The Commission of the African Union has announced its “disappointment over the postponement of the Abyei community leaders’ reconciliation meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Addis Ababa, from 20 to 24 June 2015.”
The meeting would have brought together Misseriya and Dinka Ngok leaders from Abyei. Recently, the paramount chief of the Dinka Ngok, Bulabek Deng Kuol, said they wanted more internal consensus before going to the meeting.
Radio Tamazuj reported earlier this week that Kuol’s remarks pointed to tensions between the Ngok tribal leadership and the Abyei Joint Oversight Committee (AJOC) representatives for South Sudan, who are also ethnically Ngok Dinka but work for the South Sudanese government.
In a press release on Wednesday, the African Union disclosed that its facilitator Boitshoko Mokgatlhe had conducted “extensive consultations” with community leaders from both sides and the UN Interim Security Force in Abyei (UNISFA) in preparation for the conference.
“In the course of those consultations, the parties indicated that their respective Governments had offered their full support for the convening of the traditional leaders meeting. UNISFA and the AU, on their part, agreed to make the necessary arrangements,” reads the statement.
It explains, “The Sudanese delegation arrived in Addis Ababa on 19 June 2015. Despite continued indications during the previous days by South Sudan that their community leaders would participate in the proposed reconciliation meeting, on 19 June 2015, the AJOC Facilitator was informed that the South Sudanese community leaders would not take part in the meeting in Addis Ababa and that they were requesting an indefinite postponement to resolve internal challenges relating to their participation.”
“Without the participation of the South Sudanese delegation, the Commission was compelled to cancel the meeting.”