The critical plight of IDPs in northern Sudan
Sudan is a country with the highest number of IDPs in the world. Since 2003 when Darfur revolution kicked off, the number soared from 4 to 6 million. One time during north-south conflict, the former UN Chief appointed Dr. Francis Mading Deng to head UN body responsible for the rights of internally displaced persons, IDPs. The interest of UN appointing one of Sudan’s distinguished officials wasn't a coincidence of Sudanese heritage hosting IDPs. It is on record that during his tenure heading IDP department in the UN, Dr. Francis Deng never had good working relationship with Sudanese government headed then by strict Islamist-cum-theologians-cum military leaders in Khartoum. When he visited Sudan after his appointment, Dr. Francis Deng could not accomplish much in the country in a capacity he was representing. He was physically prevented from visiting IDP camps around Khartoum. Dr. Francis Deng could not hear the atrocities and experiences the IDPs were undergoing in northern Sudan. Dr. Francis Deng was lucky to visit his homeland (Abyei) because of his international stature; otherwise he was a persona non grata just by his ethnicity in the country let alone his statesmanship with distinguished diplomatic record he scored for the country that turned against him.
In 2000 during his visit to Sudan, Dr. Francis Deng did not receive written complains from the IDPs in the camps but they sung dirges, sad songs, put funeral outfits and they danced dances of disaster times; all in the language of his suffering people. He shook his head; a message was communicated with northern security agents not knowing. Well, southern Sudan and the whole country will thank UN for appointing one of her sons as a representative of IDPs in the world. Dr. Francis Deng will always remain an embodiment of an IDP, a refugee and world citizen despite humiliation by his countrymen. While his country is undergoing political metamorphosis, one day his people will give him full recognition as a full citizen. Dr. Francis Deng left a remarkable footprint of courage and perseverance for his colleague Walter Kälin and others. The choice of Dr. Francis Deng was not a mistake but an act that came out of deep reflection and consultations leading to unmatchable honor bestowed on him. A round image of an experience in the life of a man who was first displaced from his homeland of Abyei, becoming an IDP in Khartoum, a refugee and a world citizen; a lifetime patron for IDPs worldwide.
Unwelcomed guests
From 1983 to 2005, for those who lived or had the occasion of being in the north and witnessed for themselves how south Sudanese were treated by their northern Sudanese fellow citizens, that experience brings into memory a big question; "whose vote will be decisive during 2011 referendum? Those who lived in the south during the 21-year struggle or those who lived as IDPs in the north?
It is only matter of time; refugees, IDPs and those who lived under SPLA\M administration should rest assured as they played 'awet' (Mungula) under those big trees. No where on planet earth that human beings, even how strange they are, will be unwelcome and separated from host communities as if they belong to different species. During mass displacement that occurred in Sudan during war of liberation, it happened for marginalized citizens from Nuba Mountains, southern Sudan, southern Blue Nile and Darfur. Sudan, being the most racist country in the world, with some tribes in northern Sudan controlling gates to highest government offices in the country, for the last decades reluctantly set up camps for the IDPs fleeing war but with stringent condition of no ownership of the land being used. The IDPs coming out of war zones were deprived of work, proper settlements and other basic services; often located at the peripheries to cover major towns from natural disasters such as rains, floods, cold and 'haboub'-desert winds. Living in the north for IDPs was not leisure occasion or tourism but final choice of survival with a wait for the lasting peace in the country. It was a common belief that the IDPs would pollute local culture by bringing in “new behaviors†so foreign to Islamic north. Police forces were put around IDP camps with hidden agenda of cohabitating with IDPs women with ultimate aim of creating a generation of mixed race, who in the future would create chaos among their black uncles and marginalized communities in southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains, southern Blue Nile and Darfur.
