Afghanistan, Pakistan in unreported border war

According to UN Dispatch, there is an “undeclared and intensifying border war” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the past month, shells coming from the Pakistani side of the border have forced thousands of people from their homes in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar and Nangarhar provinces.

While it has long been known that events on the Pakistani side of the border influence what happens in Afghanistan, reports of Pakistani soldiers crossing the border in raids against Afghan militants have increased in recent months, and public anger towards Pakistan is rising in Afghanistan.

While Pakistan has denied the shelling of Afghan territory, saying its troops may have fired a few accidental rounds while pursuing Afghan militants, its role in Afghanistan is murky.

Pakistan was a key ally of the Taliban until joining the US-led “war on terror” in 2001 and many have accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) of continuing to train the Taliban and tacitly or actively supporting Afghan insurgents.

While Pakistani officials point out that it has 140,000 troops in the northwest fighting a Pakistani Taliban insurgency, it is undeniable that rebel safe havens remain, primarily in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

“When Pakistan says it will crack down on them [Taliban fighters], it is just pretending. The Pakistan government protects them,” says Wali Shah, an Afghan district governor.

“Pakistan doesn't want the violence here to stop. It doesn't want Afghanistan to develop,” he told AFP.

Pakistan has recently launched a military offensive against insurgents in the Kurram tribal region, according to the BBC. The area is near the Afghan border, and is thought to hold a large number of militants who have fled another military operation in Orakzai.

NATO forces, who have primarily concentrated in Helmand and Kandahar provinces in southern Afghanistan, are aware that the focus will have to change.

The outgoing commander of US and NATO forces, General David Petraeus said on Monday, 4th July, that by autumn, more special forces, intelligence, surveillance and air power will be concentrated in areas along Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan in the east of the country.

The attacks do not just go one way, however, and Pakistan's government rebuked the Afghan government for allowing Afghan militant groups to “terrorize Pakistani villages and attack Pakistani soldiers”, according to UN Dispatch.

In early June, for example, hundreds of militants from Kunar crossed the border and attacked a village in Pakistan. The incursion triggered a two day battle that left 66 people dead.

For Afghan civilians living in border regions, the situation seems to be deteriorating. Afghan scholar Orzala Ashraf Nemat wrote in a recent essay for the Guardian of his fears for the region.

“The greatest concern for people in this region is the increase in rocket attacks from the Pakistani border side, which continues to take the lives of ordinary villagers over the past months. We are worried about a direct invasion by Pakistani forces, even as the world is watching.”

Throughout June, death tolls rose in Afghanistan as Pakistani strikes continued. On 28th June, the eastern regional commander of the Afghan Border Police, Aminullah Amarkhel, said artillery shells launched from Pakistan into Kunar the day before had killed 20 civilians.

While this figure has not been verified, if true, it would make the attack the single deadliest incident in the low-level border conflict to date.

The government in Kabul is also starting to pay attention to what is happening along its border.

In late June, Afghan president Hamid Karzai warned Pakistan to cease strikes against Afghan territory and parliamentarians demanded that their government authorise military action against Pakistan if the shelling continues.

The border situation presents the possibility of full-on war breaking out between Afghanistan and Pakistan. With both sides resisting admitting and solving the problem of cross-border militancy, what UN Dispatch calls an 'undeclared border war' could continue to escalate indefinitely.

Sources: BBC News, Express Tribune, Sydney Morning Herald, UN Dispatch

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

South Korea to submit claim to East China Sea

South Korea has decided to submit a claim to an extended portion of the continental shelf in the East China Sea, the government said on 3rd July, risking rekindling a dispute with China and Japan, who also claim the territory.

South Korean news sources reported on Sunday that Korea will submit a claim to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), arguing that its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) stretches beyond the currently claimed 200 nautical miles.

According to the UN Law of the Sea, countries wishing to delimit their continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles have to submit information on the claim to the CLCS.

Korea will claim that its continental shelf stretches to the Okinawa Trough in the East China Sea, however China has also claimed that the Okinawa Trough is part of its natural continental shelf extension.

Korea made a preliminary submission to the UN CLCS in May 2009, claiming 19,000 square meters outside of its 200 nautical mile sea. According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, the claimed territory is located in the Korea-Japan Joint Development Zone, south of Jeju island.

