No IDPs, No Militias, No Problem

[Mohamed Suliman]

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Darfur Problem, What Darfur Problem?
There are no IDPs, there are no Militias!

Throwing out all major international humanitarian aid organizations from the stricken region of Darfur was an astonishingly unwarranted act to do. It confirmed to all those who doubted the guilt of Al Bashier and his regime, the blatant brutal nature of both. It was a disastrous PR move. So why did the regime do it? Surely they must have anticipated a backlash from such an irresponsible action! They certainly were aware of the extremely negative impact that decision will have on world public opinion. But they desperately wanted those potential enlightened witnesses out of the scene. They were hatching a big plan to execute and needed to launch their new onslaught quickly and firmly. There was no time to lose. They wanted and still want two things done in thorough haste.

Evacuate the camps and destroy the armed militias of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the SLM.

To carryout the first objective, they will use all dirty tricks in their books.
Terrorize the IDPs and at the same time entice some of them with the prospect of settling down in 'nice villages', (a few of which do actually exist).

Reduce and then stop providing fuel (previously provided by the expelled international NGOs) to the water pumps and people will have to dig wells or leave the camps; this scenario is now happening in some camps.

Reduce and then stop the latrine service, also previously financed by the expelled NGOs, and people will find continued living in the camps hazardous, this nasty act has already happened in some camps.

Send in security soldiers masquerading as armed bands to loot the few possessions of the IDPs and threaten them with torture and death if they stayed in the camps. Such armed groups are now roaming some of the big camps.

There is a thousand and one ways to frighten, intimidate and cajole. The regime knows them all and has used them all before, countless of times.

The next step will be to sign a peace agreement with the Justice and Equality Movement, JEM, the Darfurian Islamist movement supported by influential international Islamist backers. Qatar in cohort with the International Islamic Movement is catering for that. The treatment signed; unleash JEM together with the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army on the militias of the SLM, who are now weakened by paucity of international assistance.

In perhaps one year's time, the IDPs will be gone, dispersed all over Darfur, Kordofan and the rest of northern Sudan. (At the time, there are some six million internally displaced people in the Sudan living mainly at the edges of towns. Two more million Darfurian IDPs would swell their ranks disastrously)

Some IDPs may manage to escape to Chad. But all in all the problem of the IDPs will be 'solved', the regime's way. I can envisage seeing Al Bashier heading a big celebration and setting fire to the camps and declaring that the Sudan has finally solved the refugee problem and that he is now getting rid of these symbols of national shame for ever!

JEM and the Janjaweed will help the army seek and destroy the camps of the SLM. And whether they fully succeed or not they will claim victory and TV cameras will show the Sudanese people and may be the rest of the world how the combined force has at last cleared Darfur of all highwaymen, bandits and robbers!

The government will triumphantly claim that it has finally resolved the Darfur problem, the Sudanese way. No IDPs and no militias, no problem.

The regime will then ask the world, what are you crying foul about? Darfur is now in peace. The refugees have gone voluntarily back home. The militias have been defeated or have surrendered. There is no trouble in Darfur any more. So shut up all of you all over the world who have been deriding us of committing irregularities or even unjust acts in Darfur, we have solved the problem, not you.

And now we have achieved this great triumph, is there an atom of reason why you should want to take our president to the International Criminal Court, the ICC?
Do you really want to prosecute the very man, who with great wisdom and statesmanship has solved a problem the whole world struggled with for so many years in vain?

If you doubt that this scenario could ever happen, think again.

Mohamed Suliman
London
March 2009