Misseriya and Dinka Ngok will abide by Abyei boundary verdict July 22nd

The court’s ruling on the status of Abyei - whether it belongs to Bahr el-Ghazal or Southern Kordofan - will be announced by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 22nd.

Abyei is an oil rich area in southern Sudan. Click here to see map showing boundary of Abyei at 10°22'30"N as decided by the Abyei Boundary Commission.

From Sudan Radio Service, Wednesday, 15 July 2009:
Both Sides Still Prepared to Abide By Abyei Decision

(Khartoum) – The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deng Alor Kual says the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has announced that it will pass its verdict on the status of Abyei on Wednesday, 22nd July.

Speaking to journalists in Khartoum on Tuesday, Alor, who is also a senior member of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement from Abyei and a member of the SPLM delegation who went to the Hague to defend the position of the SPLM, said the Arab Misseriya and the Dinka Ngok have both expressed their readiness to abide by the PCA verdict.

[Deng Alor]: “We in the SPLM have committed ourselves and will abide by the decision of the court and our counterparts in the NCP have also assured us that they will abide by the decision of the court. We went to the Misseriya in Muglad and went to the Dinka in Abyei and we discussed with them, and the two tribes have no major problem with the decision of the court, if the NCP and the SPLM are committed to abide by the decision of the court.”

The historian, Douglas H. Johnson, a member of the Abyei Border Commission, says that the arbitration decision will have an impact on the 2011 referendum.

[Douglas H. Johnson]: “The Abyei protocol sets out the conditions for the residents of Abyei to vote in 2011 to decide what they will be part of. Either part of Kordofan, or part of southern Sudan. The boundary establishes what territory is having that vote. The dispute between Khartoum and the SPLM is over the boundary and the ruling in The Hague is supposed to settle that once and for all. It affects the future of the Abyei people because it will define what the area is and by that definition, it will define who has the right to vote in 2011.”

The court’s ruling on the status of Abyei - whether it belongs to Bahr el-Ghazal or Southern Kordofan - will be announced by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 22nd.

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