An unnamed government official was quoted by Yonhap as saying South Korea expected China to follow with an official claim of its own.

"Final settlement of continental shelf territory determination will be made through mutual demarcation between the two countries," the government official said.

"The government is participating in the negotiation under the goal of securing as large an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf as possible," he said.

China also claims Ieo-Do, an island which lies in the overlapping part of the two countries' EEZs, and on which Korea has an observation station.

Parts of the East China Sea are claimed by China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea, and the region is thought to contain huge natural gas and oil deposits.

South Korea is scheduled to hold separate working-level meetings with China and Japan to discuss issues on the sea border demarcation later this year.

Sources: China Post, Reuters, Yonhap

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

Bashir says Halayeb dispute to be resolved through dialogue

Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir affirmed his government's willingness to resolve the border dispute with Egypt through dialogue on 30th June.

Speaking on his way home from China, al-Bashir said that former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak had taken over the disputed Halayeb region while Sudan was embroiled in civil war.

Al-Bashir said Khartoum was waiting to discuss the issue with a new government in Cairo.

On 20th June, al-Bashir was quoted on Sudanese radio as saying that relations between Sudan and Egypt would improve as a result of the revolution in Egypt that overthrew Mubarak.

In May, Egyptian diplomat Nabil ElAraby, who became foreign minister in March 2011, before stepping down in June to become Secretary-General of the Arab League, said Halayeb would be a "joint investment area" between Egypt and Sudan.

Also in May, Sudan's ambassador to Egypt, Abdel Rahman Ser al-Khetm said Egypt and Sudan would announce a solution to their dispute in June.

While this announcement has obviously not happened, Bashir's comments are positive.

The Halayeb triangle, a 21,000 square km stretch of land overlooking the Red Sea, has been disputed since the late nineteenth century.

In 1899, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement, which saw Britian and Egypt jointly manage Sudan, set the boundary between Egypt and Sudan at the 22nd parallel, placing the Halayeb triangle inside Egyptian borders.

In 1902, however, the British drew a separate “administrative boundary” that placed the triangle under Sudanese administration because its inhabitants were closer to Khartoum than Cairo.

 

The area remained under joint Egyptian-Sudanese control until 1992, when Sudan allowed a Canadian oil company to explore the waters offshore the Halayeb coast, provoking Cairo's ire.

 

The area has been under Cairo's control since the mid-1990s, and Sudan withdrew in 2000, whilst still maintaining its claim to the region.

Sudan has submitted a memorandum to the UN over Halayeb, but has resisted registering voters in the region for elections, despite claims that it was a constituency.

Last June, al-Bashir made a surprise assertion over Halayeb, saying “Halayeb is Sudanese and will stay Sudanese”. Egypt dismissed his comments, saying its southern borders “are well known at latitude 22°".

It appears that the two countries are planning some form of economic integration for Halayeb, although what this will entail is not yet clear.

Sources: AllAfrica, AlMasry Al Youm, Sudan Tribune

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

North Korea threatens 'retaliatory sacred war'

South Korean troops had used pictures of Kim Jong Il as target practice

North Korea has threatened to launch a "retaliatory sacred war" against South Korea after news emerged that southern soldiers had erected signs in military camps on the border slandering the North's “army, system and dignity”.

 

"This is little short of a clear declaration of war," a government spokesman said in the North's official Korean Central News Agency. "We will react to the enemy's provocation with a stern punishment and counter its war with a merciless retaliatory sacred war."

 

South Korea's Hankyoreh newspaper reported on Tuesday 28th June that some South Korean army units near the border had set up anti-North Korea slogans. One army unit in Cheolwon, a town near the demilitarized zone had a banner reading “Let's ram guns and swords into the chest of North Korean puppet soldiers!”

According to the newspaper, there were also signs saying “Let's hack the three Kims into pieces”, a reference to the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, his son and the current leader Kim Jong Il, and his grandson and heir-apparent Kim Jong Un.

The reference to the Kims is a particularly touchy subject at the moment, as North Korea threatened to attack last month after it emerged that South Korean troops were using photos of the family as targets during firing practice.

South Korea's Defence Ministry told military units to stop using the photos as targets in response to Pyongyang's reaction, but according to Time Magazine it has no immediate plans to stop troops from using anti-North Korean signs.