The plan of creating a new generation is well documented in the Nuba Mountains, Juba, Malakal, Abyei, Wau and other major towns in northern Sudan. All the IDPs who lived in the north will remember the quarantines of Dar es Salaam, Jebel Awliya, Khor Omer, Rokab, Nyada, Kombo, Hai Philip and the 'Cartons' shanties that dotted the peripheries of Khartoum, Port Sudan, Nyala, El-Obeid and Kosti. IDPs were made into scapegoats and laughing stock. Sudan, the largest country in Africa with many geographical features could not offer plots of land for settlements to its IDPs. Many NGOs such as UN, CARE, and church-based bodies tirelessly failed to convince Sudanese government to provide arable land for its citizens from marginalized regions. The trial by UN to secure agricultural plots in Buram, southern Darfur in 2000 was the only recorded effort though it failed; it proved a sign of good faith. CARE (NGO) entered a bogus deal with Sudan government in En Nahud in 2001-2002 to resettle targeted 16, 000 IDPs from Warap and Northern Bahr El Ghazal. The IDPs within months were forced back into former camp because the land allocated for them were long gone, sold to locals.
Islamic Sharia and IDPs
Having been left with nothing except strength and freedom to settle in the north through torturous means, marginalized Sudanese found themselves in the land that rejected them during Jaafar Nimeiri's time: 1969-1985 when all black Sudanese were ferried forcefully back to Darfur, Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and southern Sudan. With no employment and means of livelihood, IDPs found themselves in the jaws of odd business that conflict with Islamic Sharia in the north. Brewing and selling of beer and liquor was practiced by IDPs because it was lucrative and rewarding since the beer and liquor consumers were northerners who, at night would sneak into IDP camps to intoxicate heavily. As they went back into their workplaces and homes, jeered and laughed at by their spouses and neighbors, chances to concoct stories of theft, sexual immorality etc. were ripe; soon the dreaded Public Order Police will be at full force to mishandle IDP homes and settlements. This attitude became unbearable humiliation for IDPs as people with history and proud heritage.
Today in northern Sudan, each south Sudanese, Nuba or Darfur IDP homes are seen as points of immorality and bars. Many IDPs will remember how even south Sudanese high government officials whose houses and sources of income were well-known by northern security personnel were broken into by public order police with search warrants for illegal brewing of liquors and forbidden drinks. The temptation for further illustration of the situation is so great that I apologize for taking you into my poetry that captures the everyday pain:
Ka’sha (forceful recruitment)
They have arrived,
Imbecile boys in green,
Jumping violently
From their common lorries
To carry their raids on us their mothers.
They have come
To spill beer
That our ancestors drank
During our marriages,
Naming ceremonies,
Funeral dances.
I will tell my ancestors
That you’re against them,
You boys in green.
You came and looted
Pans,
In which you ate.
Glasses,
From which you drank.
Beds,
On which you were born
Even your dead father’s coat.
I shall see now,
Where you will get your food from
Search for me
If you can
For six months,
I shall be in Omdurman prison, sentenced
For brewing traditional beer of my ancestors.
Kaku,
They are heading towards Mayo
To raid Ihisa’s house
Then to Fitehab,
Spotting others
Destined for dreaded Omdurman.
Never die, never die,
Legge my son,
Hunger and loneliness are yours today.
Six months shall come and pass
Many months will follow,
My hands shall brew more beer
Feeding and educating you my son,
This land, this land Legge, isn’t ours. (The Bone Of My Heart, Lulu publication, 2006)
Proselytism and assimilation policy:
With smallest degree of crime like brewing beer or stealing chickens, IDPs who found themselves in northern Sudan prisons were coerced to become Muslims because they were threatened to face severe punishments if they did not convert to Islam. Christian preachers and other moderate officers were not allowed to follow their cases or inform their relatives. In those prisons, IDPs are pestered and persuaded to embrace Islam to receive instant freedom. In prisons, secrecy is the order of the day to deal with prisoners who should, in advanced countries be given chances for legal defense. For most IDPs who are unfortunate, conversion is still going on in prisons undisturbed with neutralized teeth of CPA in place. Other south Sudanese and IDPs from other marginalized regions would defend their act by justifying that they had no other ways except to become Muslims so as to feed their families. Many IDPs were forced to become Muslims so as to work as cooks, porters, assistant drivers, cleaners even to bake bread in the towns. 
