Key Terms for Sudan Arc

Abyei Boundaries Commission

Abyei Boundaries Commission: The CPA established the Abyei Boundaries Commission to demarcate the border of Abyei. Their final and binding decision set the northern border at a straight line at approximately latitude 10º22'30'' N, with the western boundary as Kordofan/Darfur boundary, the southern boundary as Kordofan-Bahr el-Ghazal-Upper Nile boundary, and the eastern boundary at approximately longitude 29º32'15'' E, northwards until it meets latitude 10º22'30'' N. The international experts on the ABC include: Ambassador Donald Peterson; Professor Godfrey Muruiki; Professor Birhan Gassahun; Professor Douglas Johnson; and Professor Shadrack Gutto. The rejection of the ABC report by the GOS is a breach of international law and a major stumbling block in implementation of the CPA.

Abyei Protocol

Through the Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict, the people of Abyei have the right to decide after a six year interim period whether to join the South or remain under special administrative status. According to the Protocol, this was granted as an expression of their right to self-determination. An internationally supervised referendum in Abyei will be conducted simultaneously with the referendum for Southerners to decide whether to remain in a united Sudan or become an independent state.

During the interim period, Abyei is to be autonomous under the Presidency, which includes the President and the First Vice-President, who is also the President of the South. Abyei is meant to be governed by a Chief Administrator supported by an Executive Council, and will have its own legislative assembly and judiciary. The people of Abyei will also have dual citizenship of the North and the South during the interim period and will participate in the institutions of both at all levels.

There is meant to be an integrated North-South military unit in the area to ensure security. Abyei is supposed to have been receiving 2% of the revenues from the oil produced in the area since January 9th, as well as a share of the national revenue sharing. All in all, these arrangements make Abyei a very special area in the country, with the potential of providing a model for peace, unity, reconciliation and a locally grounded approach to development. This is indeed a possibility, and one in which the future of the country very much depends, but it is far from the present reality.

As for now, there is no local government in Abyei because of disagreement over the Abyei Boundaries Commission Findings, which the CPA states will be final and binding.

African constitutionalism

In his book, “Dilemmas of Self-Determination: A Challenge of African constitutionalism,” Dr. Francis Deng argues that restoration of traditional modes of governance is foundational to have five pillars: conflict prevention, democratic principles of consensual decision making, human rights in cross-cultural perspective, self-reliant development, and environment His analysis is rooted in a lifetime inquiring after an African normative worldview.

African Renaissance

The African Renaissance combines political and economic development with the resurrection of African cultural identity. It is projecting a new future for Africa upon the foundations of the past. The African Renaissance links a dignified Africa to a globalizing world. The New Sudan is a microcosm of the African Renaissance. The African Renaissance is reflected in such instruments as the Banjul Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and is championed by Thabo Mbeki and others.

Akur Peace Agreement

The Akur Peace Agreement signed in 2000 sealed a series of daring missions by elders and traditional chiefs in the Abyei area on Sudan’s troubled North – South crossroads. Meetings finally took place between the Missiriya and Ngok. Their commitment to peace creates the context in which genuine coexistence and eventual reconciliation can be realistically planned for so long as justice is the foundation.

Bonding and bridging

Bonding refers to enhancement of social cohesion / solidarity within a group, while bridging means establishment and/or enhancement of relationships between or among identity groups. Together, bridging and bonding form a critical part of social capital formation.

Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Self-determination and unity are the joint principles of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the civil war between North and South but did not include Darfur. The CPA was signed on January 9th, 2005. On the frontline, Abyei is subject to a Protocol called the Abyei Protocol. But this aspect of the CPA has not been implemented because of border disputes over the area’s oil wealth.

Community Service Credit Program (CSCP)

The CSCP will enable participants to secure essential household and community assets in return for community service through the Sudan ARC. This approach breaks unhealthy dependencies and resonates with local traditions of community service. Its function is to strengthen social capital.

Conflict prevention

The first pillar of a new African Constitutionalism. It begins at a local level since it is here that competition over resources enables politicians to manipulate group sentiment resulting in wars of identity. Traditional leaders and peacemakers have an important role in local conflict resolution, which will be made easier if equitable development and decentralization give people the sense that they are self-determining regardless of ethnicity. Conflicts will always be present, however, they can be contained through local mediation and a restored system of traditional justice.

Consensus building

Although persons have different perspectives, through dialogue their understanding of a given issue can be aligned, yielding way for greater cooperation and sharing. Some might recognize this principle as a form of participative strategic planning. Others may see its relevance to African constitutionalism based on talking things out.

