Encounter - truth through dialogue - Scramble for Abyei: Why South Sudan must be victorious
Kordofan, Sudan - Sudan's ruling National Congress Party has for the last three years made Abyei Protocol into political hyacinth to chock CPA to its death. Time is proving NCP wrong, or should we say, nature is turning against the architects of this scheme. People of Abyei will be the last to taste the fruits of peace. Half of the life of their Abyei Interim Administration has been wasted by few people in the Republican Palace along Nile Avenue.
Abyei's political crisis will soon be in the archive hopefully because of SPLM's recent stance with Ngok people. The citizens of Abyei will not be annihilated by the fierce Misseriya fuming around Nyimora-Kiir Rivers for revenge.
Positively, Dinka Ngok for the first time than ever are coming closer to each other. Even those who betrayed their people during the hardest moments in Abyei's history have either joined the big surge of change or have neutralized their venoms by the current positive waves towards recognition of Dinka Ngok as an entity and not subordinate to be kicked around for propaganda purposes between the divide, north-south.
Kuol Arop, the founder of Ngok Chiefdom will soon smile in his grave, seeing his burial place become seat of a government, manned by his graying grandson, poet-cum-revolutionary. Time is against the Misseriya, how pitiful!
The two last rulers in Khartoum used them to do a dirty job that has since caused them enmity with the children of the friend of their grandfather, Babu Nimir. As neighborhood ethics are supposed to be, the sons of friends should have continued friendship with solidification. Deng Kuol Arop (Deng Majok) and Babu Nimir were said to be great friends. Whatever that means!
Back again. Once Abyei Administration is in place, certainly someone other than Mohamed Omer Al Ansari will rise up among the Misseriya; not to take up arms for the liberation of Abyei, but to say rightly in the face of NCP officials in Khartoum, "you have caused us irreparable damage with our kinsmen-Ngok!"
In the Nuba Mountains, SPLA\M slept by not addressing issues. Col. Telefon Kuku left his base in Yei, former SPLA military HQs to vent his anger on the entire movement, sparing even not the dead like Dr. John Garang and Yousif Kuwa Mekki. NCP, your real Telefon Kuku is coming soon! There are young Misseriya youth who are gaining strength to tell their elders, "You are wrong."
CPA and Abyei
Influential decision makers who could solve Abyei’s political crisis because of pride or negligence, unfortunately, cannot sit down and revise this protocol now pulling the whole CPA into oblivion. Abyei Protocol has been turned by NCP into untouchable ring on top of a timed bomb waiting to be triggered. This is falsification of truth as stipulated in the CPA document known as 'The Resolution of The Abyei Conflict"; signed at Naivasha, Kenya, on 26th May, 2004.
The implication of inciting Misseriya that they should be in the administration of Abyei on 50% basis is ridiculous because CPA was signed on broad day light while the signatories were not drunk. Misseriya's interest was represented by their sons at the venue and table of negotiations. One was GoS spokesman in Naivasha.
When Abyei Protocol was signed, SPLM leadership landed at Agog County of greater Abyei chieftaincy. Dr. John Garang took his precious moments to explain to Ngok people the meaning of Abyei Protocol word by word. In Khartoum and other parts of the Sudan, NCP leadership was shy to explain to their people because they feared being accused by northern political parties as "people who sold out southern Sudan to Israel and America."
Many north Sudanese are scared about returning back Abyei to southern Sudan because it will join as part of the south in 2011 independence of the region which will definitely break Arab and Islamic influence south of the Sahara.
It is an open invitation for any political party to participate in Abyei Interim Administration. Nowhere in the CPA document was it mentioned that Misseriya should participate on a 50% basis. Misseriya who lived in Abyei for a period of time as a citizen is eligible for any office including that of the Chief Administrator. That is a right of citizenship in the whole country. The participation of a nomadic affiliation in the administration of Abyei should be put as a new clause in the CPA document. Then that should require renegotiation of the CPA, that idea caused disappointment recently within SPLM backyard.
Misseriya lion's share
Long before the CPA, Misseriya were the main beneficiaries of the services of the defunct Western Kordofan State. A state that was relinquished in August 2005. With that agreement, Misseriya became recipients of two spoons. One bent to scoop from Southern Kordofan-Kadugli. And the other spoon went to Northern Kordofan state-El-Obeid. In both states, citizens from the Misseriya tribe are in the legislatures and ministerial posts.
