Will It Be of Concern to Us, the Burhan Hemaidti Meeting!!

By Dr. Al Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed

Reports have been circulated that a meeting between Burhan and Hemaidti, as organized by the IGAD, would take place in January. Some western and regional circles have expressed views that they rely much on this meeting for ending the ongoing war in the Sudan and the returning security and stability to the Sudan.
For these circles, what is important is the “meeting of the two generals,” regardless of the agenda of that meeting. It has become known that the agenda of the meeting, if it has an agenda at all, does not include implementing what was agreed upon in the Jeddah Declaration, May 11th, regarding the eviction of the Rapid Support Forces troops from civilians’ homes, from hospitals, and civil service centers. In fact, Western circles have begun to “ridicule” the idea of asking Rapid Support to leave those homes. This includes a statement by a European diplomat published by The Economist last November in which he said that the mere fact that the army made such a request in this circumstance was “ridiculous.” So what is the purpose of this meeting? Does it mean anything for the Sudanese people?
If a historian were to write in the future about the past nine months, he would say that they were the months that the Rapid Support needed to overcome its failure to seize power in a short, sudden leap on April 15, 2023. Since the Rapid Support did not have an alternative plan to implement, in case its coup against the army failed, after the collapse of that coup, it worked on preparing for that alternative plan, relying on the dirtiest weapons to buy time and provide the appropriate cover to break the Sudanese will until that plan was prepared. First, the RSF needed quick support to launch new slogans, other than the one for which it initiated the war, a plan that would be attractive to the targeted fighters.
After its declared objective was to achieve a civil democratic transformation through the imposition of the Framework Agreement, it adopted yet another project that calls for the dismantling of the 1956 state and the establishment of a state of the Attawa in its place. And Attawa have in fact nothing to do with this project, except for a few of its affiliates who fooled themselves, lost their resolve, and became trivial dragged like poodle by this stupid racist plot. And as the regular vanguard force of the Rapid Support has collapsed with the failure of the coup, losing its headquarters and means of communication, the Rapid Support being an auxiliary military force for those who were attracted by this ethnic propaganda, so they were summoned from the outskirts of the country and from across the borders, in addition to those who were attracted by the spoils from the residents of the peripheral neighborhoods. Just as the Rapid Support launched a new slogan and brought in auxiliary forces, it adopted a military tactic of targeting civilians, who are the primary target of its new troops who consider it permissible to plunder, pillage and rape.
Under this false slogan, and at the hands of these “bold” people, and in implementation of this treacherous tactic, Sudan witnessed the most horrific massacres – especially in El Geneina, the worst examples of ethnic cleansing, the ugliest mass rape campaigns, and the most arrogant and aggressive mopping up operations.
It was thin this context, the homes of citizens in Khartoum were occupied and the inhabitants were chased away. The RSF plundered what it could, destroyed what could destroy and occupied what had wanted to occupy. Despite the great atrocities and sins committed by the Rapid Support Forces during this war, no violation committed by it could exceed, in the terms of international law, the occupation of civilian homes. This is because, by doing so, RSF violated the Principle of Distinction, which is the basic principle in international humanitarian law.
According to this principle, the two parties to the war must first distinguish between what is civilian and what is military, as a necessary preliminary step to ensure absolute immunity for civilians from acts of war. Due to the importance of this principle, an entire agreement, the Fourth Geneva Convention, was devoted to its protection. Nothing on the face of this earth, except the Qur’an and the Bible, carries the level of holiness that has been given to this agreement. Despite this, the West and its diplomats disavow this pivotal principle when the imperatives of respecting it conflict with their interests, so they throw it behind them, and even mock those who adherence to it.
During this period in which the above cover operation was unleashed, in which citizens’ homes became a direct target for military operations and plundering by the mob, work was going on behind the scenes in full swing to implement the alternative “Plan B”. Umm Jars Airport was built from A to Z. Then anti-aircraft missiles and armor began arriving in Darfur. This is despite the ban imposed by the United Nations to prevent weapons from entering that region since 2004. Then the modern marches arrived that crowded the horizons in our occupied cities and over our usurped homes, and their attacks on army bases and camps intensified. Just as this enabled the completion of the arrival of new weapons and equipment under the thick smoke caused by the overwhelming chaos, it also allowed Hemedti, the Emir of the country, the necessary time to gather some of his strength and go out in public.
