Mile-14 in the Security Arrangement: Failure, Arrogance or Lack of Popular Understanding

South Sudan politics is beginning to move along the customary of realpolitik. Just recently, the populace living on the new country’s borders voiced their misgivings over land issues in the government’s agreement with Khartoum. Their grievances appear to have been ignored without proper explanations and the political latitude tilted towards religion. South Sudan is now sending her first independent black Muslims to Mecca on a presidential sanction to cast their pebbles at Kaaba al musharraffa (the black stone), in a ritual move that will define one of the SPLM’s premises of the New Sudan built on equality of all races and favouring freedom of religion. As many South Sudanese do not hold any bad feelings towards those who have fought to have their freedom of worship recognised in the theology of colour-blindness, expectations are that the same support the president extended to potential black sheikhs, where they must travel to Saudi Arabia without having to go through any religious medium, be also extended to those who fought for so long to gain reclaim the land and oil resources within it.  

Two days after the South Sudan legislative assembly ratified nine bilateral agreements including Mile-14 in a near-unanimous vote, the Minister of Petroleum and Mining, Stephen Dhieu, ordered oil companies to commence operation with immediate effect through Sudan’s oil infrastructures. The timing could not be perfect for the petrified and internationally cornered government of South Sudan that experienced the first-ever peaceful demonstrations by the citizens against it. The people of Northern Bahr el Ghazal and other citizens who disapproved of the oil agreement did not see the security arrangement relating to Mile-14 just as a temporary pen-and-paper arrangement – as mediators would want all to believe – but in terms of land and the legal backdrops attached to it.  

Unlike the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the two Sudans – a model of accomplishment that should have been adopted for peaceful deliberations by South Sudan’s ruling party (The SPLM) with Sudan – which was first communicated to the citizens from grassroots to diaspora by late Dr. John Garang - the already missed savviest negotiator and architect of peace in the Sudans - oil agreement becomes visible to have been a shove down the throat to the citizens. If there is anything that South Sudan government must be credited for, it is the sincerity and easy lending of its sensitive documentations, classified or otherwise. The nine bilateral agreements instantaneously hit the web the moment they were signed in Addis Ababa on the 27 September 2012 and by the time President Kiir and his mediators arrived in Juba, the populace had already gurgled the contents of the agreement and were waiting to hear from their face-down heroes. When this awareness took a little longer, the Mile-14 people, Abyei people and the people of other contested areas made no concealed articulation of their fears. They demonstrated on the streets of Juba and around South Sudan parliament amidst gunfire in the air. Inside the parliament, the president was not substantively convincing the lawmakers to make the right decision but coerced them to ratify the agreement through his hard language and denigration of the protesters outside the building. 

But what exactly is in the security arrangement involving Mile-14 between Sudan and South Sudan that warranted mediators and president’s arrogance in communicating with the South Sudanese affected by the agreement?

The agreement was actually simple and it was this simplicity that the people quickly understood. And in simple summary, it can be stated that the security arrangement over Mile-14 deviated from the CPA path and the essence of fighting for the land and the negotiators, under pressure, created by admission of a problem from out of the blue thereby subjecting the land of Dinka Malual to future legal contest. It had further exposed and compromised the security of the people in the area who had for ages battled for their survival singlehandedly in the hope that a future nation in which they would be part of would not kowtow under any stress but to stand with them.

This summary has no nonsensical legal jargons that need consultation. It is therefore surprising that South Sudanese mediators and the president would dare question the intellectual capability of millions who read the document in totality and felt it was a game of oil flow but in the dubious way that will eventually haunt them.

I remember sitting a few meters from the SPLM’s negotiating panel at Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2004 where Dr Garang gave a lengthy deconstruction of the Machakos protocols and the intricate arithmetic of oil sharing. When asked about the reason behind equal oil quota allocation in wealth-sharing agreement, his argument was fairly simple. He urged the people to accept fifty per cent and use their referendum vote to get the other fifty per cent. It is therefore the leader that must have the propensity to make complex agreements clear before adopting them in a binding agreement rather than gloating in a manner suggestive of a reverse of an argument.

The South Sudan negotiators, including President Kiir might have a completely different interpretation of the security arrangement involving Mile-14. This is not a new obsession in Sudanese politics where the truth is often absurdly entrapped in the opposite plane in order to cause confusion, delay, suffering and domestic and international frustration. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, negotiated by Dr John Garang, and Ali Osman Taha, whose portfolio went to John Garang immediately after the implementation modality went into effect, referred to Abyei referendum participants in two words: Ngok Dinka and others. Legal experts during the Sudanese peace talks should have known that the word ‘other’ was the only ambiguous word that any enemies would try to interpret differently. Abyei referendum is today held hostage by the simple, yet politically loaded term, "other." And the word is dragging the Sudans into war every minute of every day and putting the Ngok Dinka of Abyei and "other" proper in danger of violence. It is this assigning of absurdity, double dealing, and what Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor with a special interest in Darfur and now the Sudans, calls a ‘moral equivalence’ that differentiates, complicates and sets the parallels in the citizens’ understanding of the bilateral agreement and president Kiir’s and mediators’ uncommunicated intention of ensuring that the oil flows first.

