Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Friday appointed a chief administrator for the contested oil region of Abyei where fighting three months ago threatened to reignite a north-south civil war.
His political partners and former foes in the south immediately welcomed the move, which follows cross-party talks and comes more than three years after a 2005 peace deal called for a joint administration in the volatile area.
Beshir issued a presidential decree naming Arop Moyak, a senior southern military officer, as chief administrator and Rahama Abdel Rahman al-Nour, the local chairman of Beshir’s main ruling National Congress Party (NCP), as deputy.
He gave them two weeks to name a seven-member administrative council and an additional area council of 20, officials said.
Fighting in Abyei last May between former foes, the armed forces of northern and southern Sudan, was seen as the biggest threat to the 2005 peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war after more than 1.5 million people were killed.
Under a road map for Abyei signed on June 8, north and south were to deploy joint military units and appoint an administration to govern the area after that fighting displaced more than 30,000 people and killed at least 89 others.
“I think this is the last hurdle that we had and it’s now cleared,” said Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed, the NCP official responsible for Abyei.
Once the administration is in place, it should oversee the return of displaced people and the dispensing of resources pledged by the national unity government and the Sudanese presidency from oil revenue, Ahmed said.
“Of course it means a real opportunity for the people of the area to have access to the peace dividend,” he said.
Friday’s decree comes with Sudan just over half way through implementing the six-year 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, beset by a catalogue of delays that enshrined the principle of a joint administration in Abyei.
At the end of the agreement in 2011, Abyei is to hold a referendum on whether to retain its special administrative status in the north, or join the semi-autonomous south, which could decide in a separate referendum to secede.
The region’s estimated half-billion-dollar oil wealth is bitterly contested by Sudan’s Arab north and Christian and animist south.
The ethnic rivalry in Abyei pits the Ngok Dinka, who dominate the town and villages to the south, and are generally sympathetic to the south, against nomadic Arab tribesmen who migrate seasonally to graze their livestock.
The information minister in semi-autonomous southern Sudan, Gabriel Changson Chang, said that the 20-member area council would include 12 members from the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and eight from the NCP.
The extra five administrators, who would make up the administrative council with Moyak and Nour would include three from the SPLM and two from the NCP.
“Thank God they have agreed at last to have an administration for the Abyei area, so we welcome it. Better late than never,” Chang said.
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