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Sudan

Sudan issue brief no. 12: The drift back to war - Insecurity and militarization in the Nuba Mountains

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In January 2008, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) announced that it had completed the withdrawal of its forces from the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan in accordance with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The CPA requires Government of Sudan (GoS) and SPLA forces to redeploy to their respective sides of the stilldisputed North-South border of 1 January 1956.

Like much else in the CPA, the pullback was far behind schedule. The SPLA had linked the withdrawal of its forces to satisfactory demarcation of the North-South border, and the integration of the former enemies' police and armed forces, the latter into the CPA-mandated Joint Integrated Units (JIUs). Resolution of the border issue-one of the main threats to the survival of the 2005 agreement-has been complicated by the fact that many of Sudan's richest oilfields lie in the border area, and much of the documentation needed to determine the border has been destroyed. JIU deployment has also been delayed and fraught with problems.

Despite complications on both counts, however, SPLA forces began to move south in July 2007, the month set for the completion of the withdrawal. They halted almost immediately at signs that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) were not reciprocating-apparently reluctant to withdraw from oil-rich areas of the occupied South-but resumed again in January 2008. On 9 January, the respective withdrawals-the SPLA from South Kordofan and the SAF from the South-were declared complete, coinciding with the third anniversary of the CPA.

The withdrawal of the SPLA from the Nuba Mountains region feels to many local communities like a handover of the territory to the SAF. It has revived local resentment over the CPA, increased feelings of insecurity and neglect, and deepened concern that government hardliners in Khartoum are mobilizing ethnic militias to manipulate elections scheduled for 2009.

The Issue Brief examines insecurity and militarization in the Nuba Mountains and surrounding areas, a region that has been overshadowed in recent years by the Darfur conflict and, more recently, the insecurity in Abyei. It focuses on the eastern part of the region where political tensions have been high since the CPA: military observers in the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) peacekeeping force are insufficiently resourced and supported; there are no permanent UN civil affairs and human rights officers; and international NGOs and other independent observers are few. It finds that:

- The area is highly militarized with both parties to the conflict actively violating the CPA, including by recruiting members of armed groups.

- Khartoum's paramilitary Popular Defence Forces (PDF) is being reorganized in the region on a sharper ethnic basis than in the past.

- Arabs returning to marahil (animal migration routes) closed by the war are being armed, often through the PDF, with a corresponding mobilization by some settled tribes.

- UNMIS has done little to calm tensions, in contrast to the active efforts of the much smaller number of unarmed ceasefire monitors, the Joint Military Commission (JMC),8 which were present from 2002-05.

- The region has received few tangible benefits from the CPA, and frustration among the region's different constituencies is contributing to heightened insecurity.

The Nuba Mountains region is a microcosm of the tensions surrounding CPA implementation. Many local residents feel ignored-with good reason-by the international community and neglected by the UN system. Growing ethnic insecurity in the region has the potential to deteriorate significantly over the coming months and needs urgent attention to prevent it from spiralling out of control.