[Mb-civic] Eradicating slavery in Sudan - John Eibner - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Eradicating slavery in Sudan

By John Eibner  |  February 22, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

FOR 20 YEARS, Abuk Ater was a slave in northern Sudan. She was a young, 
childless, married woman when she was captured and enslaved by a member 
of an Arab militia backed by Sudan's government. Her master, Mohammed El 
Nur, raped her, called her ''slave," and forced her to convert to Islam. 
He renamed her ''Howah."

This month, Abuk, her four children, and 162 other slaves were 
repatriated to southern Sudan by the government's showcase Committee for 
the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children. Government 
officials loaded Abuk and the others like cattle into open-topped, 
seatless trucks for a three-day journey in 100-degree-plus heat. Despite 
the bleak prospect of having nothing to eat but leaves, Abuk is relieved 
to be free, living with her own people, in her own land.

<>Abuk is just one of tens of thousands or more black Sudanese citizens 
who have been enslaved by the government's armed forces and allied 
militias since the outbreak of civil war in 1983. Khartoum has 
consistently used militia raids on black villages as a low-budget but 
brutally effective component of its counterinsurgency policy.

President Bush declared the eradication of slavery as one of his goals 
when he launched his Sudan peace initiative in September 2001. But just 
as the signing of a peace agreement between Khartoum and the Sudan 
People's Liberation Army in January 2005 has not ended genocidal 
conflict in Darfur, neither has it resulted in the emancipation of the 
country's slaves. Slavery -- an internationally recognized crime against 
humanity -- continues to blight lives and obscure the prospect of a 
peaceful, stable, and united Sudan.

Black women and children in Darfur continue to be enslaved by 
government-backed janjaweed militiamen, especially for sexual purposes. 
In the far south, Khartoum's longtime ally, the Lord's Resistance Army, 
still perpetrates atrocities against civilians, including enslavement.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Dinka and Nuer women and children 
captured before the government made peace with the Sudan People's 
Liberation Army remain in bondage. Officials at the Committee for the 
Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children estimate the presence 
of at least 40,000 such slaves in northern Sudan, and have documented 
the names and locations of more than 8,000.

The government withholds funds needed to free the 8,000 registered 
slaves. It calculates that the international community will be satisfied 
with occasional small-scale repatriations, and it appears to be right. 
Last September, the Bush administration rewarded Khartoum's lethargy by 
upgrading Sudan's slavery status from Tier III (the level for worst 
offenders) to Tier II.

At least one member of Sudan's new national unity government has had the 
courage to challenge Khartoum's slavery taboo. Addressing a conference 
at Oxford, presidential adviser Bona Malwal urged his government to 
establish a credible commission to locate slaves, repatriate them in a 
prompt, civilized fashion, and provide compensation.

Credibility, Malwal explained, would require adequate funding, financial 
transparency, strong representation from the communities victimized by 
slavery, and participation from international anti-slavery campaigners. 
These characteristics are absent from the moribund Committee for the 
Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children. Malwal's proposal 
was greeted by protests and denials in Khartoum's Arab press.

The eradication of slavery was a cornerstone of Bush's unfinished Sudan 
peace initiative. He should seize Malwal's anti-slavery initiative and 
make financial and technical assistance available for a credible 
anti-slavery commission, with or without Khartoum's cooperation.

Bush should also openly encourage General Omar al-Bashir, the president 
of Sudan, to halt the capture of slaves and to press forward with the 
liberation of everyone still in bondage. The place to start is the 
emancipation and repatriation this year of the 8,000 registered slaves.

Failure to eradicate slavery -- with all its overtones of racism and 
religious bigotry -- will leave in Sudan a deadly cancer, destroying 
possibilities of national reconciliation, and undermining chances of 
sustainable peace and stability.

John Eibner is executive director of Christian Solidarity International 
(USA).
 
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/02/22/eradicating_slavery_in_sudan/
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