International confusion and ignorance in
answering this question about Sudanese geography has become one of the greatest
threats to peace, and the negotiations required for peace to be sustained
Eric Reeves
April 14, 2012, 1:00pm
The rapid escalation of military violence
between Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and South Sudan's Sudan People's
Liberation Army (SPLA) is now sustained in large measure by widespread
international confusion about where "Heglig" is. Hasty or
disingenuous assignments of "Heglig" to (northern) Sudan have
emboldened Khartoum to characterize SPLA military actions as "South
Sudan's blatant invasion of Heglig." Given Khartoum's own
military seizure of Abyei in May 2011, this seems remarkable (if unsurprising)
hypocrisy; but so far it is working at the UN, with the U.S. State Department,
with the AU, and among EU members. This vastly increases the chances
of all-out war. Given the brutally indiscriminate ways in which
Khartoum has previously chosen to wage war on the people of the South---as well
as of Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan---we should expect huge civilian
casualties, massive human displacement, and intolerable assaults on civilians
in the North who are "ethnically Southern."
The location of "Heglig" (which
Southerners have long referred to as Panthou) has yet to be negotiated vis-à-vis
the "1 January 1956 border," the determining point of reference in
establishing whether a wide range of locations lie in the South or the North. Although
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) repeatedly and explicitly stipulates
the "1 January 1956 border," the precise location was to have been to
be a matter that required extensive research and negotiation by the Technical
Boundary Committee (TBC).
Indeed, some twenty percent of this border
remains undelineated, and a much greater percentage remains undemarcated. The
reason is simple: Khartoum has consistently refused to negotiate these areas of
the border either within the TBC or through high-level political engagement. Over
more than seven years, it has repeatedly refused to convene or participate in
good faith in the TBC, to accept the findings of the Abyei Boundaries
Commission stipulated by the Abyei Protocol of the CPA, or to accept the ruling
of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (July 2009).
It is this last decision that appears to have
caused the most confusion in shallow international minds. The PCA
(in The Hague) defined Abyei in a way that moved both the Heglig (and Bamboo) oil
sites to the east of Abyei's eastern boundary. But with respect to
Heglig, this is all it did. It
did not place Heglig in northern Sudan or South Sudan; it simply said that
Heglig lies to the east of Abyei:
"The eastern
boundary of the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to
Kordofan in 1905 runs in a straight line along longitude 29° 00' 00'' E, from
latitude 10° 10' 00'' N south to the Kordofan - Upper Nile boundary as it
was defined on 1 January 1956."
This ruling did nothing to settle where the
"1 January 1956 border" actually lies. It had no mandate
to make such a determination, and did not attempt to do so. This
elemental fact has escaped virtually all international actors, in large part
because Heglig has been robustly controlled militarily by Khartoum for many
years, especially since oil was discovered in the area in the 1970s.
In short, the location of Heglig remains to be
negotiated, even as Khartoum refuses to negotiate---and the regime is
distinctly less likely to do so now that its pre-emptive geographic claim of
the region has been ratified by a series of statements by international actors
of consequence. Given Juba's determination that Heglig will not be
allowed to become a future staging ground for additional assaults on Southern
territory, and the strong belief by many Southerners that Heglig is south of
the "1 January 1956 boundary," either the geographic status of Heglig
is negotiated, or there will be no peace.
The same international actors who have
explicitly or implicitly declared that Heglig lies in (northern) Sudan also
profess to support the CPA and its implementation. But how does this
square with the acquiescence before Khartoum's seizure of Abyei, in violation
of not only the Abyei Protocol of the CPA but the ruling by the PCA? Nothing
has changed in the eleven months since Abyei was seized, except for the
deployment of an Ethiopian brigade that operates without a human rights
mandate, no Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Khartoum. Most
significantly, it cannot provide the security necessary for the return of more
than 100,000 Dinka Ngok displaced to the South during the seizure of Abyei,
especially given Khartoum's refusal to withdraw its SAF or militia forces, as it agreed to do on June 20, 2011.
And more to the immediate point, how do these
international actors square their commitment to CPA implementation even as
negotiation of the "1 January 1956 boundary" is a central feature of
the Agreement. The North/South boundary was to have been delineated and demarcated within six months of
the signing of the CPA. And yet as the International Crisis Group reported
in September 2010, these efforts "had been
tied up for far too long in the Technical Border Committee," where Khartoum
was engaged in delaying tactics. It was clear to ICG, and should
have been clear to the international community, that this was not a matter that
could be resolved without political commitment from Juba and Khartoum to
address outstanding border issues. Juba was willing; Khartoum was
not.
Thus the repeated declaration in the CPA that
"the January 1, 1956 line between north and south will be inviolate"
became meaningless. Without both delineation and demarcation, this
was a motto not a principle---and more conspicuously so following the military
seizure of Abyei, given the CPA declaration that, "The parties shall
refrain from any form of unilateral revocation or abrogation of the Peace
Agreement" (CPA, Machakos Protocol 2.4). There could be no more
conspicuous "abrogation" of the CPA than the May 20-21, 2011 seizure
of Abyei.
But this has not prevented a chorus of
condemnations of Juba's "invasion" of (northern) Sudan:
•"The AU
notes with alarm, the occupation of the Heglig by the forces of
(South Sudan) ...."
•The U.S State
Department "strongly condemns the military offensive, incursion
to Southern Kordofan state, Sudan, by the SPLA today [April 12,
2012]."
•"The move by
the South Sudanese armed forces to occupy Heglig in Sudan is
completely unacceptable," declared the UK's Minister for Africa,
Henry Bellingham.
•The European
Union, through EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton asserted that "the
move by the South Sudanese armed forces to occupy Heglig is completely
unacceptable."
None of these statements acknowledges what
becomes clearer by the day: Juba was responding to a second round of military
aggression, launched by the SAF from Heglig. This aggression is what
prompted the SPLA to act. But until wiser or more informed voices
are heard from these important quarters, Khartoum will only grow more
emboldened. And South Sudan, feeling increasingly abandoned, is
likely to accelerate military moves that it regards at once as defensive as
well as preserving of historical claims to the lands around Heglig.
Notably, President Salva Kiir has promised
that the SPLA is prepared to withdraw from Heglig if a UN force guarantees that
it will not again become a launching point for military assaults deeper in
Southern territory. At precisely the moment in which such a UN
commitment is most needed, ignorance and expediency seem most likely to prevent
that commitment. All-out war is increasingly inevitable.
********************
"Heglig? This Tent Does Not
Belong To The Camel!"
"It is definitely unfair of the international
community to expect Juba to just sit and watch Khartoum carry out daylight
robbery of her property without responding."
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