-
7/29/2019 John Garang and Abyei Referendum
1/3
John Garang and Abyei Referendum
By:
Luka Biong Deng
Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School
[email protected]
Published by the New Nation NewspaperBuffalo, USA, September
2013
As the deadline promised by the African Union for the conduct of
Abyei Referendum in October
2013 is fast approaching, it is useful to reflect on the genesis
of Abyei Referendum. The Machakos
Protocol that was signed by the SPLM and government of Sudan on
20 th June 2002 laid a
framework for the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement including
the right of self-
determination to the people of the South. However, this protocol
was a setback to the people of
Abyei as the boundaries of the South were narrowly defined as
they stood on 1/1/1956 and
subsequently excluded Abyei area.
Unlike Machakos Protocol, the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement defined
the boundaries of the
South as they stood on 1/1/1956 and any other areas that were
culturally and geographically a
part of Southern Complex as may be decided by a referendum. This
expanded definition of the
South in the Addis Agreement was a recognition of the role
played by people of Abyei in Anyanya
I in the first civil war. As the people of Abyei participated
even more in the SPLM in the second
civil war, the signing of Machakos Protocol that excluded Abyei
was to their big disappointment
and they felt that their cause was compromised and
abandoned.
However, this fatal mistake in Machakos Protocol was corrected
when Dr John prevailed on the
government of Sudan to accept to resolve as well the conflicts
of Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and
Abyei area. As a result a parallel negotiation process for the
three areas under the auspicious ofKenya was agreed by the parties.
When agreements on Security Arrangements and wealth sharing
were signed, Dr John made it clear that the signing of the
agreement on power sharing is
conditional on reaching agreement on conflicts of Nuba
Mountains, Blue Nile and Abyei area. In
fact Dr John insisted that the issue of Abyei is clear and it
should be administratively transferred
back to the South since it was transferred from the territory of
the South to the North in 1905 by
the British colonial administration to protect the Ngok Dinka
from the Misseriyia slave raids.
When the two parties almost reached a dead-end on Abyei, Dr John
came under a lot of pressure
not only from international community but also from within the
leadership of the SPLM to
conclude peace agreement without Abyei. In the light of this
mounting pressure on him, Dr John
called for a meeting of the leadership of SPLM in Naivasha in
Kenya to build consensus over the
negotiation with the government of Sudan. In that meeting some
members of the SPLM
leadership out of desperation argued for the agreement to be
signed without Abyei that would be
resolved later on. Dr John and most members of the SPLM
leadership were clear and adamant and
insisted on no agreement without Abyei.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]
-
7/29/2019 John Garang and Abyei Referendum
2/3
With this stalemate on Abyei, the US Special Envoy Senator John
Danforth presented to the
parties on 19thMarch 2004 a proposal titled Principles of
Agreement on Abyei. These principles
included the simultaneous conduct of Abyei Referendum with that
of South Sudan. The parties
adopted these principles and they became the basis for resolving
Abyei conflict. With this
breakthrough on Abyei, agreement on power sharing, agreement on
Abyei and agreement of two
areas were signed on the same day of 26th
May 2004. This account paints very well the patrioticleadership
of Dr John and his commitment to the values of liberation struggle
and comradeship.
After the conclusion of all protocols of the CPA, Dr John with
the leadership of the SPLM
decided to visit many liberated areas in order to explain these
agreements to the people. I was
fortunate be among the people who accompanied him during these
visits. Dr John was very
particular to visit Abyei and indeed he arrived to Agok on 16th
June 2004 and he was exceptionally
well received by the people of Abyei. Dr John decided to talk to
the people of Abyei in Dinka so
that he could pass well his message. His speech was fabulous and
touching. His speech reminded
me of the Great Speech of Martin Luther King as he provided a
hopeful vision to the people of
Abyei who suffered a great.
Dr John started his speech by recognized the struggle of the
people of Abyei. He said : I will start
my speech with the word 'Congratulation!' it is congratulation
to you; because your homeland has
been liberated, it is now in your hands and it is no longer in
somebody else's hands. I congratulate
you for the achievement you have made; for the struggle you have
made. You struggled for fifty
years (50 years) and some will say for one hundred years (100
years).. I congratulate you for the
struggle you have made and it is that struggle you have made
that brought these rights.
In a unique way Dr John recognized that the people of Abyei
started their struggle even earlier
than that ofthe South. He said: Your struggle started in 1954,
before the Torit mutiny in 1955. It
is the struggle of Abyei that started first. The children of the
school went to Rij el Fulla in 1954.
They went to petition in Rij el Fulla because they saw what was
coming, that their homeland was
going to be occupied by strangers. Those students were arrested
and that was the beginning of the
struggle of the Abyei people. So from 1954 to 2004, it is
exactly fifty years (50 years). You have
gotten your rights after 50 years; I congratulate you.
Dr John recognized the significant contribution made by people
of Abyei in the first civil war. He
said: If there is somebody who claims that I am the one who
liberated Abyei that is not true. It is
you people who were struggling who liberated Abyei. Mine was
only negotiation; but there
were/are people who fought for Abyei since 1954. Also, from 1965
many of your people lost their
lives during the Anyanya I, and you led the forces of Anyanya I
in Bahr el Ghazal and people like
Akonon Mithiang lost their lives because of your homeland.
Dr John also recognized the outstanding role played by people of
Abyei in the second civil war. He
said: You also led the Anyanya II, and people like Miokol Deng
whom I met in Bil-Fam also lost
their lives because of your homeland. So it is your struggle
that liberated Abyei, you have struggled
-
7/29/2019 John Garang and Abyei Referendum
3/3
for the last fifty years. You have fought for 50 years and that
your right has been given to you in
the negotiation in a place called Naivasha.
On referendum Dr John said the following: The remaining war of
'referendum' is an easy war.
What is needed now is your unity and that you must work
collectively. Because you have won the
war for Abyei and I say there is nothing that will abrogate the
protocol. For people to participate
in the referendum and development of Abyei, Dr John sent a
powerful message to the people of
Abyei to return home. He said: Everybody must come back; people
must come back to Abyei
land. The nine sections of the Ngok Dinka that are contained in
the protocol must come back.
Ngok Dinka must return to their home areas, wherever they are in
the Diaspora. This is almost
the same message that President Salva is echoing these days for
people of Abyei to return home
before the conduct of Abyei referendum in October 2013.
In some of my rare encounters with him, Dr John had a plan and a
vision for Abyei. He wanted to
transform Abyei and to become an exemplary people-centred
development nucleus and economic
bridging hub between Sudan and South Sudan. Interestingly, the
former Prime Minister of
Ethiopia, Meles, shared the same vision of Dr John for the
development of Abyei. The same was
echoed by Sudan Mirror Editor who held meetings with Dr John
after the conclusion of the CPA
and assured him that Abyei was on the top of his agendas and his
first priorities and that while he
was alive he would never let down the Ngok Dinka people of Abyei
or the Abyei cause. In his
address to the people of Abyei he said: It is said that Abyei is
floating on oil. Let us use this oil
money to develop Abyei, this is when people will return. In fact
the vision of Dr John about
Abyei is well captured in the AU Proposal on the final status of
Abyei.
As the issue of Abyei now rests with the African Union Peace and
Security Council, one hopesthat the Council will have the African
wisdom to endorse the AU Proposal on Abyei and to
immediately form the Abyei referendum commission. By doing so
the Council will not only
contain the mounting tension in the area but they will restore
peace and lay a basis for
transforming Abyei within the vision of Dr John as expounded
very well in the AU Proposal on
Abyei; a truly African solution.
