Sudanese ethnic conflict 'could eclipse Darfur'

Khartoum: Darfur is the recognisable conflict, but another, arguably more explosive, battle is brewing in Sudan.

This flash point is Abyei, a small, ethnically diverse enclave on the border between the Arab north and the African south. Now, a dispute is under way over who should control the district.

Split between Arab nomads and non-Arab farmers, cultures once blended in Abyei. But a sharp line has been drawn between two political forces that fought a civil war to a draw.

After a failed US-led mediation effort, Abyei has become a rallying cry for war. What's at stake? Pastureland, oil wells, and the continuation of a three-year-old peace deal that ended the 20-year civil war that killed more than 2 million Sudanese.

"You have two big entities: The National Congress party leading the country from Khartoum for nearly 20 years and major rebel groups on the other side, and both sides will not compromise on Abyei," says John Prendergast, of the Enough Project in Washington. "Then you add in oil."

"Unless there is a very significant form of external mediation, backed by significant carrots and sticks, we're not going to see a resolution," he adds.

"There is no interest, no desire on the part of the government to go back to war, because there is nothing to be gained from it," says Gazi Salahuddin, the parliamentary leader of the National Congress Party, which has a majority of seats in the national legislature. "My assumption is that [the south] has enough sense to realise that war is not in their interests. It will be a disaster for Sudan."

But the conflict may have already begun. On December 21, armed nomadic herdsmen clashed with troops of the Southern Sudanese military (the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, or SPLA) near the town of Al Miram. Thirty Arab nomads were killed in the subsequent fighting.

A lack of security has attracted Islamist rebels from nearby South Darfur. Last year, members of a Darfur-based rebel group launched attacks against Chinese-run oil wells in Abyei and peacekeepers from the African Union.

Before the civil war between north and south Sudan, from 1983 to 2005, conflicts in Abyei were dealt with by its two main communities, the Dinka and the Messeriya Arabs.

Abdul Rasool Al Nour, a Messeriya elder, says that the civil war has destroyed the trust between the two.

"This is a dangerous situation, with the nomads fighting the SPLA," he says. "We want a demarcation of boundaries by a national committee. I'm hopeful, because I know the relations between the tribes... how much each tribe needs each other. But we have the curse of the oil."