Hamar's example
One of the victims of destruction of western Kordofan state is the Hamar tribe. Hamar resorted to pressurizing NCP officials in Khartoum. Rebellion was hinted in late 2004 and early 2005. Through their paramount ruler, Nazir Abdel Gadir Muneim Monsur, Hamar demanded urgent improvement of services. Today around Hamar territories, there are clean water being drilled, new schools and health centers with ambulances available. The greatest achievement Hamar got from NCP are the tarmac road that has already reached their main town, En Nahud; electricity is available 22 hours a day, and a faculty of Medicine and Public Health was opened last year, attached to the University of Western Kordofan. Hamar's tactics should be used by others to pursue demands from the republican palace with success.
Above all, they are contended with the 2% from Abyei oil revenue going to western Kordofan development fund.
Abyei Liberation Front
This is a perfect fiction according to one Mohamed Omer Al Ansari: he formed his government (mid February) in a state called Bahr el Arab, with Abyei as its capital. There are ministers, commissioners, advisors etc. He is the Governor with enough army to safeguard any aggressions from the SPLA.
Edward Lino, SPLM's Chief Administrator of Abyei is inexistent. Though this self-proclaimed Governor of Abyei cannot even pronounce the word ABYEI correctly, SPLM and south Sudanese should know that they are dealing with NCP's messenger here. Nothing can be ruled out completely. They have called it Kashmir; and the situation resembles actual Kashmir. Abyei Liberation Front fortunately is dying a natural death. How can this acephalus movement survive when it is created in the war laboratories in Khartoum? Have they not known that Khartoum is hosting revolutionary giants from Free Lions, SLA and SPLA warriors?
Precious gestation period for war mongering is long gone (30th June 1989-12th December 1999) NCP's golden period.
First it began by granting what was known as Misseriya Forum in Khartoum. Most of the current crop of politicians from the area voiced out their aggression on Abyei through this forum. There were instigations from the like of Sadiq Al Mahdi and some old founders of NCP in Misseriya land north of Abyei. Those who still dream of creating Arabic-Islamic Empire in the heart of Africa should be treated of psychosomatic disorder. Unfortunately few among the Misseriya have come to their sense to reject such big projects that aim at burying them and their resources as founding block.
Just this last February at the surprise of everyone except south Sudanese, came Abyei Liberation Front. Abyei Liberation Front, to borrow the statement of greatest African revolutionary and sage, is just another NCP's political masturbation of 2008. Every sensible being who first heard of it would have thought Gen. Pieng, Chol Alak or even Edward Lino could have been the leader of ALF.
The people of Abyei have more genuine reasons to rebel at the moment than any other citizens in the country. How do you feel when 100% of your oil is carried away while you are still living in grass houses and without a government?
If ALF was launched by one of Abyei's sons, the movement could have gained national and international claim because they are the people whose ancestral land is being occupied, devastated and robbed by aliens, CPA described them as nomadic. Abyei Liberation Front could have been SPLA\M's offshoot as lest favored by the Presidency that has failed to implement Abyei Protocol three years after comprehensive peace agreement. Here was Mohamed Omer Al Ansari proudly boasting of having a mammoth army that can erase Abyei within minutes. He has become Nebuchadnezzar of the Sudan in modern time. Funny enough though, all Sudanese rebels tend to launch their rebellions from the bush not from the glass towers like what Mohamed Omer Al Ansari did. He announced his rebellion through facilities of Sudan Media Center (SMC). Who does not know the owners of SMC?
Many rebels, short-live liberation movements that existed from 30th June 1989 to present are tainted with NCP's conspiracies. Such dirty hands of politics has been prowling around, causing divisions and aborting all plans for longevity within those movements and rebellions.
Are experiences of SPLA, SLA, JEM, Eastern Front, KAD, Shahama and etc. not enough? Why give birth to another expensive project like Abyei Liberation Front?
Abyei and southern Sudan
South Sudan has already lost good portion of its territories. Some of these lands have gone to other countries, regions and states through forceful occupation or gradual grabbing. Silence from the side of the victims either may mean, being overwhelmed by the invading force or accepting a deal that is secretive. Once in a while we hear of land issue with Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, CAR and recently with DR Congo.
If south Sudan is thinking of statehood, it should not have tied lips like rulers in Khartoum when Egypt forcefully occupied Halaib in the 1990s.
Abyei was important for SPLA\M leadership before 1997 when NIF discovered sea of oil in the region. Dr. John Garang in his lifetime paid attention to all ethnic groups and their lands in southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions.
Other tribes who were formerly "hidden" are today enjoying all what they bravely fought for. The seriousness of Dr. John Garang to protect ethnic groups resulted into discovering of a nomadic tribe between Ethiopia and Sudan. Anthropologists can prove this fact. Members of this tribe are since settled somewhere between Eastern Equatoria and Upper Nile.
By now every south Sudanese of reasonable consent should have completely known that Abyei is part and parcel of southern Sudan. Even if NCP engineers and their Chinese counterparts are depleting oil from Abyei right now, Abyei and Ngok people will still count themselves "south Sudanese." That is (was) how they have been treated by governments in Khartoum since 1905; British and north Sudanese.