Democratic principles of consensus decision-making: The second pillar of African constitutionalism encompasses all political processes having to do with the dispensation of power. Although persons have different perspectives, through dialogue their understanding of a given issue can be aligned, yielding way for greater cooperation and sharing. Some might recognize this principle as a form of participative strategic planning. Others may see its relevance to African constitutionalism based on talking things out.

Environment

The fifth pillar of African constitutionalism is perhaps the most under-represented. It has the power to sustain civilization or cause it to crumble. The traditional knowledge of how to live in harmony with the natural environment must be rapidly reinvigorated and integrated with modern knowledge about sustainable development. This is not only a way to protect prosperity for generations to come, but to avoid the destruction of society which necessarily proceeds from destruction of the environment.

KUSH

KUSH stands for Knowledge, Unity, Self-Reliance and Healing. These principles are the cornerstones of the organization. Kush is also the name for the ancient civilization of the Nile based in Sudan that once rules Ancient Egypt. Kush was the grandson of Noah. In Hebrew, it means Black.

Human rights in cross-cultural perspective

The third pillar of African constitutionalism highlights how the African normative worldview, which focuses on harmony within unity, needs to be resuscitated. Part of the challenge is to approach the universal aspirations through the lens of local culture, remaining open minded to how each informs the other.

Internally Displaced Persons

Internal displacement affects over 25 million people in more than 50 countries. Unlike refugees, these uprooted people stayed within their border. There is no legal or institutional basis for providing them with international protection and assistance, even though they are often exposed to severe threats to their physical and psychological security, gross violations of their human rights, and denial of their basic survival needs to shelter, food, medicine, sanitation, potable water, occupation, and education. The overwhelming majority of the internally displaced in Sudan are women, children, and the elderly.

Model Homesteads, Camps and Settlement

The model settlement is made up of 10 to 15 camps. A camp consists of 10 to 15 homesteads. KUSH sets a high standard for personal, livelihood and food security at a minimum cost. The basis of the model is provision of essential household and community assets to meet basic needs.

New living environments

New living environments are the homesteads, camps, and settlements, which the returnees are establishing. KUSH innovates on the basis of tradition through STRIVE.

New Sudan

The New Sudan is a society constitutionally reconstructed to be free from all forms of discrimination, whether by gender, race, ethnicity, culture, language, region, or religion. It is a society where all of Sudan’s diverse peoples have equal stake in the future of their nation and equal participation in government. The New Sudan is based on a decentralized political system that brings power down through the level of the states to the place where people experience the joys and pains of everyday life, in the villages, Bomas, Payams and the Counties.

Read why you should be concerned about Abyei.

• Abyei is a bridge between North and South Sudan.
• It is an oil rich border area of international interest.
• Darfur could reignite war between North and South through Abyei.
• But peace in Abyei as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South can spread to Darfur and the whole North.
• That is the vision of New Sudan and of an African Renaissance. It has ushered in the greatest return of displaced persons in modern times.

Self-determination

What is self-determination? Is it a law? Is it a right? Perhaps, a principle? Self-determination may be any of these things, but more fundamentally it is a feeling. The feeling that pushes a baby to evolve from crawling to standing, and then from standing to walking; that pushes a child to speak and a man and woman to establish their homestead. It is a drive that exists before there were concepts of laws, rights and principles.

STRIVE (SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES REINFORCING INDIGENOUS VALUES AND ECONOMICS)

Sustainable Technologies are techniques and equipment for solving problems and making our dreams reality that are balanced and in harmony with the natural and social environment. By reinforcing indigenous values and economics, KUSH applies principles of balance and harmony to the management of relationships, resources and trade.

Social capital

Social capital is often defined in terms of solidarity or the ability to attract support when in need. It has a bridging function, which means solidarity across social networks; and a bonding function, which means solidarity within social networks. It also relates to how cultural images, rules and representations either accrue advantage or disadvantage to a person in relationship building.

