This article aims to give an overview of the conflict in the Abyei district by using the conflict wheel. Firstly, a brief history of the conflict will be presented. Then, the conflict wheel will be used to analyze conflict actors, issues, dynamics, context/structures, causation, and options/strategies. The conflict map will be utilized while analyzing the actor aspect of the conflict wheel to visualize the relations, relative power, and the category of the actors of the conflict.
1. Conflict History
Abyei is a contested area on the border between Sudan and South Sudan. The area is inhabited by the sedentary Ngok Dinka tribe and pastoralist nomad Misseriya tribe, who migrate through the area seasonally to let their cattle graze(PILPG Global, 2008). Several sources indicate that the existence of the tension between two tribes dates back to the nineteenth century when the Turco-Egyptian and later Mahdist state ruled the region. In this period, the tribe of Misseriya -Baggara- and several other tribes were in a commercial alliance with ivory and slave trading companies from the Nile Valley (Johnson, 2008). Ngok Dinkas were often subjected to looting and abduction of Baggara, searching for slave and cattle in this period. The Dinkas secured their tribe though finding strategic alliances.
Another period that transformed the relationship between the two tribes and the history of Sudan was the British colonial period. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Anglo-Egyptian administration decided to transfer nine Dinka chiefdoms from the administration of Bahr Al Ghazal province to Kordofan (Baetens & Yotova, 2011) to unite two conflicting tribes under one administerial unit. By this change, colonial governors aimed to regulate and intervene in the disputes.
In 1956 Sudan gained its independence. However, existing unrest under British colonial rule transformed into a civil war approximately around the same time. The First Sudanese Civil War spread into Abyei in 1965 and intensified the inter-group conflict between Dinkas and Misseriyas, added several different dimensions and new actors to the conflict. With the effect of war, Ngok Dinka-Misseriya dispute over grazing areas evolved into mass murders and armed conflict that each party rapidly polarized and allied with different major parties of the war. During this period, there was notable Ngok Dinka support to Anya Nya Militias that rebelled against North Sudan and Misseriya support to the Murahalin militias who fight for the Khartoum administration (Johnson, 2008).
In 1972 South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) and the Republic of Sudan signed the Addis Ababa Agreement and ceased the war. Through this agreement, Southern Sudan Autonomous Region, which would have its separate legislative and executive body, was established (Spittaels & Weyns, 2014). The soldiers of Anya Nya were united with the Sudanese army and police force. Furthermore, a referendum would determine whether or not to unite with the newly emerged region promised to Abyei residents. The agreement granted a special administrative status to Abyei under the office of the President until the time of the referendum.
In 1983 president Nimeiry declared the Islamic State of Sudan and the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region (Spittaels & Weyns, 2014). The annulment of the agreement, together with the discovery of oil reserves in the country in 1978, triggered the Second Sudanese Civil war(“Sudan profile – Timeline – BBC News,” n.d.). The early signs of the civil war were evident in Abyei in the late 1970s. Around the same time, the oil resources in northern Abyei discovered. Once again, Murahalin militias emerged as a force to prevent the partition of Abyei from the North and supported by some faction of Misseriya. Militias received arms from Libya, Chad and Uganda and the support of the Khartoum police force. A fraction of Ngok Dinka formed Anya Nya II and later joined Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), established in 1983. The clash between the two parties and Murahalin attacks on civilians resulted in the displacement of many Ngok Dinkas from Abyei.
The Second Sudanese Civil War was one of the longest civil wars in world history. Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in January 2005 by SLM/A and the Government of Sudan. Parties agreed to hold a referendum on the independence of South Sudan in 2011. Parties also accepted the distribution of annual oil revenues between North, South and Abyei. Similar to the Addis Ababa Agreement, Abyei was promised a referendum that would be conducted separately from the one in South Sudan to determine the region’s border.
