Western Bahr el Ghazal is composed of three counties—Wau, Jur River, and Raja. The latter shares a long border with South Darfur, and includes the con-tested territory of Kafia Kingi. Raja county is also one of the most remote counties in South Sudan, and is both underpopulated and ethnically extremely complex. It comprises part of dar Fertit, a collective term for the people resident in Western Bahr el Ghazal.106 Finally, it is one of most difficult areas of South Sudan to gain accurate information about. UNMISS is restricted to Raja town, the county capital, and it is hard to verify reports further to the west. The events outlined in this brief section have not been verified due to the difficulty of access-ing Western Bahr el Ghazal state.
There has been extensive SAF military build-up in and around Kafia Kingi since 2009. There have also been extensive clashes between SAF and the SPLA in Western Bahr el Ghazal, and between SAF and JEM in South Darfur, notably in December 2011 and February 2012. Several international commentators believe access to Western Bahr el Ghazal is so difficult because of SPLA–SRF movements on the Darfur border.107 Indeed, one of the reasons Kafia Kingi is so important to the NCP is that, if it joins South Sudan, JEM will have an immedi-ate supply route between South Darfur and South Sudan. Given difficulties of access, this speculation cannot be confirmed.
What can be asserted is that there was almost no migration into Western Bahr el Ghazal during the 2011–12 grazing season. A Concordis cross-border migra-tion conference, due to be held in February, was cancelled in May because of violence in the border areas (CI, 2012e, p. 15). Preparations have been made for another conference to be held in Raja, but it has yet to take place.
In December 2011, South Darfur authorities instructed migrants not to enter Western Bahr el Ghazal; over the following months, the government of West-ern Bahr el Ghazal echoed this message, telling the Fellata and Habbaniya that they were not welcome. There was no reported Fellata or Ambororo migra-tion. There was a limited Rizeigat migration, but this also caused clashes with the SPLA after it was reported that SAF was arming Rizeigat militias in Bulbula, where the SPLA has a base.108 Many of the Rizeigat who would otherwise have come into Western Bahr el Ghazal entered Northern Bahr el Ghazal state through Kiir Adem (CI, 2012e, p. 15). While this put greater pressure on North-ern Bahr el Ghazal, it is also consonant with the very flexible grazing routes that are typical of Western Bahr el Ghazal because of the lack of reliable, dry-season grazing.
The effective closure of the border has also affected food supplies. Follow-ing the 27 September Addis Ababa agreements, the border has still not opened, although there are reports that trucks from Darfur arrived in Timsah in Novem-ber 2012. This has stabilized prices, with the cost of a sack of sugar dropping from SSP 400 to SSP 260 in Raja town (Radio Tamazuj, 2012q). There is never-theless widespread displacement in Western Bahr el Ghazal due to clashes and, as of August 2012, up to 14,000 facing serious food shortages in Timsah (Radio Tamazuj, 2012q).
Kafia Kingi was, up until 2011 and JEM’s movement eastward, the central zone where the conflict in Darfur interacted with the conflict in South Sudan.
It is difficult to assess the contemporary stakes of the conflict in Western Bahr el Ghazal. Certainly Kafia Kingi, with its possibilities of mineral wealth, might be a valuable resource for both countries. More importantly, however, since 2011, Western Bahr el Ghazal has taken on a renewed importance as the Darfur conflict, Sudan’s other internal conflicts with the SPLM-N, and its struggles with South Sudan have increasingly become part of the same battle. In this context, the clashes in Western Bahr el Ghazal show how supply lines, migra-tory routes, and the people living in Kafia Kingi and Western Bahr el Ghazal all interact. It also reveals how military considerations, on both sides, can totally disrupt the lives of the people in dar Fertit.
III. Abyei
Overall findings:
• Following the NCP’s rejection of the AUHIP’s proposal for a referendum in Abyei in October 2013 in favour of a renewed attempt to divide Abyei in half, the two sides’ negotiating positions are essentially the same as they were in November 2010, just before South Sudan’s referendum on secession.
• While the Missiriya successfully migrated to Abyei during the 2011–12 dry season, this was due to the absence of the Ngok Dinka, who were still largely displaced in Agok, and UNISFA’s success in mediating conflicts between the two sides. However, given the level of frustration in Abyei about the lack of progress in negotiations, a durable path for the Missiriya through Abyei is unlikely; the Ngok Dinka feel there should be no migration until there is a political solution to the crisis, and that is a long way off.
• Other than SAF ‘oil police’ at Diffra and the UNISFA peacekeeping force, the territory has been demilitarized since the May 2012 withdrawal of SAF.109 However, repeated attempts by the SPLA, SAF, and militia groups to enter the territory underline just how tenuous the peace in Abyei is, and how easily conflict could return.
Introduction
The situation in Abyei offers a textbook example of the dangers faced by com-munities across the Sudan–South Sudan border as they come to terms with the implications of a new national boundary that will divide up territory whose use, prior to the first civil war, was determined by flexible grazing arrange-ments. In Abyei, the second civil war (1983–2005) created a devastating rift between the Ngok Dinka and the Missiriya, the two communities who claim Abyei; the GoS backed Missiriya militias from South Kordofan systematically razed Dinka settlements in the north of Abyei, creating mistrust and hostility that remain to this day.
Events since the signing of the CPA in 2005 have not improved relations.
The Ngok Dinka have twice had to flee Abyei, as GoS-backed Missiriya militias burned down Abyei town. The territory’s political future remains unresolved.
In Abyei, two transhumance groups that used to share grazing territory are now divided. The Ngok Dinka fear increasing political marginalization, fol-lowing South Sudan’s independence, while the Missiriya, who are bitterly opposed to Abyei becoming a part of South Sudan, fear losing crucial dry-season grazing for their herds. Political dynamics at the national level have consistently worsened community relations on the ground, as the GoS used Missiriya militias to destabilize the negotiating process.
As the imbrication of local political processes with national political dynam-ics accelerated after the signing of the CPA, both the Ngok Dinka and the Missiriya increasingly sought to use national politics to advance their respective interests. Claims to areas of secondary rights—where there are traditionally shared grazing rights—have become claims of absolute territorial control, as both the Missiriya and the Ngok Dinka have sought to maximize their author-ity over the territory of Abyei, making it increasingly difficult to see how the two groups will be able to continue living together, even if a political settle-ment on the status of the territory is found.
For now, such a settlement is a distant prospect. In the run-up to the signing of the 27 September Addis Ababa agreements, the AUHIP made a new pro-posal in an effort to overcome the impasse. The GoS rejected it in favor of a proposal first outlined by the AUHIP110 in November 2010 that called for a presidential decree to divide Abyei in two. By October 2012, 15 months after South Sudan’s independence, the two countries’ negotiating positions were almost identical to those they took in the run-up to the referendum on secession.