Flash point coming up... July 22

The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration has fixed July 22 as the date of the announcement of the Abyei boundary... this is potentially huge... fighting between SAF and SPLA already had broken out in May 2008 and the town was destroyed... rarely does a flash point come so definitively announced in advance.

Final Award of the Tribunal

The Arbitral Tribunal will render its Final Award in the case at the Peace Palace on July 22, 2009, 10:00 a.m. For further details, please refer to this press release.

The ceremony will be webcast live on this website beginning at approximately 10:00 a.m. (CET; GMT +2), July 22, 2009.

I don't know enough about boundary law to know what they are going to decide. If they want to punt they will say there were irregularities in ABC commission (it "exceeded its mandate"), and so its report is invalid, and then throw the ball back to the two parties. But the people of Abyei, Messeriya and Dinka, will presumably decide at that point to take matters into their own hands. The NCP government appointed indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun (he of Darfur janjawid coordination) to be governor of South Kordofan... but was it preparation for armed resolution of the "problem" or a firm hand to keep the Messeirya from bringing the country back to war? Hard to know.