In Abyei, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement triggered discussions on who is eligible to vote in the referendum, the historical borders of Abyei, and the Misseriya people’s land rights. CAP formed the Abyei Borders Commission to investigate these questions. In 2009, the borders of Abyei redefined by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Heglig city that contains the oil production sites, decided to be given to Sudan. Both parties agreed on the implementation of the court decision, yet the government of Sudan seized Abyei and indirectly prevented the intended referendum in the district. After the intensification of the conflict, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued a resolution on the deployment of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNIFSA) in Abyei. In 2011, the Republic of South Sudan gained independence through the popular vote, but people in Abyei could not vote in this referendum. Thus, people in Abyei held a unilateral referendum which boycotted by the Misseriyas to join the South in 2013.
What makes the Abyei conflict crucial is the possibility of a spillover effect of the conflict into already complicated Sudan-South Sudan relations. Thus, the region often defined as the “Sudan’s Kashmir” to underline its importance and complexity (“Sudan profile – Timeline – BBC News,” n.d.).
2. Conflict Wheel:
Actors:
Actors of a conflict can be divided into three main groups depending on their degree of involvement and interests. These are conflict parties, third parties and stakeholders.
Conflict parties are the parties who are directly involved in the conflict. In the case of Abyei, conflict parties are Ngok Dinka tribe, Misseriya Tribe, Anya Nya militias, Murahalin militias, SSLM, SPLM/A, Government of South Sudan and Government of Sudan. Conflict parties in Abyei reflect the levels of the conflict, which are inter-group between Ngok Dinka and Misseriya, intra-state between SSLM/SPLA and Government of Sudan. Thus, Parties can be grouped according to their allies and adversaries as it is modelled down below. The relation between the parties also has a direct effect on the transformation of the conflict. For instance, the early engagement of Ngok Dinka to Any Nya I and II resulted in having high ranking Dinka members in SSLM and SPLA. Therefore, SPLA could not yield on the Abyei negotiation and increased its commitment to unite the region with South.
Third Parties are the parties involved in the transformation of the conflict. UN, All Africa Conference of Churches( AACC), World Council of Churches (WCC), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), US, UK cab be identified as third parties. United Nations is the supra-national party that takes the initiative to de-escalate and transform the conflict. UNISFA has been active in the field since 2011. ACC, WCC and IGAD are parties that mediated the two peace agreements after the civil wars. Moreover, the US and UK are the states who drafted the formation of UNIFSA and pressured the states to sign peace agreements.
Stakeholders are not directly involved in the conflict but have an interest in it or its outcome. Libya, Chad Uganda can be identified as stakeholders due to their arms and ammunition aid to Murahalin.
Issues:
Issues are the topics of the conflict. They are indeed related to the perception of the parties. Thus, the issues presented hither are the assumed perceptions of the parties on the conflict issues. Ngok Dinka tribe perceives the Misseriya tribe as a threat to their property rights. Whereas Misseriya perceives Ngok Dinka as a threat to its security and means of livelihood since the partition of Abyei will prevent Misseriya from grazing their cattle in Abyei. In addition to tribes, both states perceive issued quite differently. For the government of Sudan, Abyei is a base of oil reserves and natural resources due to its particular ecology. On the other hand, holding the promised referendum is the topic for South Sudan. Furthermore, both governments are concerned about their reputation on the international stage; losing or gaining territory is an issue for both sides with different motives.
