abyei is Diffra, which, according to figures from ICG, produces just 4,000 barrels of oil per day. This is less than one per cent of the nearly 500,000 barrels that Sudan as a whole produces each day. Even taken with other oil-producing facilities in the region, the total value of Abyei’s oil worth is less than 5 per cent of the country’s total.
But, despite the dwindling importance of Abyei as an oil-producing region, both Khartoum and Juba remain determined to hold on to this small strip of land.
The reason is that both sides are under pressure from tribal communities that feel they will be marginalised if the region joins part of the country to which they do not belong.
Abeyi is dominated by two main ethnic groups: the Ngok Dinka in the south and the Misseriya Arabs in the north. Neither Khartoum nor Juba wishes to alienate these relatively large tribes, and so they both maintain an interest in the region.
The Misseriya, predominantly Muslim, cattle-herders, whose survival depends upon being able to lead their herds down to the grazing pastures of the south during the summer months. Misseriya fear that should Abyei end up with the south, they will lose access to these lands.
Meanwhile, the Ngok Dinka, who are Christians and Animists, are worried that if they join the north, Khartoum will cause them problems. President Omar al-Bashir has already said that if the south secedes, he intends to impose Islamic sharia law on anyone living in the north.
At the moment, the CPA, which expires later this year, exempts non-northerners from sharia.
A solution to the Abyei question will not be easy. This is all the more reason for stepping up efforts to find one.
There are signs that northern and southern leaders are now prepared to take the problem seriously.
Following a recent spate of killings in the region, both Khartoum and Juba sent high-level delegations to talk to tribal leaders in Abyei and assess how further clashes could be avoided.
What is needed for the region is a solution that brings the two tribes together, offering them a way to peacefully coexist and share resources as they did in the past.
One solution was floated by Khartoum just before Christmas: that Abyei belongs to both north and south, with government jobs distributed equally between the Ngok Dinka and the Misseriya. Any oil wealth would be shared equally between Khartoum and Juba, with a portion going to local communities.
This is certainly an enticing compromise, and, if it could be made to work, would help overcome the senseless bickering between the north and the south over Abyei. It would also deter either side from using tribal rivalries to stoke tensions, as they have done in the past.
But such a solution also requires strong political will from both sides, something that has been lacking in previous north-south agreements.
So far, the referendum in South Sudan has been a success – efficiently run and with little sign of the trouble that some commentators had been predicting.
But any jubilation that comes from bringing Sudan’s uneasy unity peacefully to an end will be tempered by the fear that, in the centre of the country, there is still a spark smouldering.
Blake Evans-Pritchard is IWPR’s Africa Editor.
The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of IWPR.