Sovereignty

Sovereignty may refer to:
1) Supreme and unrestricted power, as of a state.
2) The position, dominion or authority of a sovereign.
3) An independent state.” But, there are different views on the moral bases of sovereignty, such as:

• its introduction as a concept by Jean Bodin (1530-1596) with his 1576 treatise, Six Books on the Republic, which described the sovereign as a ruler beyond human law and subject only to the divine or natural law, which set the stage for divine right of kings and the monarch as sovereign;

• democracy and popular sovereignty, which for Rousseau (1712-1778) meant that the people through social contract were the legitimate sovereign without distinction to the exercise of power;

• representative democracies, which permit (against Rousseau's thought) a transfer of the exercise of sovereignty from the people to the parliament or the government;

• Anarchists, such as Salvador Dali, Antonin Artaud, and Max Stirner and some libertarians including Georges Bataille, who advocated a kind of "anti-sovereignty", as Jacques Derrida put it;

• The unified consciousness as sovereignty over one's own body, as Nietzsche sought to demonstrate (see also Pierre Klossowski's book on Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle).

• Some supporters of democratic globalization consider that nation-states should yield some of their power to a world government controlled by world citizens instead of being organized as now in an intergovernmental basis.

Sudan ARC takes the family as the original, natural and sovereign union. When human families began to settle land, the notion of a household was the territorial correlate of a nuclear family. This provides a natural starting point for considering “territorial integrity” and self-determination.

Union

Individuals don’t exist outside of families into which they are born. Union is a fact of nature beginning with conception and human evolution within the mother’s womb. After a child is born, union is a fact of social and economic life until we die. The Sudan ARC recognizes respects and cultivates the need for union as returnees, host communities and neighbouring groups reintegrate after war.

"One Country, Two Systems."

Since being signed in Kenya on January 9, 2005 by the SPLM/A and the National Congress Party (NCP), the CPA has established a constitutional framework simply dubbed: “One Sudan, two Systems”. One system governs the North, the Government of National Unity, with some powers extending to the South, and the other system presides over a basically autonomous South with its own Bank of Southern Sudan, Army, Executive, Legislature and Judiciary.

Return in safety and dignity: In 1992, the United Nations Office for the High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCHR) requested the Secretary-General to appoint a Representative on IDPs to study the global crisis of internal displacement, and to advise on how the U.N. could respond legally and institutionally to the crisis. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement now provide guidance for the prevention of arbitrary displacement, protection and assistance for those already displaced, and facilitation of return, resettlement and reintegration, in safety and with dignity.

Bomas, Payams and the Counties

The Interim Constitution of the Southern Sudan (ICSS) establishes the Central, State and Local Governments. At the Local Level, the County is the lowest level of corporate government. Each County is made up of Payams. Each Payam is made up of Bomas (or municipalities in the case of urban areas). And each Boma is made up of villages. One of the unique aspects of the ICSS is that it formally integrates traditional authorities by giving them jurisdiction at the level of the Boma.

Sudan’s Civil War

Sudan’s first civil war (1955-1972) was called the Anya Nya. It came immediately upon independence and was ended by the Addis Ababa Accord, which included the right to self-determination for the people of Abyei. The counter-insurgency warfare of the Government destroyed much of the border areas. Meanwhile, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) was organizing in Ethiopia to launch its revolutionary war under the leadership of Dr. John Garang and the banner of the New Sudan. This second civil war (1983-2005) was ended by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that seeks to make unity attractive pending a referendum of the right of self-determination. It also restructured Sudan to be “One Country, Two Systems.”

Unity

Now with the CPA, the Sudan now faces three questions of unity: can Southern Sudanese unite across tribal lines to build the vision of the New Sudan in their areas; will Sudan remain united or will it split along North – South lines after the referendum for self-determination; and can Sudan’s identity groups, both Arab and African, find an overarching solidarity to unity in diversity. We don’t presume to know how these questions will be answered; but, it is clear is that each concerns equal rights and justice for all people regardless of ethnicity, language, religion, or gender.

Self-reliant development

The fourth pillar of African constitutionalism will only be possible if institutions of governance at a local level are strong enough to support the new development paradigm and resilient enough to withstanding hostile shocks.

Social homestead model

Unity and self-determination find balance in the social homestead which is a bottom up approach to community development that recognizes the role of social capital in enhancing the value of all other assets. It therefore combines an asset-based approach to household sustainability; with a relationship building approach that emphasizes both bonding and bridging aspects of social capital.

Social capital

Development economics has evolved from a mechanistic study of migration and industrial development to consider relationships, support mobilization capacity, and the power of images, rules and representations in determining one’s capacity to cope with shocks and make the most of opportunities.

Youth

Youth constitute the predominant labour force for the reconstruction process, need to be organized such that they not only contribute their ideas to the decision making process, but also have shares in the companies that employ them. The traditional age-set structure provides a building block for how youth can be organized on the basis of their residence but also in such a way as to build solidarity with other youth further a field.