By 1991, few years after the establishment of theocratic regime of national Islamic front, all government departments had mosques built inside them for everyone to pray when prayers were called for by muezzins. Offices were and are still being shut in northern Sudan regardless of one's religion during normal working hours. The army, ministries, police, churches and even private sectors became Islamic hotbeds. This was not only intended to fight SPLA\M opposition but to create a “pure†Islamic Empire extending inland into sub-Saharan Africa. The new wave of converting former Christians to Islam between 1989 and 1997; (when Khartoum Peace Agreement was signed) was viewed by the Islamists in Khartoum as victory because number was important for them. For elderly IDPs it was a matter of lying low and praying for proper time to say the truth in their tongues some day. The Islamists first wanted new names for all the new converts.
But that view was challenged by 1992 when top south Sudanese were told to carry on with their official names secretly. The string attached was that they pray five times a day and have some 'stamps' somewhere on their bodies. It worked. IDPs that never went for prayers in the mosques or never frequented Friday prayers were purged out of their jobs immediately. They became MURTAD or renegades who deserve death and nothing less. Those who were 'given' northern Sudanese 'Arab' women were spied on by their own spouses who were to report to some Sheikhs in the locality whose missions were to reinforce Islam on the newly converted IDPs.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and IDPs:
Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) came with much blessing and reward for all Sudanese when it was jubilantly signed on 9th January 2005. CPA was the only answer to IDPs' decades of quest. The most jubilant and joyous people during signing ceremony in Nairobi while being watched worldwide were the IDPs as they glued onto their TV screens with sense of disbelief seeing Nafie Ali Nafie, Ali Osman and Dr. John Garang shaking hands. Peace was IDPs' livelong dream; among them, the majority was born in the shacks around northern Sudan. Can you remember the 6 million souls who came out on Friday 8th July 2005 to receive Dr. John Garang in Khartoum? IDPs broke protective fences and structures to receive their legend and peace icon.
Dr. John Garang was the only answer to their suffering and patience they bore until that day of his triumphal return. Dr. John Garang's tears were for the IDPs as confirmed later by his close aides. As of now, for south Sudan, Nuba Mountains, and southern Blue Nile, CPA has brought them further worries and uncertainties, damning their pre-CPA great expectations. Not only is CPA a shaky peace deal, it is tempered with so badly that violation in the articles leaves a loophole for further abuse that infringes basic human rights. CPA is a world's document that should not only be safeguarded by its signatories but by those who control affairs of the world. Today CPA is not only made blind about rights of IDPs but it has also become lame to walk along the corridors of assistance to facilitate safe return of the IDPs to their homelands.
Trapped in Darfur and Kordofan
Darfur and Kordofan border south Sudan from western fringe. South Sudanese are trapped in Kordofan and Darfur where they are not noticed by any NGOs, humanitarian or human right bodies. Dangerous points and towns for IDPs in Kordofan are Abuzabad, Qubeish, En Nahud and Babanusa, with hundreds of villages within Misseriya areas. While the situation of IDPs in Kordofan is a little better, in Darfur the situation became different since February 2003 when Darfur revolution kicked off. Though in the past, 1983-2005 Darfur was the most peaceful place for south Sudanese IDPs, with the exception of Ed Daein's Massacre of 1987, the hospitality is not accorded today because of the high proportion of violence there. The reason is not being hatred for south Sudanese IDPs but the presence of guns and other dangerous weapons, coupled with lawlessness, which create gaps for ill intentions for criminal-ridden Janjaweed and other bought-off rebel fighters. Today IDPs are without direction, guidance or hope for ever leaving Darfur that has become hostile even for its own citizens. Originally IDPs were not involved in the conflict directly; all the fighting groups were having sympathy for them and maximum encouragement for immediate end to the crisis. Since Darfur took up arms against the central government, most IDPs could not link up with their siblings, guardians and other authorities that could have helped them out of the situation that has trapped them behind rebel lines with limited access. All over Darfur in major towns like; Nyala, Mahjiria, Abu'Ajura, Ed Daein, Tuesha, Haskenita, Alait, Gereida, Adilla, Mozrub, Buram, Fasher and Abu'Jabra; south Sudanese IDPs are camped outside the towns with deplorable conditions. They have twice been displaced between 1983 and 2007.