The domestic colonialists in Abyei from 1905 to 2005 did not build roads, hospitals, schools, mosques or even demarcate the town. No single commissioner who ruled Abyei slept in the town. Sincere north Sudanese always disapprove their people; "why do you cling to the grass-thatched town of Abyei?"
It is also being observed that few tired south Sudanese are of different opinion about Abyei. In certain quarters, some south Sudanese are trying to easily give up on Abyei issue. This is due to their personal opinions of which they posses the right to. Let them wait while the majority of those who fight for the right of the Ngok people finish their job. No south Sudanese who experienced domestic oppression of the rulers in Khartoum will buy your cheap idea; "After all their grandfathers handed them to the north (Arabs), let them pay for it now!"
Well, who can choose to be at the side of a burning fire if one is not cold? The fight over Abyei is not a Dinka Ngok fight, nor other Jieng's, it is a south Sudanese fight, from Renk to Nimule, from Raja to Akobo. To a wider sense, the New Sudan territory encompasses Kurmuk, Debeibat, Nimule and Renk in which Abyei is inside the map.
The other flash points are waiting for your notice. The rich gum shrubs of northern Upper Nile are being claimed by some people already. Have we also forgotten the claim of Darfur over Kafia-Kingi?
Cultural misrepresentation of Dinka Ngok: Islam and Arabism
By being geographically and politically in the north for 103 years, some uninformed south Sudanese took it for granted that Dinka Ngok are culturally Arabized. Others falsely defend their ignorance by saying Abyei people are assimilated Arabs. This ignorance is also widespread in the north where some people refer to Ngok people as Misseiya tuwal, "tall Misseriya." Like all Nilotics, Ngok are carrying the genes and traits of tallness, but they are not Misseriya. Walking along the streets of Abyei, Dinka language is spoken loudly. As Arabic is spoken in Kaya, so, the language of business in the small market of Abyei is Arabic. Is that not the same in Kapoeta?
Ngok who studied in Khor-Tagad, Dongola and Cairo speak classical Arabic language like the Chollo who went to schools in Kosti and Khartoum.
South Sudanese must know that, culturally, there are many towns in worse shape than Abyei. Right now Abyei cannot boast of having the largest mosque in the south. Majority of the citizens in Abyei do not wear jalabiya if it is the denominator for judgment. People of Abyei do not circumcise girls. They do not practice endogamy. There are very, very few pious Muslims from Dinka Ngok. They chose to be good Muslims just like those in Juba. Islam is their destiny who are we to judge them?
But to know that Abyei not Islamic, go there during Ramadan and see for yourself the number of those fasting. Then go to Omdurman before you say anything religious wise about Abyei. Next time those who say people of Abyei are culturally Arabized should move along the streets of Abyei and then travel to Renk, Raja, Wau, Malakal and Juba before reaching out for the defense of their claim.
Can south Sudan ever go without Abyei?
We cannot swear like some others who now claim ownership of Abyei. How can you swear over ownership of an egg laid by your chicken?
During the second civil war that began in 1983, Abyei sons and daughters were the first to liberate towns and villages deep inside southern Sudan.
To show that Abyei and Ngok are inseparable from south Sudan, Dr. John Garang in person flew to Agog with the entire SPLM Leadership Council to explain the Abyei Protocol. He never went to assert his grip on Abyei because of oil. Instead he went to thank the bravery and sacrifice of Ngok people, majority of their officers killed deep in the south despite urgency of liberating Abyei from those who did not develop it since 1905.
Let us refresh our memories of Agog Conference of 16th June 2004. Dr. John Garang delved into the history of the suffering of Ngok people before explaining Abyei Protocol. In that conference, those who defended fiercely Abyei's return to southern Sudan were not from Abyei neither Dinka sons.
Dr. Lam Akol; "Abyei is our shield! When God put you at the edge of a homestead, he gives you responsibility over the rest."
Dr. Samson Kwaje; "I will speak on your behalf to the Misseriya in Khartoum."
SPLM's counterparts in Khartoum did not take the opportunity to explain Abyei Protocol nor CPA. We are being made to pay for that waste of time three years after CPA signing.
In the spring of 2011, Abyei people will democratically vote to either join the south or remain part of northern Sudan. If the majority of the votes opted to join Bahr el Ghazal and south Sudan and in turn majority of south Sudanese voted for independence of the region, then Abyei will be automatically incorporated into current south Sudan's territories.
The destiny is theirs!
*John Oryem is The New Sudan Vision Chief Bureau Officer in Sudan, author of two books and editor of Author-me.com and lives in Kordofan. He can be reached at oryemjohn@yahoo.com