Thus, Plan B was born. Time is turning around as it did the day the Rapid Support attacked the Guest House on April 15. And here Hemedti hopes once again that Al-Burhan will negotiate, face to face, a safe exit for Al-Burhan from power after he accepts to replace the army with the Rapid Support and imposes the framework agreement on the Sudanese people. Plan B is an alternative plan to a plan that failed, but it is a plan to achieve the same goal that the first plan failed to score.
The meeting of the two generals is only the beginning to put Plan B into effect to achieve that goal completely. Or so those who planned it wanted it to be. However, there is no place in Plan B to vacate our homes. The transition from the stage of cover and smoke to the new stage must take place without retreating from the gains that were achieved by Rapid Support in the previous stage, even if these gains were not approved by a heavenly or earthly law and were achieved by undesirable means. In this, the Rapid Support benefits from the lack of international interest in the issue of home occupation, as no one is pressuring RSF to evict them. Thus, the millions inside the country who are in a constant state of flight, searching for security in distant cities and remote villages, at a high cost that they cannot afford, are not among those who care about Hemedti or are on the agenda of his meeting.
Likewise, millions outside the country who live in small apartments and back streets in merciless cities, suffering from cold and hunger, have not yet entered into his plan. This is the history of the past months that historians will write. As for the history of what is to come, it is what the Sudanese plan through what they do today and tomorrow if they want.
The Sudanese people are still able to say: If peace will come while the Rapid Support Forces continue to occupy our homes and block roads and we will have no way to return to our homes, then this is peace that does not concern us, no matter what.
These people are able to say: If the goal of the meeting of the two generals is to secure for Rapid Support a situation similar to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon – so that it will be an army and a party, and a people and a state, and it will be a partner in national governance and exclusive in regional governments (in Darfur and Kordufan) – then they will then be considerate, it they wish to allow the return of citizens to their homes selectively and after offering the duties of loyalty and obedience, then this is not the case. And these people are able to say: If the goal of the meeting of the two generals is to restore the Rapid Support to its previous status, then on the one hand it becomes in control of the public treasury and the economic committee, and on the other hand it is the owner of private banks and gold mines, then it decides to rehabilitate the hospitals and the water and electricity networks if it wants, or decides to leave it empty if it wants, then this a meeting that we do not need.
These people are able to say: If what is hoped is for Hemedti, his stooges, and his associates to return to power, protected against any accountability and without the slightest punishment, then going beneath the surface of the Earth is better than its surface. If the peak and the hump of this matter and the goal its objective is to bring back the agents of that miniature state to the Sudan, so they come in Hemedti’s riding and under his scepter to follow up on the success of what was started in Umm Jars and to gain access once again to the country’s resources and its geographical location and use them to serve their interests while they do not care what the Sudanese people have endured or what they missed, then that is the least we pay attention to.
The way for this people to reject this losing bargain and to nullify this great plot is to boycott the meeting of the two generals announced in January. We stop following that meeting, we do not anticipate or comment on its news, and we do not share its photos and videos. If a writer or group deviates from this, we boycott that writer and group. We do this in all types of media. This meeting does not concern us much or little as long as its subject is not the withdrawal of Rapid Support from our homes, but rather the return of Hemedti through this alternative plan to resume the same project that collapsed on April 15.

Rather, it is a meeting that debase us as long as the first item in it, de facto, is pardoning Hemedti’s rebellion, recognizing his leadership role, overlooking what he committed, and retracting the decision to dissolve the Rapid Support. It is a meeting that belittles our sanctities, our blood, and our honor, as long as its apparent goal is to integrate the Rapid Support after all that it did within the regular forces, and perhaps to integrate the army into the Rapid Support.
This boycott is one of the forms of popular resistance currently organized in cities and remote areas. History is full of peaceful boycotts that were more effective than what well-polished sword could to. Boycotting this meeting emotionally is our way of preserving our dignity after we have lost everything else. Rather, this boycott is the correct beginning for returning to our homes, even if they are rubble, and to our streets, even if they are in ruins. This is the right beginning for us to have a homeland back, even after a while.
31 of December 2023