The GoSS and GoNU officials tend to help few IDPs who are around 'triangle of development'; White Nile, Gezira, Khartoum and Red Sea states. In the past, some south Sudan states through the visiting governors facilitated voluntary return for few IDPs. Empty promises dominate GoSS official talks. When will IDPs get an answer?
Pending cases:
Thousands of IDP court cases are pending in northern Sudan. When an IDP is killed by a northerner, (Diya) or blood-money is paid to the relatives of the deceased according to Islamic penal code. That compensation in form of money is $ 16, 000 in principle. But for IDPs things are much worse, with judges normally taking long and sometimes years to frustrate the financially ill-equipped IDPs who cannot hire lawyers. The usual amount to get a lawyer if reached is about $ 4, 000 and given in installments. When an IDP kills a northern Sudanese, the trial is always quick with demand for capital punishment. Chapter II, part I, 16. 2. 5, (d) of CPA says; "In the determination of any criminal charge against him\her, everyone shall be entitled, in full equality, to be tried without undue delay, to be tried in his\her presence and defend himself\herself in person or through legal assistance of his\her choosing…"
Court cases involving IDPs in northern Sudan resembles the old saying; "In the tribunal of cats, rats are always guilty." Few patriotic judges with angelic consciences are always transferred from one town to the next before their final exit into the unknown world out of Sudan Judiciary. GoSS has employed hundreds of legal advisors; why can some of them not be moved to Khartoum, Port Sudan, Qubeish, Nyala or Dongola to follow up IDPs who are waiting trials or involved in court cases?
Lost for eternity: slavery
There are lost IDPs in northern Sudan whose whereabouts are hard to trace because of condoned enslavement in the region. These women, children, old and youth are kept in confinements where they are induced and indoctrinated to forget their identity. Over a period of time as it happened during the war, abducted children were told that they are already Arabs and Muslims. To integrate them into Arabic culture, they are to undergo circumcision and other forms of cultural prerequisites. Better performance and test of gold by the masters may earn someone full disappearance of their trace when they will be 'given' women among fellow abducted slaves who underwent rapes from younger age. IDP kids who escape from beatings and abuses by their masters end up in the streets where they get more abuses; it leads them to drugs like glue, hashish, liquor etc. Sexual abuse of IDP girls and boys are being ignored by state police and often they themselves commit the crimes under cover of darkness in the streets of cities and towns. In the villages, IDP women are raped in the farms where they are isolated from their protective husbands.
Before the historic peace agreement; one James Aguer Alic, 2003 World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child winner and long time freedom fighter, freed many slaves in Kordofan and Darfur through his organization called CEAWC (Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children). By 2005 James Aguer Alic was supposed to hand over his responsibility to GoSS or UN that should have continued retrieving thousands of south Sudanese abducted women, children and old people still in northern Sudan. It was reported in 2004 that some former slaves who were taken to southern Sudan did not receive fair welcome. They did not integrate as chiefs and local community leaders as they couldn’t trace their relatives. They opted back to their “masters†in Kordofan and Darfur. GoSS must have its Resettlement and Rehabilitation Commission headquarters in Nimule, Akobo, Kapoeta, Kaya, Renk, Abyei and Malual. Is Juba suitable for it right now with Kakuma and Kirnyandongo emptying? CPA beautifully states in chapter II part I, 16. 2. 3 "No one shall be held in slavery; slavery and the slave trade in all their forms shall be prohibited. No one shall be held in servitude or be required to perform forced or compulsory labor." James Aguer Alic who started gathering children, women and old former slaves as early as 1980s will be remembered only by the victims of that act. GoSS should seek his experience at the highest level of its performing government. Will all south Sudanese, Nuba or Funj, Darfuri IDPs be rescued totally from northern Sudan in our lifetime? It is a million dollar question. There is a big number of IDPs who count their affiliation nowhere, without ethnic groups, without social standing. Was south Sudan liberation a curse for them? Has CPA brought them hope or total loss of their limited freedom? On their way to their homelands, will they remember the onion of northern Sudan like the Israelites in the desert?