Dynamics:
Dynamics refer to the escalation level of the conflict, the intensity of the interaction, the temperament and the energy of a conflict that transforms people (Mason & Rychard, 2005). The conflict between two tribes can be defined as its latent stage in the eighteenth century when two tribes arrived at different parts of Abyei and formed their first contact. In this stage, the ethnic and religious differences and their claim on the same territory constructed mutual grievances. Nineteenth-century loots and enslavement together with the conflicts under the colonial period can be identified as the conflict emergence and escalation stages where two parties strengthen their perceived incompatibilities through systemic factors- such as marginalization of one and favouring the other. Conflict in Abyei saw its peak/stalemate twice, in the first and second Sudanese war where two parties committed their resources to fight against each other. In the de-escalation and negotiation stages, two peace agreements signed by the parties; however dispute settlement and peace-building efforts did not find the support they needed. Context and Structure
Context and Structure :
Context and structural factors are generally outside the conflict system. Thus, they must be addressed to transform the relations between conflicting parties into peaceful interactions. Structural factors can be identified in two levels; at the international level, global north and south relations legitimized the colonial rule in Sudan and affected the late deployment of the peacekeeping forces. At the national level, power distribution among the ethnic groups, division of administrative regions and land policies had the most evident effect on the conflict. During the Turco-Egyptian period and the Anglo-Egyptian period, North and South Sudan were divided into two different administrative regions due to their specific climate, nature, and existence of different ethnic and tribal groups. In this division, the North has generally been the favoured part, thus the administrative power, economic power centralized in the certain northern centres. In 1956, British colonial forces did not include the representatives of the South in the transitional negotiation process. This exclusion caused the continuation of the existing power imbalances even after the independence period. As it was mentioned above, British policy to unite conflicting tribes under one administrative unit also had further intensified the conflict and decades later caused the formation of the Abyei Border Commission to determine the historical homelands of the tribes. Lastly, land policies increased the concerns of Misseriya about their future. For instance, the breadbasket policy restricted Misseriya’s grazing lands and increased the number of people who migrate from North to Abyei. Lack of emergency policies also led to mass migrations, hunger, oppression of certain minorities. Additional structural factors are suppression of minority rights and uneven distribution of the revenues of the state.
Causation :
Conflicts are multi-casual, and the systemic factors interact. Thus, this section of the wheel aims to differentiate the various causes of the conflict and the influence factors. As stated before, conflicts are deeply related to perceptions; thus, the “causes” of a conflict depend also on the parties’ perceptions.
For the Misseriya tribe, causes can be listed as tribal tensions on the land, differences of lifestyle, promises of the Addis Ababa Agreement and its possible adverse effects on the migration routes, marginalization of Misseriyas from local administration after the 1972 agreement.
For Dinkas, causes can be identified as historical trauma of the past relations with Misseriya, systemic marginalization from the power centres, Misseriya claim over the north Bahr Al Arab, political alienation, and frustration of Ngok Dinkas over failure to implement the referendum, government strategy to use Arab militias to displace Dinkas.
In addition to the systemic factors, a decline in the rate of rainfall, re-adjustment of the regional borders during the Anglo-Egyptian Rule, breadbasket policy, an outbreak of two civil wars can be defined as an influencing factor.
Options and Strategies:
Options and strategies indicate ways to deal with the conflict, strategies, and methods used in the Abyei. This section mainly focuses on the Third-party strategies utilized in the conflict. During the First Sudanese Civil War, the All Africa Conference of Churches ( AACC) and World Council of Churches (WCC) initiated unilateral meetings with the parties and negotiations to resolve the issue. Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda sent humanitarian aid to relieve existing grievances and address the issues through diplomacy, which paved the way to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. In addition, Ethiopia showed its commitment to the peace process by sending its soldiers to the peacekeeping mission. Today UN forces in Abyei formed solely by the Ethiopian units.
Ceren Kaval
Bibliography:
Baetens, F., & Yotova, R. (2011). The Abyei Arbitration : A Model Procedure for Intra-State Dispute Settlement in Resource-Rich Conflict Areas ? Table of Contents. Gottingen Journal of International Law, 3(October 2010), 417–446. https://doi.org/10.3249/1868-1581-3-1-baetens-yotova
Johnson, D. H. (2008). Why abyei matters: The breaking point of sudan’s comprehensive peace agreement? African Affairs, 107(426), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adm070
Mason, S., & Rychard, S. (2005). Conflict Analysis Tools.
PILPG Global. (2008). Memorial of The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army for Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Spittaels, S., & Weyns, Y. (2014). Mapping Conflict Motives : the Sudan – South Sudan border. Retrieved from http://www.ipisresearch.be/publications_detail.php?id=440&lang=en
Sudan profile – Timeline – BBC News. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2019, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095300