The Sudanese and South Sudanese politicians seem to have been misled by past colonial agreements. However, colonial and condominium agreements in Sudan were not right. Had they been fair, there would have been no wars? The 1924 Munroe-Wheatley agreement described by Douglas H. Johnson in his book; When boundaries become borders: The impact of boundary-making in Southern Sudan’s frontier zone seems to have induced a campaign on the border between Sudan and South Sudan and with Rizeigat copying the notoriety that Messeriya Arabs play in Abyei’s referendum exercise. We must remember that the Munroe-Wheatley agreement initially built on other grazing and hunting rights arrangements of the citizens between Sudan, where Dinka Malual were subjects and Rizeigat were citizens of Darfur Sultanate, later annexed by Sudan in 1916. In fact, and much to the chagrin of South Sudanese who were not at ease with the current security arrangement involving Mile-14, the book, published in 2010, has hinted on page 45 that GoSS had earlier considered the demilitarisation of Mile-14. The predetermined demilitarisation will, therefore, leave many to question whether recent Addis Ababa oil agreement was pre-emptive ratification of government policy regarding Mile-14 by the negotiators, and if so, what then was the security guarantee for the people living in the area?

Dissimilar to the Sudanese mediators who sometimes admit guilt and shed tears, their South Sudanese counterparts have no-nonsense in the politics of apologies. Once confronted, as was the case of Mile-14, they beat their chests in a gorilla-style show of force and swing the blame back to the people in a new bag stamped ''lack of understanding and failure to read the agreement.'' President Kiir had been on records where he is seen to have taken a side in the row but took matters to a higher level. He boasted to the demonstrators outside the national assembly for the length of time he spent fighting for the land, which he was accused of surrendering to Sudan through the admittance of contention over it. Little was he aware that in the crowd were SPLA veterans of the Anya-Nyas. Logically, if arrogance and wealth were to be awarded in South Sudan based on the length of time in the service, then the lion’s share still has not found the right consumers.

Actions of the South Sudanese government following disagreement with Sudan over oil transit fees are indeed a conjecture that should allow people to question the par excellence of SPLM political negotiations skills and gun-wielding bluffs. The recent agreement that fits a relationship of commensalism with Sudan have raised doubts among the majority of the people, with some introspecting if late Dr Garang were to be alive, whether he would have been threatened by a leak on the oil pipeline, his nation’s vital artery to the point of summarily shutting it down without arrangements in place, or whether he would, as a consequence of oil theft during export, encourage South Sudanese, through adding more lands to the contest, to enter a post-CPA relationship of commensalism with Sudan? Even though nobody knows what other leaders would do in a similar situation, people still imagine that the nation’s Legislative Assembly would do its job. but as things are, we are yet to witness its democratic independence where the power to ratify an agreement for oil to flow has equal measure with the power to order a shutdown.

Dinka Malual: Going North or Going it Alone

The devil is in the details of the South Sudan and Sudan oil agreement for Dinka Malual

September 27, 2012, will be remembered by Dinka Malual of Northern Bahr el Ghazal as the month which brought back to life the dark history over the control of the frontiers with the Rizeigat and the Baggara of southern Darfur. On that day, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, President Bashir, and President Kiir swapped the rhetoric with brotherhood; new cowboy-hat-on-the-bald amity; and together they signed an oil agreement which is courteously wrapped in the throngs of other subsidiary agreements to form something angelic in the framework. 

