If Hemedti Intends to Surrender Abiye to Francis Deng, he was preceded to this by Ingaz’s staunchest opponents 

Abdullah Ali Ibrahim

People were disappointed about the reported Sudanese surrender of Abiye, following a meeting held by theorist Francis Deng and Hemedti. But they have to be reminded that Hemedti been has preceded in this move. The Ingaz Opposition (which brought into the arena Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), Taqaddum, radicalism, and armed men from its womb, as they would prefer to say) has finished giving up Abiye and handing it over as a bundle by a thread to the state of South Sudan. It challenged the Baggara Misseriya people’s claims that it was their right to own Abiye, because “mobile people,” in today’s language, like the Misseriya, do not have the right to possess a land on equal footing with the “permanent resident “or the Nygok Dinka people. Accordingly, circles of those opposing the Ingz joined forces to prevent the Misseriya from taking part in the referendum on Abiye and who will it belong to: Sudan or South Sudan? The most FFC predecessors prejudice and today’s Taqaddum against the Misseriya is the anger of the opposition, not knowledge: So how could the Misseriya ally with the “Kizan” in Ingaz (before they were remnants) and even before that with Imam Sadiq Al-Mahdi during his rule that followed the April 1985 uprising in the Marahil against their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army “SPLA” (wayee).

In those days I wrote to introduce the articles of Mansour Khalid and Omer Al-Qarai (who does not read), who were active in the campaign to deprive the Misseriya of the right to the Abiye region, except as shepherds crossing the international border of South Sudan, to make use of the pasture, water, and to have a place to stay at whenever night falls. Hereunder is that said old article:

“I was always afraid that our disdain for the “Bedouin mind” (which elite opinion believes is behind our greatest disappointments) would become a reason for violating the rights of nomadic groups in view of their way of life. I have previously said that what has complicated the issue of the Misseriya in Abiye, which now stands as a serious obstacle in the way of Sudanese peace, is our belief that they are a wandering people “settle for a pause”. The Misseriya person does not interact with the land in terms of life, conscience, or destiny. He is “roaming” in God’s vast land. That is, always roving and roaming” in a Shayqiyya phrase. Even the National Congress, which people believe is the one inciting the Misseriya against an alleged right to Abiye, sold them out after it obtained some oil fields from The Hague arbitration, while the Misseriya lost the land. Al-Derdiri Mohamed Ahmed, the government representative in The Hague, said that he believed that the arbitration was a victory for the government, underestimating the Bedouin’s taste for the land, his connection to it, and his tricks to secure it, is wide- spreading amongst people. The last thing that the opposition parties reached regarding rights in Abiye was their request to America to remove lift its hands from the issue and to leave the Dinka and Misseriya to arrange these rights equally. This running forwards from the opposition and abandon the study of these rights in a responsible manner in order to come out with an opinion that helps both the Misseriya and Dinka to reach a settlement. I would have liked, for example, if the opposition had come up with a considered opinion on the “residence” requirement for voting in the Abiye referendum. The Americans, who were asked by the opposition to leave the Misseriya and Dinka alone, repeatedly tried to define that residency in a way that approximates the views of the parties to the conflict.

Of course, other parties can have their say on the issue and gain acceptance and keep the Americans away whose “exclusion is close to coming.” Voting in the referendum will not take place without specifying a “residence” condition that is acceptable to the parties, no matter how long the travel may be. On the other hand, the opposition’s dependence on resolving the Abiye issue on the well-known “tribal” parties reveals a major shortcoming in the significance of the conflict over Abiye in the national context. A master’s thesis written by Abdul-Wahab Abdul-Rahman (1982) revealed how the tribal parties have been in cahoots with the national and governmental forces since the mid-sixties and have made alliances, which makes resolving the tribal conflict far from those central and regional powers an improbable matter. The Misseriya twice imposed on the Khartoum government not to accept the experts’ report or The Hague arbitration.

Perhaps the clearest form of prejudice against the Misseriya in terms of their way of life, is limiting their demand in the “right to graze” the land without the right to ownership. At one stage, the Americans bargained with the Misseriya to make this “right” attractive. Meaning that it promised them to develop pastures and services in their homes in such a manner that they would forget Abiye “and its land.” The Misseriya did not accept this American “carrot.”

Mansour Khaled also limits the Misseriya demand to the right to graze but not citizenship. It brings back to us the text of the Abiye Protocol (2004), in which “the Misseriya and other people (in it) retain their traditional right to graze livestock and move of individuals through the Abiye Territory.” He said that the SPLM nurtured this right in times of war, so how could it prevent it in times of peace? Mansour’s logic here, as usual, is corrupt. His statement that the SPLM protected the Misseriya right to graze in times of war, let alone in times of peace, is merely rhetorical. The comparison in our current situation is not between a time of war and a time of peace, as Mansour argued, but rather between a time when Sudan was one and the Misseriya accepted it with its good and bad and a time when Sudan will disperse. When it disperses, Abiye, which the Misseriya has a good argument for owning, may become a region in the south. That is why the Misseriya insist on voting in the referendum as citizens (not just land users) to make it more likely that Abiye will remain in their state. Mansour himself cannot secure the rights of a nomadic group in another country by his high status in the SPLM state.

Tomorrow, we will continue presenting the rest of Mansour’s logic, and we will look at another sick opinion by Omer Al-Qarai.