H.E.Dr. Riek Machar Teny
VP. Government of South Sudan (GoSS)
JUBA
Date: - 09/ 10/ 09
Sub: Abyei Demarcation Field Report
As a matter of an emergency, we the SPLM members in the Abyei Boundary Demarcation Technical committee would like to bring into the attention of the authorities in both the government of southern Sudan (GOSS) and the SPLM leadership.
Indeed, it is our ultimate responsibility and a vital duty to raise any single concern which may appear to be an obstacle obstructing our work, we try to raise these concerns to our leadership in a bid to get back any response or find any solution that can make things moving forward to the right track and make our mission a success, these concerns can be shown in details down bellow:-
1. As we have already mentioned in our preliminary report while we were still in Khartoum, we still carry on to mention that our partner, the NCP has gain momentum and a conducive ground of success by intentionally omitting the formation of the oversight committee leave alone the international technical assistance, so far the omission of such a committee has given their man who got imposed on top of the technical team as the administrative secretary, his imposture on top of the demarcation team did not take into account the agreed equal numbers from two parties, not that alone but also he has been the authorized person and mandated with unlimited powers to coordinate the administrative and the security sensitive tasks with the presidency and with the SAF forces deployed along the areas adjacent to Abyei boundary line where we started to do the demarcation task, the fact that he has been put alone without any body deputizing him from our side has made him to move freely without any cross checking of the contradicting information he brings to the team from time to another especially at certain occasions when there are some security threats emerging in the area aimed at stopping us from the work.
2. This unfortunate reality has resulted into an enormous frustration and made us to conclude one simple fact, that the formation of our technical committee was completely bias and born while carrying dead seeds, we have valid reasons which made us to arrive at such a conclusion, one of these reasons is that the heavy vehicles that were presumed ready to start working as soon as we arrived Heglig were not there at the time of our arrival to Heglig on 17/ 09/2009, it took us time of many days to get these vehicles organized on the 25th of September 09.
3. Though this very man was telling us that the Bulldozers given to us according to the expertees, will not be in a position to clear a route of more than 4km a day, but we intended to ignore his bias advice, instead we started clearing a route of 11km a day, and we continued the next day our clearance to the route leading to the border corner point number (3).the north eastern corner.
4. This was the thing that made them hysterical when realizing that the team was determined to clear the border line in a quicker phase, they started putting obstacles so that on the third day and at the evening time of 27/ 09/ 09 the day in which we were going back from Abyei to Heglig after we finished aerial reconnaissance using the UNMIS Helicopter, security tensions were made imminent by SAF,s against the JIU,s forces in the area so that they were chased away from the area by the same SAF,s of the division 56 based in Heglig, the JIU’s were threaten using heavy military machine guns leaving us in the area vulnerable and without any protection, it was made obvious that the demarcation team has to stop doing their job due to security reasons, not that alone but also the normal residents nearby to our camping area started to pose security threats on the team if we continue to be within the parameters of their localities.
5. As this is the situation, we strongly believe that, the so called administrative secretary( Mr. Sami Bushara) is always behind any security move aimed at failing the team to do any demarcation work, indeed, we have every reason to believe so, this is based on his previous records when he kept our proposed budget for the demarcation work on hold while he was contrarily telling the team that our budget has already been approved by the presidency, but to find later on that the presidency did not receive that budget, instead it was a chock to all of us to be summoned by the presidency to submit in our budget for final discussion in a rough meeting chaired by the state minister in the presidential palace Mr. Idriss Mohammed Abdelgadir and attended by the SPLM state minister Mr. Joseph Lual Achuil on the 27th of August 09, the very budget we have prematurely discussed and expected to have been presented to the presidency a week before that date.
6. Another point of our major concern is the way the JIU forces are formed, the JIU,s complement from SAF component are selected from the sons of the Massyeria tribe who are extremely committed to taking sides in the whole boundary conflict, they are not those well trained and do not have the military discipline and conduct, instead of providing the security to the team members, they are the one now coordinating with the Massyeria Mujahedeen and their associated militiamen in their plans to harm the team members as they selectively choose to direct security threats to us we the SPLM team members in the overall technical committee, and this sends unmistakably message that in the worst case scenario where it is expected to face any military confrontation, we expect them to side with the attacking forces rather than protecting the team members, we therefore look forward to get this point considered and the JIU,s get to be changed from other areas apart from the JIU,s based in Abyei area.
7. Why we still doubt the presidency of the republic to have not intended to get this boundary demarcated on the ground is simply based on the simple fact that, they refused to provide the team with digging machineries (Scarvators or cement, and aggregate mixture) instead they have ordered the team to do everything manually in a situation when it is extremely difficult in such a harsh dense terrain with big trees, full of water ponds, muddy wet ground and with long thick grass.
8. Our conclusion is that the team with its current formation will not make it to demarcate the current Abyei boundary as long as the oversight committee was not formed, an oversight team that was suppose to deal with the issues facing us now in our work, we believe that all what we are doing is only time consumption to justify for the NCP in the view of the international community in particular and the entire Sudanese masses in general that the NCP leadership has accepted the arbitration ruling on Abyei boundary and consequently formed a technical committee accordingly, so that if not demarcated, the NCP will justify that it was the technical team that has failed to demarcate the boundary in a given time frame.
9. Finally, it is absolutely regrettable that, we the SPLM team members remain pocket less not accessing any communication facilities to be in contact with our leadership, we remain vulnerable and in some cases, we get ourselves being forced to beg NCP team members to help us with phone credit cards, indeed it is unfortunate reality that we have no way to avoid if we want to be in contact with our families and some of our leaders in the government of southern Sudan, we hope some positive responses to this report.
Many Thanks.
1. Mr. Kwol Biong Kwol, Team leader
2. Eng. Valentino Malueth Akec, Member.
3. Eng. Ring Kuol Arop Koor, Member
CC:
- Dr. Luka Biong Deng
Minister of Presidential Affairs.