Border Demarcation To Begin 20th Feb 2011, Says GOSS Minister

16 February 2011 – (Juba) – The GOSS Minister for Peace and C-P-A Implementation has announced that the north-south border demarcation will begin on Sunday the 20th of February.

The SPLM and the NCP have so far agreed over eighty percent of the border that distinguishes the south from the North.

Addressing the weekly media forum on Tuesday in Juba, Pagan Amum said that the demarcation of both agreed and contested areas will begin simultaneously.

[Pagan Amum]: “The north-south border technical committee to demarcate the border will start the process on Sunday. We have agreed to demarcate the border simultaneously, the areas that are agreed and also the areas that are not agreed. So that you define them, establish their coordinates and then we will sit to discuss. About eighty percent of the border is agreed, twenty percent of the area is contested. And the areas which are contested in actual fact and we have documents are all part of southern Sudan.”

Mister Amum added that the Government of Southern Sudan still keeps records of documents indicating that most contested areas in the border including Abyei belongs to the south as stipulated in 1956 agreement.

[Pagan Amum]: “There is a report which we also have. In that report, it has clearly been settled that Hufrat Al-Nihas and Kafia Kanji are part of southern Sudan. That the border between southern Sudan and Darfur is River Kiir; that Joda and Magenes are part of southern Sudan, and that, what was to be carried out is a referendum for the members of the community, that of the nine Ng'ok- Dinka chiefdoms for them to decide whether to come back to the south or remain in the north. This is even the government of Sudan document.”

A member of the Border Demarcation Committee, Engineer Riek Dogor Juer however said that the committee is facing several challenges.

[Riek Dogor Juer]:“Our challenges in planning are that we are yet to agree on who will manage the situation on the ground. We have not yet agreed on it. There is a management unit that will provide all those things and the committee will be in contact with that management unit for reporting which is yet to be discussed in details and to be agreed on. Secondly, the demarcation together with reconnaissance has to go smoothly in our program. We fixed all of them in the calendar but yet to agree on how and which areas to be taken for inspection.”

Border demarcation between the south and north is one of the contentious issues being discussed between the two partners of the CPA as part of the post referendum issues.