Looming uncertainties
With SPLA\M political withdrawal from the central government in Khartoum, things are getting bleaker for IDPs in northern Sudan. There is race for going back home but yet political leaders at the level of GoSS or GoNU are unconcerned because there seems to be other important things to be done at various levels of governments. It is ironic because politicians who should vie for important offices should think of these forgotten people who could boost their constituencies back home once they are there.
The only hope for all IDPs was the presence of SPLM officials whose presence in Khartoum was a guarantee for their safety. With absence of 'father's protection' now in Khartoum, the IDPs are loosing hope faster because their security could be compromised should hostility return between south and north.
Vulnerability: The IDPs are the most vulnerable section in northern Sudan. All IDP camps are situated normally miles away from nearby cities, towns and villages. Even towns with insignificant settlements, IDPs are usually discriminated against and treated as infidels and outcasts, yet Sudan is their country. The pretension for attractive unity is so great that the very IDPs who could be messengers of unity in the country are being forced to be the opposing messengers to Sudan's unity. The experience in the north could change the face of Sudan politics forever given the chance and option for referendum in 2011.
Scattered like seeds, IDPs possess untold stories that may take hundreds of years to tell, that of the hatred, violence, abuse and deaths they suffered during 21-year period in the hands of northern Sudanese. Northern Sudan is not the scene where their stories should be told. GoSS should act swiftly to secure safe return of the IDPs home. In northern states, Kordofan and Darfur, IDPs became laughing stock during the war. Odd jobs were done by none other than them. Encouraging IDPs to go back to south Sudan, Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile is not an incitement to separation or catalyst for creation of a Black State within the Sudan as those of Atyeib Mustafa and Hassan Mekki are advocating in their papers of hatred towards southerners.
Their demand for Arab-Islamic State is not being prevented by southerners. Each human being would wish to live and die home peacefully despite the poverty and underdevelopment they suffer. But IDPs with skills and education acquired in exile should be given chance to expand and widen their horizons and feel for the first time that they have a homeland. Recognition of IDPs by GoSS could be a great healing and self recovery for the traumatic experiences they encountered in northern Sudan.
Warap and Nothern Bahr El Ghazal States
It makes one sick when hearing or reading about governors and MPs from either National Unity Government or Government of Southern Sudan talking to big assemblies around Khartoum’s triple towns about IDPs returning home. Talks should be distinguished from truth which the politicians from Southern Sudan must be made to understand. For the best part of the just ended civil war, millions of Southern Sudanese are scattered around Kordofan and Darfur and neighboring states. To be exact, take a trip from El-Obeid-Tuesha-Meiram triangle and find out for yourself how the IDPs are suffering despite the passing of CPA’s second anniversary. Within the triangle, there are big towns both in Kordofan and Darfur.
Firstly, both governments; (GoNU & GoSS) must know that the IDPs live under several armed groups; SAF, SLA, JEM and little downward beyond Meiram and Abyei, SPLA forces. Being traumatized for over two decades, further military presence in their lives jeopardizes their livelihood. There are some efforts by the two north-south conflict veterans who now run Warap and North Bahr el Gahazal states. Cdrs. Bol Madut and Dut Biar who have mammoth work to do with their states in southern Sudan should demand for more funds from GoSS to facilitate smooth IDPs' return to their villages. It is an open invitation for the two hardworking senior SPLM leaders to visit Kordofan and Darfur to see the faces of their people who have no one to take them home. H.E Dut Biar has gone an extra mile by opening a liaison office in El-Obeid, a step that should be taken also by his brother in Kwajok.