The entire deal, which comprised of nine bilateral agreements, included the diabolic insertion of the Mile-14 pasture-land between Dinka Malual and the Rizeigat into the national frames of both countries, thereby making it a bitterly contested border zone. Panthou is already a thing of the past and the Abyei referendum, always used as a winning bargain or peace mantle by South Sudan, remains as elusive as ever. To Dinka Malual, nonetheless, the Mile-14 situation is almost akin to the time between 1860 and 1880 when Zubeir Pasha formed forces with the Rizeigat and drove Dinka Malual beyond River Kiir/Bahr el Arab. Though Rizeigat had had the backing of the authorities most of the times that they ventured southwards, their numerous attempts in the early twentieth century had been prohibited forcefully by Dinka Malual. The result had been continuous traditionally-acknowledged seasonal agreements between the two communities on how to access pastures on either side of River Kir. It is important to note that Dinka Malual never goes to Dar Rizeigat for pastures. Always, it is Dinka Malual that is forced to open up and be accommodative. And judging by the recent Kir-Bashir agreement, they have once again been forced - perhaps sooner or later - to relent for the sake of peace that ought to kill them. Of course, the anger is enormous in the Aweil community worldwide. Some think they have been abandoned by their government through allowing another opportunity for the marauding Murahaleen to resume their rustling; while others view it as trading off of their land for Abyei, a region that initially legally and administratively chose not to be part of South Sudan. Common men are asking whether Aweil should shoulder Abyei's problem. But the reality is that both Aweil and Abyei will always shoulder their own problems with Rizeigat, Baggara, and Misseriya. And all have burdens to share with South Sudan and Sudan.

Where is the Mile-14 conundrum, or what Magdi Gigouli, a notable Rift Valley Institute scholar referred to as "Abyei in the making," heading to?  Might we be seeing old wounds being pricked once again? Paul Malong Awan Anei, the governor of Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, a former general in the SPLA army, a native of Dinka Malual whose part of his native area lies within the Mile-14 area, and a veteran who sustained more than eight bullet wounds from the Baggara as the then zonal commander in the Second Sudanese Civil war in Aweil area Command Post, made no less show prior to the conclusion of Kiir-Bashir talks in Addis Ababa. Upon sensing that his state’s national security would be offered as a sacrificial lamb, he hastily went to the Ethiopian capital where he had talks with his boss, President Kiir, and the mediating team. One is unsure if in the tense and pressurized atmosphere of the negotiations Kiir was able to listen to him. His message to South Sudanese upon returning to Juba, and to Aweil citizens, in particular, was no less categorical, "I want to assure you that we are in the Mile-14 and we will be there to stay. This is our area and we know how to manage relations," he said. He had indeed fumed earlier on that implementation of such an agreement would be done when he is not there. Whether this indicates a resignation or an old adage, ‘over my dead body,’ is a matter open to interpretation.

The whole scenario of withdrawing SPLA forces ten kilometers south of Kiir River thereby paving way for creating a safer border demilitarised zone (SBDZ) carries an emotional charge among the Dinka Malual of Northern Bahr el Ghazal. To the Rizeigat, it may mean an implementation of the boundary which the British governor of Bahr el Ghazal, Mervyn Wheatley, and the then governor of Darfur, Patrick Munro, agreed on and imposed in 1924. Dinka Malual never accepted the agreement that went any mile beyond Kiir River. And to Dinka Malual, it is another imposition in which they are never consulted that had just occurred. The Sudanese had a delegation of Rizeigat presenting their case to the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP) while South Sudan never spoke with Dinka Malual, the custodians of the border clues. This already justifies trouble. Both Dinka Malual and Rizeigat are a surprise to one another when it comes to what goes on along the Kiir River. In all the historical wars on Kiir River, it begins with pastures, picks up in the water, culminates in the rustling, and fully accelerates in the blood flow.

Many South Sudanese would not agree with the Mile-14 being a contested area. However, given the economical implications that oil shut-down had created, sceptics perceive this latest agreement as a sell-out to Khartoum for the oil to flow. Khartoum might praise its negotiation skills and views the Kiir-Bashir agreement as a booty of war of attrition. The economic implication of oil stoppage gives an impression that South Sudan is dying for cash. The national treasury is running dry. In any sense, South Sudan is now frantically paying heavily for halting its oil torrent which constitutes the mildly spoken ‘lifeblood’ of the two nations by many analysts. The craving for economic freedom that accompanied the government's decision to stop the oil flow in the first place is now running down by an avalanche of desperation. People are angry and hungry. When South Sudan shut down its oil earlier in 2012, hunger was a minute thing that could be sustained. What was at stake was national pride and economic freedom. The South Sudan chief negotiator, Pagan Amum - just like his countrymen and women who demonstrated on the streets of Juba in support of the decision that halted oil transit through the theft-perforated pipeline of Sudan - asserted his contentment saying it was a matter of national economic freedom. So it was, no doubt.

But to Dinka Malual, the adored economic freedom is now forfeiting their land for cash. The freedom in demand for Malual Giernyang or Malual Buoth Anyaar, as they fondly call themselves, is not only economic or political, it is freedom from dispossession that they must counter from any Sudan, be it South Sudan or Sudan. And as the governor asserted, so are the people of Aweil who will have to join the land when it goes north, or hang on to it to the detriment of peace between the two Sudans.