Between Passover and Patriots Day, I flew illegally through no fly zones to Southern Sudan. I risked being shot down by snipers in order to document the emancipation of 6,000 enslaved black women, children, and adolescent boys.
Sudan's Arab government has manipulated the religion of Islam in order to revive a centuries old practice of enslaving enemies during holy war (jihad). The bloody civil war rages against the black Africans of the South.
Thomas Jefferson said the "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." However, because America has not carried out the vigilance that comes with our freedom, the price of an enslaved black Christian in the Islamic fundamentalist regime of Sudan, is shockingly only about $35 dollars.
I know it took America just over 200 years to get the moral consensus and conviction to abolish slavery; however, we now know better than to condone the practice. We need to hold our leaders accountable for their tacit approval of slavery in Sudan. We must stand vigorously against the enslavement of the 100,000 blacks, mostly from the Dinka and Neur tribes, estimated to be serving twisted Arab owners in northern Sudan.
While slavery terminated in America's deep southern states of Texas and Louisiana on June, 19, 1865, it was not globally outlawed until the creation of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948. However, in the 1980s the fundamentalist government in Sudan began using the enslavement of black people as a tactic of terrorism against the defenseless tribes in the south. Slavery is also a means by which to strengthen the government's grip on the black Africans' oil-rich land , thereby extending its borders into Southern Sudan.
The people in these enslaved southern villages are forced onto a train that delivers them, often without food or water, to northern Sudan. There they are sold into slavery. I pause here, for you to contemplate the gravity of what I have just written.
In Sudan people are forced from their homes into slavery; some 4.5 million people are believed to have been displaced from their villages. This is the largest internally displaced population in the world. In the year 2000, it was estimated that 2 million persons had been killed in Sudan. That statistic made Sudan's bloody civil war deadlier than the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone combined.
I risked my life in order to free these slaves, not just to put their stories into words. I went to Sudan so that I could actively seek the help of people like you, people who have so much.
Do not let the facts described here make you throw your hands up and say that this is for someone else to handle. While governments have not done enough to correct the situation, individuals, like you and me can, and have, done a lot to help. Christian Solidarity International, a Swiss-based human rights group, has been assisting a local Arab-African peace effort that redeems the slaves for cash and brings others back for free.
Why should you help? The stories of the people I met on my journey speak for themselves. I met a boy, who could not have been older than seven, who had had his nose cut off by his master because he lost a cow. You can see the graphic pictures at www.iabolish.com.
I met Abaak Bol, a beautiful young woman who had been raped by her master. He attempted to convert her to Islam, but she told him that she was Christian and could not serve two masters. In response, he cut off her finger, her toe, and stabbed her in her now gangrened leg and back. Somehow, by the grace of God, she has lived to tell about it. Unfortunately, several of Abaak's children remain captive in slavery in the north.
Slavery in Sudan has the same crippling effects as slavery in America did; just as it broke up the families of my slave ancestors, it is breaking up families today in southern Sudan. You can help her family be reunited by giving to organizations like the American Anti-Slavery Group (1-800-884-0719) that are on front lines of this battle.
I watched Manut Ring Ayuel's lips quiver as he told me how, when he was only four, slave raiders came into his village and killed all of the men. He and his friends were tied up and taken away from their game of soccer. Now, he is about 16 years old, and painfully recalls having been beaten at eight, and nine years old by his master's 10 and 12 year old sons. They called him "abid" - the Arabic word for slave.
As a result of Osama bin Ladin and Al Qaeda's possible hiding in Sudan, President Bush has been courting the evil regime of northern Sudan in the hopes that they will be able to provide intelligence that leads to the capture of members of the Al Qaeda network. While I want to see these specific terrorists brought to justice, I also want to see the terrorists in Northern Sudan brought to justice.. If we are interested in seeing and end to terrorism, we must punish the Government of Sudan, who has used slavery as a terror tactic against the blacks in the south for years, and has also harbored terrorists acting against US citizens.
Join with me in reminding the administration about another instance when we sided with oppressive forces to accomplish a short-term US goal. Let us not forget when we supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, during the '80s. If we get in bed with the evil Sudanese government, we will have to deal with the consequences. Too many have died in Sudan and the United States for us to make the mistake of coddling terrorists and their sympathizers in Sudan.
Tommy Ray Calvert Jr. is graduating with a degree in International Relations.