Darfur is the next station if they have finished with Kordofan. The two corridors of Abyei and Meiram or Malual should be highly protected by SPLA or JIU because IDPs are using the towns for their final journeys home. This measure is to avoid previous incidences that resulted into loss of lives by returning IDPs. Thumbs must be raised higher for Cdrs. Yasir Said Arman, Daniel Kodi Angelo and Malik Agar for their frequent visits to the IDPs. Dr. Tabitha Butrus Shokai reached them at times of calamities like recent floods and outbreak of diseases.
Urgent way forward
There are no NGOs or any humanitarian bodies to help the IDPs with voluntary repatriations to their homelands. If there are concerned bodies, then they are not yet out there for the IDPs. Some GoSS officials tried but under individual initiatives, IOM is doing some work but with limited mandate. The IDPs are tired and have to be resettled back in the south, Nuba Mountains, southern Blue Nile and soon to Darfur. During war time, they were engaged in doing subhuman works; crop-sharing cultivation-enslavement method (Kordofan and Darfur), menial work, herding, wells digging, etc.
Many villages have become towns at the cost of the IDPs. That was why in the past, local government authorities would convince NGOs by presenting the inhuman state of the IDPs in their project-proposals for grants that will benefit only local population when the projects are implemented. The IDPs became sacrificial lambs for the host communities in northern Sudan; they became economic backbone of sprawling towns with industries. The IDPs upgraded villages to towns; now they just want to take their children home for free education they never received in the IDP camps. Theirs, was a situation where the entire family household has to go and cultivate in the fields from May to December, sometimes exceeding to January.
All constitutional post holders in Khartoum and Juba have to acquaint themselves with the situations of the IDPs in Kordofan and Darfur, the most marginalized triangle for south Sudanese IDPs. One day when the governors or MPs visit these people, they will find themselves in real exiled constituencies waiting to be taken home. MPs and governors from Warap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal, where majority of the IDPs in Kordofan and Darfur come from, should know that the very people who will contribute to the development of their respective states are the very people they are ignoring today in the IDP camps. Among the IDPs, there are builders, farmers, bakers, bricklayers, mechanics etc. who could help out easily with rebuilding State Headquarters, roads, schools, hospitals etc. Those IDPs in Khartoum are too close for recognition but there are thousands or a couple of million IDPs in Kordofan and Darfur? These states are second home-settlement for south Sudanese. Khartoum by the way is not the only city where IDPs are found. Majority of IDPs left it because it rejected them in the first place. High cost of living, coupled with many other things, any IDP can relate well. Governors and MPs who urge IDPs to go home from Khartoum are categorically ineffective without seeing the sea of wearily faces at the outskirts of Khartoum. The IDPs must be educated in what is contained in the CPA before 2011. NCP did not sit down with IDPs to explain to them about articles in the CPA. While laboring for their meager bread, they had no time in researching about CPA provisions that touches the IDP rights. What is clear for them though, peace has come, suffering must end now!
Another time when you come across a governor, minister or MP trying to convince IDPs to go home and rebuild their homelands, remind him or her that; IDPs in Kordofan and Darfur are desperately in need of going home in a decent manner, not to be pushed out violently by the warring parties in the area. It is misleading to say the situation of the IDPs in northern Sudan is better. As far as an IDP is still in northern Sudan, he or she is a displaced, dispossessed, wanderer and unsecured being.
*John Oryem is a columnist with the New Sudan Vision, author of two books and editor of Author-me.com and lives in Kordofan in Northern Sudan. He can be reached at oryemjohn@yahoo.com