The Defence Ministry said some army units have taken such measures to bolster their soldiers' mental toughness against North Korea

Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula since March 2010, when a South Korean warship was torpedoed, killing 46 sailors. A Seoul- and Washington-led international investigation found North Korea responsible, however Pyongyang has always denied its involvement.

A second incident occurred last November, when in response to South Korea carrying out live fire drills in disputed waters, North Korea shelled the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong, killing four.

Despite the fact the two sides held talks on a stalled jointly-run tourism project at Mount Kumgang on Wednesday 29th June, Pyongyang has pledged to carry out unspecified military measures "mercilessly" until the South apologises for the signs.

While inflammatory rhetoric from both sides is nothing new, what makes the current situation alarming, according to the Guardian, is South Korea's hardline stance.

President Lee Myung-bak was criticised domestically for his supposedly weak response to the three previous incidents, and has threatened to respond harshly to any further attacks.

The South Korean military is preparing new rules of engagement which would allow its frontline troops to respond "robustly" to an attack without consulting Seoul, according to the Guardian.

There is also talk that instead of promising a "proportionate" response to North Korean aggression, it would chose an aggressive enough response to dissuade Pyongyang from further action.

South Korea has been upping its defensive capabilities in the border region, and have brought in Israeli-made Delilah missiles, which have a range of 150 miles: enough to hit Pyongyang.

Some analysts believe Pyongyang is upping the rhetoric because its offers to talks in the last few months have been ignored by the south.

"North Korea has been trying this peace offensive for the past seven months. Now is the time for the North Koreans to change their mode towards more a conflictual approach," a former South Korean official and government adviser predicted in the Guardian.

Some suspect Pyongyang will use a third nuclear test to get the other parties back to the negotiating table, but Seoul has said it will not return to talks until it recieves an apology for the previous incidents.

Sources: BBC News, the Guardian, Korea Herald, Time Magazine

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

 

Thailand withdraws from World Heritage Convention over border dispute

Cambodian troops at Preah Vihear are on high alert

Thailand announced on Saturday 25th June that it was withdrawing from the World Heritage Convention with immediate effect, after the World Heritage Committee (WHC) refused to postpone discussion of Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple management plan.

Thailand's Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti, who led the Thai delegation at the WHC meeting in Paris said Thailand would leave the Convention and withdraw from the 21-member WHC because it continues to ignore Thailand's concerns that Cambodia's plans could negatively affect Thailand's sovereignty and territory.

Thailand and Cambodia have long disputed the border in the territory of the eleventh century Hindu Preah Vihear temple, which was awarded to Cambodia by the International Court of Justice in a 1962 ruling.

The ruling did not, however, rule on the territory around the temple, and in particular, a 4.6 square kilometer area has become particularly disputed.

Cambodia and Thailand have had a number of border clashes in the region of the temple in the last year, and Suwit had asked the WHC to defer discussion of Cambodia's plan until border demarcation was completed.

Thailand opposed the terminology of Cambodia's proposal, which called for 'urgent repair and restoration', preferring instead 'protection and conservation'.

 

UNESCO's Director-General Irina Bokova has sent a letter expressing her regret over Thailand's decision to withdraw from the World Heritage Convention.

“The World Heritage Committee did not discuss the management plan of the Preah Vihear temple nor did it request for any reports to be submitted on its state of conservation. Moreover, it needs to be clarified that UNESCO's World Heritage Centre never pushed for a discussion of the Management Plan by the Committee,” Bokova said in the letter.

Acting government spokesman Panithan Wattanayakorn said that while Thailand has no objection to the work of UNESCO in preserving and protecting the world's cultural and natural properties, it should not impact on border disputes.

He also rejected Cambodia's claim that troop reinforcements had been sent to the border and said that Thailand was ready to cooperate with its neighbour.

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday 27th June that troops stationed on Cambodia's border with Thailand had been put on high alert.

“They [the Thai WHC delegates] were angry walking out from the summit and they whispered to one ambassador that they will go back to fight. Therefore, I ordered the military to immediately [start] monitoring the situation from midnight [on Sunday],” he claimed, adding that all troops along the border were on high alert.