Building the New Sudan, including the new approach to development that strives for regional and economic integration towards an ideal of African unity and international solidarity, but beginning with the “person within community” as a self-determining entity. The starting point for the development of the New Sudan therefore becomes the model sustainable homestead, which is the smallest definable territorial unit that exists within expanding territorial units, punctuated by the nation-state, but continuing regionally, continentally and beyond. Development emanates locally, but expands outwards and upward in such a way that self-administering individuals, families and communities share “equity and governance” in their area’s production and are bound in solidarity with others’ areas, including through economic integration and socio-cultural exchange.

African normative worldview

Social teachings of the African people across its vast landscape and old history invariably focus attention on relationships in community. If, “I think therefore I am” formed the basis of Classic Romantic thought, “I am because you are” captures the essence of Ubuntu, the African philosophy of relationships. To be in tuned with the harmonic of life, is to align with the purpose of our spirit.

Ubuntu

Ubu and ntu are inseparable components of the African word signifying genuine solidarity. Ubu is a moving essence totally undifferentiated while ntu is a concrete form in a unitary state that tends towards Ubu. Together they describe human nature. Importantly, African’s have described God’s creation in terms of musical harmonics and it is the responsibility of people to attune to divine order. Ubuntu is a word used more and more frequently to identify the cultural platform the African Renaissance.

Divine order

All religions agree that creation is made in the image and likeness of the Divine Creator. What are the geometric forms this order takes? What are its numerological manifestations? And what about the stars in the sky and the cosmos in general? Many of all faiths have studied these questions. In the process they discovered math, astrology, astronomy, fine art and many other great discoveries. In Nilotic cultures, God is singular, but His power manifests in multitudes of forms which take an inherent set of values and institutions that approximate this divine order.

Indigenous values

Man is created equal. He stems from a common root. That root is the core of Mankind’s spirituality. It is by its nature guided by intuitive and learned behaviour that should approximate its image in the likeness of its Creator. Indigenous values are universal human values that define human dignity. They come from within.

Solidarity

When people unite secure in their self-determination, the bond is economic, political, social and cultural. Fundamentally it is human, and it is natural like the indigenous values and economics that stem from doing on to others, as we would have them do unto us.

Abyei People’s Dialogue

From June 2-9, 2003, the Ngok Dinka of Abyei convened a meeting of the people on the south side of the River Kiir. They came in their hundreds. Some by foot over many miles, while others flew in from Nairobi and across the Diaspora. A large number of delegates from Khartoum were prevented from coming, including the Missiriya guests. Nonetheless, the Abyei People’s Dialogue launched the Abyei Recovery to Development Roadmap and the Abyei Area Strategic Plan.

Bridge between North and South

What does it mean for Abyei to be a bridge between North and South? One thing is definite. No matter what happens in the referendum in 2011, the people of the border will still have to coexist and the North and South Sudan will remain neighbours with a range of mutual interests. African colonial borders divided many nations, and the chance for Missiriya and Ngok to bridge the North / South divide sets a tall order.

Nine Strategic objectives

The AASAP consists of nine priority sectors, each with its own strategic objective. Sudan ARC provides basic services within each of these categories. To see the programs and how they relate, visit the programs section of this website.

Sudan’s troubled north-south crossroads

The Abyei Diaspora Conference convened in Phoenix Arizona from July 2-4, 2004 brought together hundreds of Sudanese and friends under the theme, Sudan’s Troubled North-South Crossroads. In plenary, the Conference endorsed Diaspora support to the Sudan ARC, which is also mentioned as article #100 of the strategic action plan.

In letter and spirit

All of the leaders who have signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement have agreed to do so in letter and spirit. Getting this degree of commitment is ultimately the key to a just and lasting peace.

Oil revenues to fuel agriculture

The slogan “using oil revenue to fuel agriculture” was a favourite of the Late Dr. John Garang. If implemented, this slogan could overcome the dreaded resource course that plagues African countries, particularly those with oil wealth. This possibility is part of the reason why Dr. John Garang would refer to Abyei as a model.

Missiriya Arab

The Ancient Sudanese who are the product of mixing between the Arab world and indigenous Africans are set to be among the most devout. They combine many elements of African culture, and in many ways are just as African as Arab. But the assimilation of racial perceptions that are now outdated has fuelled fierce conflicts of identity between Missiriya and indigenous African. Because of the livelihood insecurity of the Missiriya who are precariously located at the edge of an expanding Sahara desert, seasonal access to water and grazing on the land of the Dinka is essential for their existence.