Abyei - Grassroots Crossroads for Peace Building
Abyei - Grassroots Crossroads for Peace Building
USAID Trip Report
February 2003
The success of the Abyei Community-Based Peace Initiative, momentarily captured by an unprecedented cross-line ceremony at the Kiir River, may well prove to be the key to resolving some of the most potent political and developmental issues looming in the upcoming North-South talks on the transition areas of Abyei, Nuba Mountains, and the Southern Blue Nile.
The visit of the U.S. government-led delegation was planned to permit participation in meetings organized by members of the local peace committees representing Dinka communities in GOS and SPLM-controlled areas as well as the nomadic Messariya, a people who have both lived with and fought with the Dinka residents of Abyei. While one purpose of the meetings was to affirm ongoing and new U.S. government assistance to the area specifically intended to bolster community peace initiatives, local leaders also sought to regain the momentum achieved in these initiatives, which had been curtailed in September 2002 because of incidents between GOS and SPLA forces and the abduction of more than 40 villagers by the SPLM. The return of the hostages in December encouraged the resumption of the community peace and reconciliation initiatives.
The highlight of the February 22 ceremonies was the organization by the peace committees of a meeting at a crossing point on the Kiir River, the dividing line between the GOS- and SPLM-controlled areas. Despite the heat of the day, more than a hundred people gathered on each bank of the river (shown as the Bahr al Arab on northern maps) and local leaders as well as their visitors crossed the river, thus effectively crossing the politico-military line separating the North from the South. For more than an hour speakers from both sides recounted past and present causes of conflict and then went on to commit themselves to achieving and maintaining peace in Abyei. Particular concern was expressed for the safe return and means of support for former residents from the North - as many as 80,000 - who are part of the internally displaced populations of Sudan. Speeches at a later meeting that the U.S. delegation held with Messariya leaders in Muglad (North of Abyei) similarly endorsed a new era of peace among residents of the region without regard to tribal or religious identifications. "We are now as one hand," proclaimed one of the elders in explaining why the Messariya would no longer attack their Dinka neighbors as they had in the past in the nomad's dry season search to the south for water and grazing land.
While competition for natural resources remains at the heart of much of the intercommunity conflict that has occurred in the transition areas, the divisions caused by the civil war and the GOS arming of the Messariya and other warring groups with automatic weapons have created particularly lethal conditions for civilians. Local peace initiatives such as those in Abyei offer a means for creating an environment conducive to a return to civil order in the near term. Such stability will be a prerequisite to assuring the humanitarian welfare of current and returning residents, as well as the large numbers of IDPs from Khartoum and other areas in the North who will pass through Abyei on their way back to their homeland in the South. Donor support, such as the USAID funding of water development in Abyei, will be critical.
Donor support for local community reconciliation efforts and joint resources management is both substantively and symbolically significant. Yet inevitably such outside involvement also raises the profile of these initiatives to national political levels, where broader peace process concerns come into play. The way in which the transition areas are handled has the potential to bolster or undermine implementation of an overall peace agreement, not only in the way IDP issues are handled, but also in fixing the nature of border relations between North and South.
| Participants |
 USAID Assistant Administrator, Roger Winter
State Department Chief of Mission, Jeffrey Millington
USAID Senior Humanitarian Coordinator, David Rhoad
USAID Special Assistant, Jenny Marion
USAID Sudan Task Force, Brian D'Silva
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Kenyan mediator General Sumbeiywo has recognized both the importance and complexity of resolving questions related to the transition areas in the final stages of negotiating a North-South peace agreement. In a meeting February 23 with embassy and USAID officials, he was alert to the significance of these areas, as well as candid in acknowledging the difficulty he experienced in getting detailed information on transition area dynamics.
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