Ambassador Princeton Lyman said he would return to Sudan this week as diplomats scramble to defuse the crisis over Abyei, which has pushed north and south Sudan close to conflict just weeks before south Sudan is due to declare independence on July 9.
The Associated Press reported earlier that armed men burned and looted the flashpoint town of Abyei. Southern Sudan’s military said it would defend its territory, while an Arab herdsman said his tribe was in Abyei to stay, an indication Sudan’s peace could crumble before the south’s July independence.
In photos provided by the UN, the town appeared deserted except for what appeared to be looters. Some huts appeared to be ablaze; smoke billowed from others. Looters were seen roaming the streets, carrying rifles. Some carried suitcases. Others pulled carts carrying mats, pots and pans, sacks of grain and even bed frames.
Khartoum’s northern army vowed on Monday to hold territory it seized over the weekend in the disputed region, defying a United Nations demand it withdraw, according to Reuters.
Mr. Lyman, named the Obama administration’s top diplomat for Sudan earlier this year, blamed both sides for violating their 2005 peace deal by sending forces into Abyei.
But he said Khartoum had overreacted badly by trying to seize the territory outright.
“Now the pressure is understandably and rightfully on them to withdraw and pull back,” Mr. Lyman told Reuters in an interview.
He said the Abyei invasion made it impossible for the United States to continue work on key incentives it has offered Khartoum: gradual steps toward full normalization of diplomatic ties, the removal of Sudan from the US terrorism blacklist, and an international deal on debt relief.
The United States offered the package last year to encourage Khartoum to cooperate on a January referendum on southern independence and to improve conditions in the western region of Darfur.
The United States placed Sudan on its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1993 and imposed economic, trade and financial sanctions in 1997, which were later supplemented by a United Nations arms embargo.
Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts who has written extensively on Sudan, said Khartoum could use the seizure of Abyei as leverage against Juba on other unresolved north-south issues, or it could extend the conflict to other oil areas.
“Either will lead to a spread of violence, quite possibly all-out war,” he said. “The international community—and the US in particular—has very little time in which to convince Khartoum that the costs of this assault will be too great to withstand, and to give peace a second chance,” he told AP.
Mr. Lyman said the Abyei dispute could interrupt the delivery schedule for all of the incentives, noting that each required a series of specific steps that required verification.
“It is not a question of do you stop it now or turn it back on tomorrow. This is a long-term process that they are jeopardizing,” Mr. Lyman said.
Activist groups said on Monday that Khartoum’s latest move in Abyei, along with escalating violence in Darfur, showed it was not sincere in seeking a peaceful resolution to either conflict and called on the United States to shift from incentives to penalties to try to force compliance.
“If there is no cost to the Khartoum regime’s commission of atrocities and to the dishonoring of agreements, then why would anything change in Sudan?” said John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, an anti-genocide group.
“It is time to impose serious consequences for the Khartoum regime’s use of overwhelming military force to deal with every challenge it faces,” he said.
Mr. Lyman said that Sudan already faced the prospect of real consequences if it failed to shake off international sanctions at a time when its own economy faces the loss of southern oil revenue and rising inflation.
“They need to be part of the international financial community and that's the incentive. But they can’t get there this way. And that’s the biggest consequence of all,” he said.
Mr. Lyman said he would convey this message to Khartoum officials on his trip to the region this week, which will also involve meetings in southern Sudan in an effort to get both sides back to the negotiating table.
The African Union’s mediator for Sudan, former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, is also shuttling between the two sides and other African leaders are weighing in, urging them to step back from the conflict, Lyman said.
Mr. Lyman said the immediate goal was a withdrawal of forces from Abyei and strengthening the UN peacekeeping mission, but that this would be followed by concrete proposals on how to resolve outstanding issues between north and south, which also include division of future oil revenues.
“This is not a marriage made in heaven,” Mr. Lyman said. “The two may not kiss on the cheek but they do have to shake hands. They need each other, that’s the reality.”
More than 200 people demonstrated in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba on Monday against the northern takeover of Abyei. The protesters chanted slogans against President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.
“This was a deliberate incursion. They (the north) want to take these actions before July 9 and use them in negotiations,” said Erjok Mayor, a rally organizer, according to AP.
For all but 11 years since Sudan became independent in 1956, a civil war has been fought in the country of 42 million people, Africa’s largest by land mass. Abyei contributes more than a quarter of Sudan’s daily oil production of 480,000 barrels. Sudan’s proven crude oil reserves are nearly 2 billion barrels.
The south is important to the north because that’s where most of the country’s oil is produced. But refineries are in the north, as is the main pipeline carry oil for exports.
The Abyei Area covers 10,460 kilometers in the State of Northern Bahr el Ghazal in South Sudan.
Abyei is contested between the regions Ngok Dinka people, who are settled in the area and consider themselves southerners, and Misseriya nomads who herd their cattle south in the dry season and are supported by the Khartoum government. The region postponed a vote, originally scheduled for January, on whether to join the south or remain a special administrative region in the north because of disagreements on who was eligible to vote.
Abyei produces less than 2,500 barrels of oil a day, according to Sudan’s Oil Ministry.
Fighting in the area three years ago between the armies of northern and Southern Sudan killed 89 people and forced more than 90,000 people to flee their homes, according to the UN.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya
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