Acitivists decry slave redemption in
Africas Sudan
By TERESA MALCOLM
NCR Staff
Human rights and humanitarian groups have questioned the growing
practice in Sudan of slave redemption by foreign Christian groups, expressing
fears that Western money will fuel the countrys slave market.
They have been joined in their criticism by a Catholic missionary
priest and journalist who has said that the organizations involved in redeeming
slaves may fall victim to an operation organized by unscrupulous people
for financial benefit.
Families and chiefs of the southern Sudanese Dinka tribe have long
attempted to redeem abducted women and children from slavery. Most of the
victims of slave trade have been women and children from the Dinka tribe who
were taken captive by militia groups from the predominantly Muslim North. The
captives are considered war booty in the countrys ongoing civil
conflict.
Since 1995, Dinka leaders engaged in redeeming slaves have
increasingly received assistance from foreign Christian groups, allowing the
redemption of hundreds of people at one time.
UNICEF spokesperson Marie Heuze in early February called these
tactics absolutely intolerable, arguing that slave redemption
implicitly supports human trafficking.
But groups carrying out redemption operations said that there is
no evidence that large-scale redemption efforts contribute to the cycle of
abductions and slavery. What is intolerable is to leave these women and
children in the hands of brutal captors, said Charles Jacobs, head of the
Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group, which raises money for Christian
Solidarity International.
Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International says it has
redeemed more than 6,000 people since 1995, paying about $50 for each slave.
Other groups, such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, have subsequently carried
out their own redemption efforts. The organizations have drawn support from
U.S. schools and church congregations.
According to Human Rights Watch, abducted women and children are
often physically and sexually abused, and are coerced into renouncing their
Christian and animist beliefs and adopting Islam. The organization has noted
that the militia carrying on the slave trade diligently avoid any attacks
on military targets. ... Their purpose is to abduct and loot, not to risk
themselves in combat.
The missionary priest and journalist, Comboni Fr. Renato Kizito
Sesana, said that the first culprit in Sudans slave trade is
the countrys government, which is encouraging the popular militia
and similar groups to loot property and people from areas under the control of
the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army. Sesana is an Italian missionary
who has worked in Africa for 22 years.
In a March 12 statement, Carol Bellamy, director of UNICEF,
emphasized, As a matter of principle, UNICEF does not engage in or
encourage the buying and selling of human beings.
UNICEF said that while redemption efforts are well-intentioned,
the sobering truth is that these efforts will not end the enslavement of
human beings. According to Bellamy, there can be no lasting solution to
the enslavement of women and children in Sudan until the countrys
on-again, off-again 30-year civil war is ended. To roll back and
eventually bring a halt to slavery in Sudan, UNICEF believes the main effort
should be directed at enlisting the support of the warring parties in ending
the armed conflict and all its practices.
Human Rights Watch, while noting that it does not condone or
condemn foreign assistance for redemption of slaves, said that the
unregulated nature of redemption operations increases the potential for fraud.
Knowledge that there are foreigners (with presumably deep pockets)
willing to pay to redeem slaves can only spur on unscrupulous individuals to
make a business out of redemption, Human Rights Watch said.
That concern is shared by Sesana, who raised questions of fraud in
an article in AfricaNews, a Nairobi, Kenya-based publication of
Koinonia, a lay association he founded. Sesana said the operation of redeeming
hundreds of slaves at one time sounds incredible to me and to anyone who
has knowledge of conditions on the ground in Sudan. The priest raised
questions about the control of such large numbers of people, as well as the
problem of feeding them.
Human Rights Watch also urged that more care be taken to monitor
the humanitarian needs of those who are redeemed. In January 1999 alone
one transaction involved 1,050 children and women, not all of whom had families
waiting to receive them, the group said. This is a large number of
needy people turned loose in a zone which has not yet recovered from
famine.
John Eibner, head of Christian Solidarity International, one of
the organizations targeted by critics, said that during the redemption
operations, local people and his organization contribute what food they
can.
Eibner noted that the system for redeeming slaves was already in
place before Christian Solidarity International began its efforts. That system,
organized by Dinka chiefs and northern neighbors, relies on trust from all
parties that no fraud will take place, he said.
Noting that Eibner and others leading a recent redemption
operation do not speak Arabic or Dinka, Sesana said that he had heard a report
of questionable translations from their guides. He urged groups involved in
redeeming slaves to allow human rights experts and journalists who can take a
critical viewpoint and who speak at least Arabic, able to ask the right
questions at the right time, plus some Dinka translators properly selected, to
accompany them on a trip. This trip should not be a hit-and-run redemption
scoop, but it must allow time for the team to survey the surrounding area and
interview in depth the people they encounter.
National Catholic Reporter, April 2,
1999
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