AHMED HAROUN, DENG ALOR, AND PAGAN AMUN NEGOTIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KHARTOUM 000536 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR A/S FRAZER, S/E WILLIAMSON, AND AF/SPG NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO UN AU SU SUBJECT: AHMED HAROUN, DENG ALOR, AND PAGAN AMUN NEGOTIATE ABYEI'S BORDERS REF: A. KHARTOUM 529 ¶B. KHARTOUM 524 ¶C. KHARTOUM 508 ¶D. KHARTOUM 507 ¶E. KHARTOUM 435 Classified By: CDA Alberto M. Fernandez, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) CDA Fernandez and polchief entered Cabinet Minister Pagan Amun's office April 6 and encountered not only Amun, but also Foreign Minister Deng Alor and State Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and ICC indictee Ahmed Haroun huddled over a map of the oil-rich contested Abyei region. Alor and Haroun exchanged pleasantries with us and left Amun to explain that President Bashir has given the three of them until Wednesday April 9 to come up with a solution on Abyei's borders, when there will be a second meeting at the Presidency regarding Abyei in as many weeks. -------------- EARLY SECESSION TALK -------------- ¶2. (C) Always the purveyor of doomsday scenarios, Pagan said "this week will be critical" and predicted that if the SPLM and National Congress Party (NCP) cannot resolve the current deadlock on Abyei, the SPLM could push for early separation for the South from the North. "Just like Sudan did at its independence, the South could make a unilateral declaration of independence" explained Amun (FM Deng Alor told CDA the same thing on April 5, reported ref a). Amun said the meeting on Abyei last week went "very badly" and that there is a high probability that "we may enter into another crisis." Amun said President Bashir is equally frustrated with the lack of progress and at the last Council of Ministers meeting Bashir leaned over to him and said "I am very disappointed with how things are going." ¶3. (C) Amun said Bashir has complained on several occasions that Northerners are being mistreated in the South, and had even suggested on several occasions that the North should just "let the South go." Pagan said Al-Bashir personally described "calling all the Northerners back form the South, and sending the millions of Southerners who are in the North back," a potentially explosive eventuality which would certainly ensure Southern secession but under dire crisis conditions. VP Taha seemed to be speaking from the same talking points when he complained publicly on April 6 of mistreatment of Muslims in South Sudan. LINES IN THE SAND -------------- ¶4. (C) Amun showed us the map from which he, Haroun, and Alor are negotiating. The map showed a "green line" drawn just below the lower blue line in the 2005 Abyei Boundary Commission (ABC) report, which is the NCP's current position on Abyei's northern border - though reportedly President Bashir does not like the straight line and would like some variation (refs a and d). The NCP also wants to keep Arab-populated Meiram and the oil fields of Higlig in the North. The map also showed the SPLM position, which leaves Meiram to the North, but includes Higlig in SPLM-controlled Abyei and has a northern border drawn in an arc slightly above the ABC report's lower blue line. Amun said he thought it unlikely that the NCP would accept the SPLM proposal, but acknowledged that the NCP's position has grown somewhat more flexible over time. ¶5. (C) However, the NCP is trying to delink oil and land in an unhelpful way, said Amun, proposing that the borders of Abyei not include Higlig, but that the oil from Higlig and other parts of the "Abyei region" be distributed among all the border areas between North and South, with a greater percentage going to the South and the Dinka than was stipulated in the CPA. Amun said this is an NCP trap which is intended to make oil wealth sharing more attractive while simultaneously complicating a clear border if and when the South secedes. Amun urged that a high level intervention from the USG to the NCP regarding the Abyei negotiations would be helpful. KHARTOUM 00000536 002 OF 003 -------------- SPLM'S DECISION PARALYSIS -------------- ¶6. (C) Note: NCP negotiator Dirdeiry shared essentially the same information with polchief April 3 regarding the status of the Abyei border negotiations. He said the NCP had offered to increase the percentage of oil revenue that would go to all border areas and especially to the Dinka and the Misseriya, and had moved its proposal for the northern border to the "green line" not far south of the ABC report's lower blue line. Dirdeiry claimed that Amun and Alor had agreed on this compromise and committed themselves to selling it to Salva Kiir and other senior SPLM leadership in the South over a month ago. Dirdeiry claimed that Pagan Amun and others in the SPLM such as Presidential Advisor Mansur Khalid had confided to him that the SPLM is in "decision paralysis." He claimed Khalid told him that Salva Kiir presented what were agreed NCP/SPLM proposals before the SPLM's political committee for approval by consensus, and the compromises that were negotiated on Abyei and elections were all rejected (this characterization appears only partly true, since the SPLM and NCP had not yet reached a negotiated solution on the elections law). Dirdeiry predicted that the next compromise on Abyei would suffer a similar fate. End note. ¶7. (C) CDA reported to Amun on his trip to Abyei (reftels) and pointed out that while the NCP certainly is to blame for many of the problems in Abyei, the SPLM also has its share of the blame for stoking the fires of conflict. CDA pointed out that the Misseriya feel manipulated by both the NCP and the SPLM, and believe that if left to their own devices there would not be any conflict. Amun countered that the NCP is provoking the South all along the border, not just in Abyei. He said that in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, in the Nuba Mountains, and in Upper Nile the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is occupying towns that belong to the South and is arming Arab elements in these areas in what he said the parties are referring to as "the war of the borders." In all cases, he said, the SAF arms PDF tribal elements and pushes them forward to engage the SPLA. Amun predicted that a proxy tribal war is not out of the question, in which the SAF arms the Misseriya and other PDF forces, and the SPLA arms Dinka and other tribal militias, while both "regular" armies stand by. CDA agreed that the NCP was indeed arming proxies, the Misseriyya Arabs had admitted as much in Muglad but cautioned against such a risky proxy war scenario that could get out of hand and pointed out that it is not in the South's interest to engage in such a conflict. ¶8. (C) Equally pessimistic regarding the census, Amun said it is possible that the South will boycott the census if the North does not agree to include the questions on religion and ethnicity on the census forms as an annex. (Note: With the census one week away, at this late date it does not appear likely that the NCP may accept the idea of an annex to include the religion and ethnicity questions, especially since the SPLM originally agreed in writing not to include the questions on the census forms. End note.) ¶9. (C) Comment: Amun is generally the most negative of our senior SPLM interlocutors and we find it hard to believe that the GOSS, having spent so much time preparing for the census (moving IDPs to the South, conducting mass information campaigns, etc),and having at one time officially accepted leaving the questions of religion and ethnicity off the census forms, would now boycott the census and risk frustrating its own population and the international/donor community. We share Amun's concern on a possible Abyei agreement, however, at least at this time. It is positive that the two parties may be inching closer to an agreement, but they have been talking about more or less the same terms of an agreement for the last nine months, while tensions on the ground steadily rise. However the NCP position on the northern Abyei border has inched northward over time, and with an additional push including encouragement from the US, an agreement is not out of the question. As reported in Ref A, FM Deng Alor also suggested that a high level call from the USG to the NCP would help push the negotiations forward. The language about a unilateral declaration of independence is relatively new and alarming (as Pagan often is) and would mean a messy, violent separation of Sudan into at least two KHARTOUM 00000536 003 OF 003 parts well before the 2011 referendum date. End comment. FERNANDEZ