Panthou is Southern Territory

By Garang Kuot Kuot

July 26, 2009 — The long awaited ruling on the contested Abyei boundaries by the Hague based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) has finally come and passed thus bringing about a much needed relief. The ruling on Abyei boundaries had captured international attention while creating unprecendented anxiety among the wider Sudanese community both at home and around the world.

Days leading to the announcement of the Award, no one could tell the future of Sudan; for many, it was the beginning of another bloody and protracted military confrontation between the North and South of Sudan. Thank God both parties received and accepted the ruling with honour despite some feelings of dissatisfaction.

However, the nature upon which the ruling was done left more confusion among Sudanese masses than clarity. After watching a televised announcement of the Award beaming in all the way from the Hague, many were left wondering how it had ended. Understandably, the ruling was quite compex for far too many people to comprehend. It will indeed take long before a lot of people understand what has really been decided in the Hague.

This confusion is quite evident in Northern Sudan. The ruling was received with somewhat exagerated euporia particularly among the Northern circles who blatantly misunderstood court’s ruling as having allocated the ownership of Panthou/Heglig oil fields to the North. This misplaced understanding of the Award clearly overlooked the mandate of the PCA. The PCA was not damarcating the boundaries between the South and the North which would esentially determine the ownership of the disputed oil field at panthou. Instead, the court was only trying to identify and deliminate the boundaries comprising of the nine chiefdoms of the Ngok Dinka which it correctly did.

In effect, the PCA was very explicit about its mandate. In its press statement on the Abyei Award, the PCA articulated its mandate as pertaining to:

"Whether or not the ABC Experts had, on the basis of the agreement of the Parties as per the CPA, exceeded their mandate which is ‘to define (i.e. delimit) and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905’ as stated in the Abyei Protocol, and reiterated in the Abyei Appendix and the ABC Terms of Reference and Rules of Procedure."

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