Thai National Army chief Prayuth Chanocha had also put his border forces on alert. “Thai and Cambodian soldiers have been in contact on a regular basis since the last clashes along the border, but there's not a high degree of trust between them yet,” the Bangkok Post quoted Prayuth as saying.

Thailand is set to go to the polls on Saturday, 3rd July, and Cambodia's Hun said Thailand might launch an attack across the border to create an excuse to cancel the election.

 

Democrat Party leader Abhisit, who is campaigning for re-election said the border conflict with Cambodia was not a factor that could derail the election.

Sources: Bangkok Post, MCOT, Phnom Penh Post, Thailand Business News

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

Suwit's decision has not been universally welcomed in Thailand. He reported to the Cabinet his decision to walk out, and while caretaker prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva supported his decision, the foreign ministry did not, according to Thailand Business News.

Sudan parties reach agreement on Southern Kordofan

The Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in Sudan signed an agreement aiming for a full ceasefire in the northern border state of Southern Kordofan on Tuesday 28th June.

 

"In South Kordofan there was an agreement on general principles on cessation of hostilities the intention is to arrive to a ceasefire," SPLM minister for cooperation Deng Alor told AFP.

There has been heavy fighting in Southern Kordofan since 5th June between Sudanese government forces and northerners allied with the ruling party in the south, the SPLM.

The deal sets the framework for political and security arrangements in the two border states of Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan and is part of an ongoing mediation effort by the African Union (AU), led by former South African president, Thabo Mbeki.

The framework agreement stipulates that the National Congress Party (NCP), the ruling party in the north, will recognise the northern contingent of the SPLM as a “legal political party in Sudan.” NCP officials have previously said they will not allow the SPLM-North to exist after 9th July, when the South becomes a separate state, as it would mean the SPLM-North was an extension of a foreign party.

Under the agreement, fighters aligned with the SPLM in Southern Kordofan will “be integrated, over a time period and with modalities to be agreed, into the Sudan Armed Forces.”

There were two major catalysts for the current outbreak of violence in Southern Kordofan. The first was the election of NCP candidate Ahmed Haroun as governor of the state, in what the SPLM called a rigged election. Haroun is wanted be the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Darfur, which borders Southern Kordofan.

Haroun beat SPLM candidate Abdel-Aziz Al-Hilu, who is also the leader of the Nuba, a non-Arab ethnic group who lives in the region.

The second catalyst was the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) announcement in May that the SPLM-North should disarm by 1st June, or else the SAF would do it by force.

The agreement signed in Addis Ababa on Tuesday will result in the two forces being combined eventually, although the actual mechanisms by which this would occur have not yet been decided.

It did specify that the NCP and SPLM-North would form a joint political committee to ensure that "the issue of governance in Southern Kordofan shall be discussed and resolved amicably…within 30 days.”

The two sides have also agreed to start working on a cease-fire agreement and to allow humanitarian access into the state.

Many people within Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states fought alongside the south in Sudan's decades-long civil war, fighting against repression and marginalisation by Khartoum.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which brought the civil war to an end in 2005, set out the process that will on 9th July lead to the independence of South Sudan (although this was not the aim of the CPA), but very little was promised to the indisputably northern states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile except ill-defined 'popular consultations' on their future constitutional status.

In recent weeks there have been reports of 'ethnic cleansing' by northern troops in Southern Kordofan and Al-Hilu has said that over 3,000 people have been killed or have disappeared due to their ethnicity or political affiliation.

Southerners voted overwhelmingly to split from Sudan in a January independence referendum, but the period since has been marred by violence in a number of border states, including the oil-rich Abyei region, which is claimed by both sides.

South Sudan will become Africa's newest state on 9th July.

The UK's Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham said South Sudan's independence was "incredibly exciting".

"It is an historic moment for Africa and the world, the creation of a new country," he said, speaking from Malabo, which is to host an AU summit later this week.

"But we don't want the great celebrations of this new country to be undermined and marred by what's happening in Abyei and South Kordofan."

Sources: BBC News, Business Recorder, Sudan Tribune

UN votes for Abyei peacekeepers as Southern Kordofan violence continues

The UN has voted to deploy peacekeepers to Abyei

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to send a 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force to the disputed Sudanese territory of Abyei, in line with the agreement signed between Khartoum and Juba on 20th June.

The force will monitor the withdrawal of Sudanese troops from Abyei, who occupied the region's main town on 9th June after being attacked by groups with links to the south.

