Sudan refuses border demarcation as risk of confrontation grows

The Sudanese government has turned down an African Union proposal for a new round of negotiations with South Sudan, as military tensions along their disputed border rise sharply.

On 15th November, a South Sudanese minister complained that Khartoum has suspended the talks, which were being held under the auspices of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), chaired by former South African leader Thabo Mbeki. AUHIP talks have been struggling on for two years, but have failed to make progress on key issues such as border demarcation and oil sharing.

The suspension of talks comes at a critical time in relations between Sudan and South Sudan, which formally seceded in July. Rebels linked to Juba's ruling Sudan Liberation People's Movement, operating in border states within Sudanese territory, have intensified their battle against the Sudanese military.

According to local NGOs, Khartoum has responded with a major bombing campaign against border regions. There have been persistent accusations that it has launched airstrikes against refugee camps, including one across the border with South Sudan. Oxfam has pulled out its staff in response to the violence. The Sudanese military has also allegedly boosted its military presence near the boundary, with refurbished airfields and greater deployments of armoured forces.

The military build-up has provoked fears of a new war. South Sudanese president Salva Kiir has warned that Khartoum is seeking to invade South Sudan and steal its oilfields. Sudan's leader Omar al-Bashir, for his part, has said that he is ready for conflict if Juba provokes it.

Although a full-blown military conflict remains unlikely, the harsh rhetoric makes it more difficult for the two sides to demarcate the border, agree on oil-sharing, and prevent cross-border cattle raids which have killed hundreds. The AUHIP does not seem to have the political clout needed to calm tensions and push both sides into a compromise.

Sources: Sudan Tribune, AFP

North and South Sudan agree to demilitarised border zone

North and South Sudan have agreed to set up a jointly patrolled demilitarised zone along their border, however both sides are already expressing scepticism on whether it will hold.

The African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) for Sudan, which mediated the deal, released a statement on Tuesday 31st May saying that an agreement was reached during talks on Monday in Addis Ababa to form a common zone along the 1,300 mile border.

The zone will follow internal borders from 1956, the year Sudan became independent from Britain, and will encompass six miles on either side of the border line.

Khartoum's ruling National Congress Party (NCP) Media Secretary Ibrahim Ghandour downplayed the significance of the agreement, arguing that what was signed was simply one plan that could form the basis of a framework agreement.

He stressed that proposals are still being discussed.

The Southern-ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) also expressed doubt that such an agreement could be upheld.

SPLA spokesman Colonel Philip Aguer was quoted in the New York Times as saying “The question is, whether the Khartoum army and intelligence implement it? We doubt it very much.”


Disagreement over the border has proved to be one of the most problematic issues as South Sudan readies itself for independence in July.

Southerners voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north in a January referendum outlined by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which, in 2005, brought decades of civil war in Sudan to an end.

The CPA also arranged for a referendum to be held in the disputed border region of Abyei on whether its residents wanted to join the north or the south, but the vote was postponed indefinitely after disagreements over voter eligibility.

Both sides claim fertile and oil-rich Abyei, and it has been the site of numerous clashes in recent months.

On 21st May, northern forces took over Abyei, causing some 80,000 people to flee, mostly to the south.


The international community has called on Khartoum to withdraw from Abyei, however northern president Omar Al-Bashir has said he will not pull out.

On Thursday 26th May, the north bombed and destroyed the bridge across the Bahr el Arab, called the River Kiir by southerners, which forms part of the 1956 border in the Abyei area.

Northern troops have also been deployed in two other areas along the border, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, and Khartoum has demanded that all southern-allied soldiers in the areas disarm by Wednesday.

What will happen if they do not, is not yet clear.

Sources: BBC News, Guardian, New York Times, Sudan Tribune

For more information, please see the Menas Borders website, here.

North and South Sudan agree to cooperate on debt relief and border issues

SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum

South Sudan will help the north get relief on its $38 billion in debt, as long as the north 'cooperates' on border and other issues in the countdown to the south's independence in July, a southern official said.

At the end of a week-long meeting with northern leaders, SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum, said "We are ready to join the north in joint efforts for debt relief,” according to Reuters.

"But our participation is conditional to the cooperation of the north in all the other areas including Abyei, as well as also assuming the redemption of the Sudanese currency as we change the currency."

Representatives from both sides met in the Ethiopian resort town of Debre Zeit, for meetings mediated by the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan (AUHIP), led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki.

While little concrete was accomplished, both sides agreed to send a joint team to the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to campaign for debt relief.

The question of what will happen to Sudan's debt when it becomes two countries has been one of the most pressing issues in the run-up to the south's independence. The SPLM has said previously that they will not share the country's foreign debt, saying that it was money borrowed to finance the northern army's fight against the south in the civil war.

Reuters reports that a note by the IMF said much of Sudan's debt dates back to the 1960s, when it borrowed on poor terms to finance large industrial projects. Nearly 90 per cent of Sudan's debt is owed to bilateral and commercial creditors, with their own requirements, and would take at least three years to clear, according to a paper by the Center for Global Development.

At the week-long meetings, the two sides also discussed the future of the oil sector and the two state-owned oil companies, Sudapet and Nilepet. Under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which brought the two-decade long civil war to an end, the north and the south share the revenues from southern oil 50-50.

Most of Sudan's oil reserves are in the South, but the pipelines and refineries are in the north. Regardless of what new deal is negotiated, the north is almost certain to get fewer revenues from the south after its independence.

The two sides discussed a range of other issues, including border demarcation, ownership over the border region of Abyei, currency issues, and Nile water ownership.

Talks will resume in Sudan before the two sides return to Ethiopia on 5th April, for another round of negotiations, according to the AUHIP.

Meanwhile, violence has continued to take place in Abyei, according to the Satellite Sentinel Project, a group backed by George Clooney and Google. The group uses satellite images to track violence along the border area in the wake of January's independence referendum. New images show that some 300 buildings were burned in a village near Abyei on Saturday 5th March.

Abyei has seen a wave of attacks in recent days that have killed more than 100 people and displaces tens of thousands.

"Village burning has caused tens of thousands to be displaced, unknown numbers of civilian casualties, and the deliberate destruction of at least three communities," said Clooney.

The latest images show an attack on Saturday, 5th March, on the village of Tajalei. Charles Abyei, speaker of the parliament in the Abyei area said that it was the third village attacked. After the first two villages were attacked, rumours spread that Tajalei would be next, so civilians fled.

"The place was empty and these elements of the Popular Defence Forces came and found nobody except one man who was mentally sick," said Abyei. "They killed him and they burned down the whole village."

The Popular Defence Forces that Abyei blames are a milita that was used as a proxy force by the northern Sudanese military throughout the civil war.

A round of talks over Abyei is due to begin on Monday 7th March, but officials from Abyei are not optimistic. "We are not expecting anything to come out of the talks," the Canadian Press quoted Charles Abyei as saying.

"If Khartoum was serious they would not have supplied the whole areas of northern Abyei with arms. They have the intention of occupying the whole area of Abyei to try to control it."

Sources: Sudan Tribune, The Canadian Press, Reuters Africa, Satellite Sentinel Project

For more information, see the Menas Borders website, here.