Government of Southern Sudan
Liaison Office - Brussels

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Abyei Arbitral Tribunal set to hear oral pleadings
Wed, April 15 2009
By MRC-GoSS Brussels [The Hague - Netherlands]
April 15 - The five members of the Abyei Arbitral Tribunal are scheduled to begin hearing the oral pleadings with regard to the demarcation of the Abyei Area from April 18 through April 23, at the Peace Palace, in the Dutch city of The Hague.

The dispute over the borders of oil-rich Abyei was referred to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on July 3, 2008 after the Sudanese President, Omer al-Bashir, and his National Congress Party-dominated government refused to accept the report of the Abyei Boundary Commission – a panel of international boundary specialists and one representative from each of the two parties – which had defined the Abyei area as stretching north of the River Kiir (Bahr el-Arab) and east to the state of Upper Nile.

Despite the fact both the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and President al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) had agreed that the Abyei Boundary Commission’s report would be binding, the Sudanese president and his NCP have publicly rejected the report, arguing that the commission had exceeded their mandate by including the region’s oil areas within Abyei’s borders.

Abyei, the traditional territory of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms, was transferred to Kordofan in 1905. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), between the SPLM and the NCP, grants the people of Abyei the right to vote in a self-determination referendum in 2011 to decide between joining South Sudan and being part of North Sudan. The Misseriya view Abyei as their grazing area and fear that if Abyei became part of an independent South Sudan, they would lose their rights to graze in the area.

Observers believe that the National Congress Party’s interest in Abyei is due to the area’s oil reserves, and that hard-line members of the party have sought to use the Misseriya as a proxy militia to destabilize the region and destroy the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Relations between the Ngok Dinka of Abyei and the nomadic Misseriya have been troublesome, and characterized by violence. The most recent bloodshed led to the complete destruction of the town of Abyei and the displacement of more than sixty thousand Dinka from their homes.

The oral pleadings before the five-member Abyei Arbitral Tribunal are open to the public and news agencies.

 

 

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