The resolution establishes a new UN peacekeeping force, which will be called the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). It will have a mandate to protect civilians and “to protect the Abyei area from incursions by unauthorised elements,” according to the BBC.

Sudan's UN Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said northern troops would be withdrawn as soon as the Ethiopian troops had been deployed.

Abyei has been a crucial sticking point between the north and south as the country gets ready to split on 9th July. Oil-rich Abyei straddles the border and is claimed by both sides.

It was meant to have a referendum in January over whether it would join the south or remain with the north, but the vote was put off indefinitely due to disagreements over voter eligibility.

The southern Sudanese voted overwhelmingly to split from the north in a January referendum, established as part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which brought Sudan's decades-long civil war to an end.

The US's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed the passage of the Abyei resolution, but expressed deep concern at the continuing violence in the northern border state of Southern Kordofan.

"Tens of thousands of people have been driven from their homes, and there are reports of very serious human rights abuses and violence targeting individuals based on their ethnicity and political affiliation," Clinton said.

Heavy fighting broke out in the border state three weeks ago, and renewed violence began last Wednesday, 22nd June in Southern Kordofan's Nuba Mountains, home to Sudan's indigenous non-Arab Nuba people.

Many Nuba fought on side the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during Sudan's civil war. While the civil war is usually categorised as a north-south battle, the fact that the Nuba, whose territory clearly lies within the north, fought on behalf of the south shows the situation to be far more complicated than it is often portrayed.

According to the Guardian, 16 people were killed and at least 32 injured in an aerial attack on Sunday 26th June in the Nuba mountains.

The aerial strikes, which have happened almost daily for the past three weeks, are said to have been carried out by Sudanese planes.

Senior Sudanese officers have told the African Union panel on Sudan, headed by former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, that the strikes are intended to prevent the SPLA from resupplying the Nuba.

But others say the air strikes and other attacks have targeted individuals due to their ethnic or political affiliation, and some have called the situation 'ethnic cleansing'.

Nuba leader Abdel Aziz al-Hilu told the AU panel that over 3,000 people had disappeared, “either killed or their whereabouts are not known, either because they are Nuba or they are SPLA.”

The UN peacekeeping force in Sudan, UNMIS, has been ordered to withdraw from Southern Kordofan by 9th July, the date South Sudan will declare independence.

UNMIS bases have been attacked and on 17th June, a UN patrol was detained by government troops and subjected to a mock firing squad in the state capital, Kadugli. They were allegedly told "leave South Kordofan... we will kill you if you come back here.”

The latest report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the situation in Southern Kordofan had calmed in recent days.

But the report also suggested that northern authorities were forcing some of the thousands of displaced people to return to Kadugli against their will.

A “combination of incentives through assistance and intimidation was used to exert pressure on the displaced people to return to Kadugli,” the OCHA report said.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, a variety of insidious methods have been used, some of which have been detailed in an internal UN report. Sudanese intelligence agents pretending to be Red Crescent workers allegedly entered an UN-protected camp and ordered the displaced people to go to a stadium.

Humanitarian agencies movements have been restricted and facts are hard to verify, but reports of forcibly moving populations bears worrying resemblance to many of the well documented allegations made against Khartoum's actions in Darfur.

Indeed, one of the catalysts for the current problems in Southern Kordofan was the election of Ahmed Haroun as governor of the state in mid-May. Haroun is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Darfur, and his election was protested heavily by the South's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir is also wanted by the ICC, which has created considerable difficulties in arranging the ceremony marking the secession of South Sudan, due to take place in under two weeks.

The US's President Barack Obama has said he will only attend South Sudan's independence ceremony if Al-Bashir is not there.

Al-Tayyar Arabic daily newspaper in Khartoum has said this is the case with a number of world leaders.

“A number of European heads of state, including the French President Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister as well as the US President Barack Obama, have in principle welcomed the invitation to attend the South's independence ceremony, but they conditioned their appearance in Juba on the non-attendance of the president of the republic Omar Al-Bashir, pointing to the crimes with which he is charged by the International [Criminal] Court,” the paper quoted an anonymous southern official as saying.

Whether Al-Bashir will attend is not yet clear.

Sources: AFP, BBC News, Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian, Sudan Tribune

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