Khartoum Proposes Abyei Deal, with Army to Remain

31 May 2011

Khartoum on Tuesday unveiled new proposals to resolve the Abyei crisis, including a rotating administration to govern the disputed region and the northern army staying on until a referendum.

The five proposals were published in a foreign ministry statement carried by the official SUNA news agency.

They include “maintaining the presence of the army north of the Bahr al-Arab river… without it participating in any administrative tasks until a final solution is reached by referendum.”

The government also suggested granting responsibility for the region’s administration to the presidency before handing it over, on July 8, to a joint committee, headed alternately by Juba and Khartoum.

Finally the statement called for the replacement of the existing UN peacekeepers by a “more effective” force with an “African character.”

Sudan on Tuesday officially told the United Nations it wanted the UN peacekeepers withdrawn after the south secedes on July 9.

A government official for south Sudan was not immediately available to comment on the proposals.

But it appears unlikely that they will be accepted, given southern president Salva Kiir’s earlier demands for a complete withdrawal of the occupying forces, who he referred to as “invaders.”

Northern troops and tanks overran the bitterly contested border region on May 21 in response to a deadly attack two days earlier on an army convoy in northern Abyei, in which at least 22 soldiers were killed.

The army has deployed as far as south as the Bahr al-Arab, known in the south as the Kiir river. It is a crucial destination for the Misseriya Arab nomads during their seasonal migration, when they seek pastures and fresh waters for their cattle.

The heavily armed Misseriya were a key proxy militia of the northern army during the decades-long civil war between the north and the south, and the river has become a frontline between northern and southern troops.

On Monday, south Sudan’s vice president Riek Machar agreed with his northern counterpart Ali Osman Taha to form a joint committee aimed at resolving the crisis.

But Taha rejected southern demands that the army withdraw, saying it would only do so when a political solution had been reached.

Sudan’s foreign ministry on Tuesday also repeated the government’s demands that the SPLA, the southern army, redeploy south of the 1956 borders before July 9, when the south is due to achieve full independence.

The International Crisis Group estimates that the SPLA has around 40,000 military personnel in the north, mostly in South Kordofan and Blue Nile state.

But as Machar said after his meeting with Taha, they are northern citizens and “would not accept” being ordered to move to the south.

The conflict in Abyei has already prompted 60,000 people to flee to the south, according to the United Nations.

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