The objective of National Congress Party (NCP) is to threaten the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) fragility by engaging in a fight with SPLA through their sponsored militias. This kind of tactic is very astonishing to people of Abyei and SPLA; instead the NCP should have waited until Abyei citizens declare their status as Southern, annexed in the Referendum 2011 declaration.

The NCP claims the oil disputed region as their revenue source and because of Messeriya Arab tribe. The problem of Abyei is not going to be far different from Darfur’s crisis, which has resulted in millions of displaced environmental refugees; otherwise SPLA must keep an eye diplomatically.

It would be a misnomer to blame GoSS as an oil-inspired government. There are several reasons why SPLA/M should never give up Abyei easily unless it is decided democratically by the citizens of Abyei. The citizens of Abyei have participated in the Movement tirelessly and vigilantly to defend SPLA and the freedom of their citizens.

Abyei citizens were among the heroes who brought peace to Sudan, it is unimaginable on the face of the earth to let them be humiliated like that in the presence of SPLA/M.

Abyei land should never be used as the shield to breach CPA by the NCP. If the NCP is willing to breach CPA let them do it in a different way. The fate of Abyei will never be exploited as the scapegoat to destroying the CPA.

Apparently, the tactic being down played by the Khartoum government is naïve and ambiguous in nature. What the NCP wants is to blood stained SPLA/M so that the international community will blame SPLA/M for igniting the war. Why SAF besieged the city while they are neutral in observing peace?

I think if anybody is intimidated, it is already stipulated in CPA that: “the parties agree that Nuba mountains, Southern Blue Nile, Abyei and other war affected areas face serious needs to: i) be able to perform basic government functions ii) establish and build civil administration and iii) rehabilitate and reconstruct/construct the social and physical infrastructure in the post-conflict Sudan”

Hence, the NCP behave oppositely by contravening the CPA by besieging the Abyei town and intimidating the administration of Abyei that was established according the CPA term. The citizens of Abyei have to decide where they should be annexed to in 2011. It is their civil right to be engaged in meaningful peace like everyone else in the Sudan.

It would be a mistake to leave Abyei citizens to be brutalized in the presence of SPLA while they were part of the champions in peace liberation in the South and Sudan. I think SPLA have the right to defend Abyei citizens.

The administration of Abyei was under the guidance and guarantor of GoSS appointment. Therefore, the NCP should distance itself from breaching CPA through Abyei because it is not time for them to misjudge Abyei.

By Miyar De’Nyok, a student for environment and resource studies at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada