Deputy Chief Administrator of Abyei Administrative Area Deng Arop Mading. (Photo: Charles Wote

Abyei Administrative Area government has expressed concerns after the Secretariat of the 8^th Governors Forum declined to publicly read recommendations on the region’s final status, including a call on South Sudan to recognize the 2013 referendum.

On November 27, the deputy chief administrator of the region appealed to the government of South Sudan to endorse the outcome of the October 2013 referendum in which 99 percent of the Ngok Dinka voted to be part of South Sudan.

The 8th Governor’s Forum which concluded on Monday adopted 95 resolutions and recommendations on intergovernmental relations, elections and civic space, climate change and humanitarian issues.

Leben Nelson, Head of the Secretariat of the 8th Governor’s Forum, told delegates that the recommendations on Abyei as been moved to higher level without specification.

“Please all the recommendations on Abyei have been moved to the higher level so I am not going to read them, so we move to 50 which is 59 in what has been distributed to you,” he said.

Reacting to the matter, the Deputy Chief Administrator of Abyei Special Administrative Area Deng Arop Mading explained that the Governor’s Forum had already put forward a recommendation endorsing the Abyei referendum.

Mr. Mading said he is waiting for clarification on who the high level might be and the way forward after removing the recommendations.

“The forum has done its best, the forum has accepted the recommendation. The forum as well put forward a resolution on endorsing Abyei community referendum,” he said.

“When the resolutions were being read out, they were in the resolution document but unfortunately from the speaker who read out the resolutions, he indicated that this thing has been moved to the higher level.”

“This higher level is what we do not understand and as the people of Abyei, we will be anxious to know high level besides this one to tell us what the way is forward so that the people of Abyei cannot remain in a situation where they don’t understand where they belong.”

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Community Empowerment of Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani said he is disappointed on why the Secretariat of the 8th Governors Forum removed

“I am so disappointed as a South Sudanese with the withdrawal of the resolutions to do with Abyei Administrative area,” Yakani said.

“I think the government of South Sudan has demonstrated a sense of fear and a sense of not taking care of Abyei as one of the administrative areas in our country and if we are going to face election, the message is now clear that election will not consider our brothers and sisters from Abyei.”

Yakani called on the government to explain to the public why a resolution around Abyei should be dropped.

“It is a very depressing, it is very disturbing, it is something that we are not happy with because we feel our brothers and sisters from Abyei deserve to have a national identity in South Sudan and we have been battling for quite number of years.”

“Yes I understand it is an international global issue, outstanding issue between South Sudan and Sudan but adopting a resolution on the situation of Abyei, it is not a crime and it is not something bad.”

Although South Sudan designates Abyei as one of its three administrative areas, the region has been contested by Sudan and South Sudan since 2011 when the two nations separated after 21 years of civil war.

Abyei is the traditional homeland of the Ngok Dinka, but herders linked to the northern nomadic Arab tribe of Misseriya seasonally cross to Abyei with their cattle in search of water and pasture in the dry season and to trade goods.

In 1972, at the end of Sudan’s first civil war, the Addis Ababa Agreement promised residents of Abyei the right to hold a referendum to determine whether they would remain a part of northern Sudan or join the newly formed southern region.

However, in 1983, Sudan descended into another civil war after President Jaafar Nimeiri refused to implement the agreement and allow Abyei to hold its referendum.

The war ended after signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, which included the Abyei Protocol stipulating that the region would remain under special administrative status.

The region was said to hold a status referendum to allow its residents to determine whether Abyei would become part of Sudan or South Sudan.

In October 2013, the Ngok Dinka held the referendum in which they overwhelmingly voted for Abyei to be part of South Sudan, but the result was not recognized by either Sudan or South Sudan.