RESEARCH ON BORDER DIPLOMACY IN SOUTH SUDAN

Abyei Case Study:

In eighteenth century Abyei was inhabited by the Agro-pastoralist Ngok Dinkar, a sub-group of the Dinka of south Sudan. The missiavia, a nomadic Arab people who spend most of the year around their base at the Mughad in Northern South Kordufan, would graze their cattle south to the Kiir River basin in Abyei during the dry season. At the establishement of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium, Messiria were predominantly located in the province of Kordufan Northern Sudan geographically. In 1905, while after the Ngok Dinka were allocated in Bhar ez Gazel South Sudan.

Continued raids by the Messivia into Ngok Dinka territory, the British distributed the Nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms into Kordufan. The reason was three-fold;

▪ To protect the Ngok Dinka from raids by the Messiria and thus pacify the area.

▪ To demonstrate that a new sovereign power was in control and,

▪ To bring the two enemy tribes under common administration.

The peoples began to take separate path with onset of the first Sudanese civil war 1956-1972. In particular 1956 massacre of 72 Ngok Dinka in the Messiria town of Babanusa. The Ngok Dinka was thus drawn to the Anya nya. While Messiria were favored by the Khartoum based government and became firmly associated with the North. The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement that ended civil war in Sudan included a clause that provided for a referendum allowing Abyei to choose to remain in the North or join the autonomous South. The referendum was never held and continued attack against Ngok Dinka led to the creation of Ngok Dinka unit in the small Anya Nya II Rebellion which begun I upper Nile in 1975. The discovery of oil in the area, among other North-South border region, led President Gaafar Nimeiny to try the first of many initiatives to redistrict oil rich areas into northern a demonstration for instance Bentiu in Western upper Nile and Renk,Malath in Northern upper Nile.

The Ngok Dinka unit of Anya Nya II join to form one foundation of the rebel movement at the beginning of the second civil war in 1983. Some of the Ngok Dinka joined rebel upon the outbreak of hostilities. Partially as a result of their early entry into the war, some Ngok Dinka rose to leadership positions in Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) becoming closely associated with the Late John Garang, the founder of the movement. In contrast, the Messiria joined the hostilities on the side of the government in the mid 1980s. They formed frontline units as well as Murahleen, mounted raiders that attacked Southern villages to loot valuable slaves. By the end of the war the intense fighting had displaced most Ngok Dinka out of Abyei, which the Messiria state as justification for ownership of the area.

OIL RESERVES AND PRODUCTION

Abyei is situated within the Mughad basin, a large rift basin which contains a number of hydro-carbon accumulations. Oil exploration was undertaken in Sudan in the 1970s and 1980s. A period of significant investment in Sudan oil industry occurred in Abyei in the 1890s and Abyei a target for this investments. By 2003, Abyei contributed more than one quarter of Sudans total crude oil output. Production volumes have since declined and reports suggest that Abyei reserve nh