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Sudan: SPLA, Sudan Troops Fight
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The Monitor (Kampala)
21 May 2008
Posted to the web 21 May 2008
Tabu Butagira & Reuters
Kampala
Heavy fighting erupted between Sudan's army and the Sudan People's Liberation Army in the disputed oil-rich town of Abyei on Tuesday as military observers predicted further turmoil in the disputed frontier area.
Heavy fighting, aid workers said, erupted at around 4am, Tuesday, following counter-accusations of alleged open violations of the May 16 Abyei agreement.
Under the United Nations Mission in the Sudan-brokered deal, the adversarial forces were to cease fire as a prelude to a permanent peace settlement and pull out their troops.
But on Sunday, Saf leaders sparred with their SPLA counterparts whom they accused of refusing to withdraw their forces from the centre of Abyei to peripheral areas as endorsed in the preliminary Friday agreement.
Mr Edward Lino, a representative of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) in Abyei, was singled out by Saf as the person instigating the amassing of heavily armed SPLA infantry force in the oil basin.
The SPLA, however, seemed to have deployed so as to counter-balance the imposing presence of Saf soldiers who allegedly declined to stay within their barracks as required under the Friday deal.
By press time, details of the four-hour skirmish were scanty and humanitarian aid workers said they were still sourcing information from informers on-ground about possible fatalities in the restive central Abyei, administratively considered as part of South Kordofan state.
"The fighting was heavy," one aid worker who declined to be named fearing possible reprisal said adding, "We think it was a counter-attack by the SPLA."
The Sudan Tribune, an on-line newspaper in South Sudan quoted Saf, warning over the weekend that: "The [Sudan] armed forces will not stand idle over this deteriorating [security] situation and that it will come out with a decisive action if [SPLA/M representative] Mr Edward Lino and those supporting him will not heed to the recent decisions of Abyei meeting."
Yesterday's clash, was but just one in a series of localised battles that has drawn a wedge between GoSS and Khartoum officials on the rocky implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
In October last year, the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the political wing of SPLA withdrew from the national unity government, citing among other things, obstruction of democratic transformation, lack of initiation of a national reconciliation and healing process, lack of transparency in oil sector operations and disproportionate sharing of oil revenues. They only resumed participation following diplomatic persuasion by regional neighbours.
UN spokesman Kouider Zerouk yesterday confirmed fighting had broken out again in Abyei, but said they were still getting details of the attacks.
The UN Mission in Sudan, which has evacuated many of its staff from the area, on Monday, said it had started distributing food supplies to up to 50,000 people displaced by the fighting.
The row on whether oil-rich Abyei lies within boundaries of the semi-autonomous South Sudan or the Republic of Sudan has continued to deepen, many times resulting in bloody fighting, as both sides up the struggle to reign control over the contested territory.
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During the Comprehensive Peace Agreement negotiations, the sticky border issue was separately resolved under the Abyei protocol, which called for a commission christened Abyei Boundaries Commission to "define and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905."
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