Darfur: A human catastrophe
By: Steve Smith
Asisa Ateib cradled her young child in her arms as they huddled inside a refugee tent in Chad, hundreds of miles away from her home in the Darfur section of Sudan.
She mentioned the word that chills the souls of black Sudanese like herself: Janjaweed — "evil horseman" in Arabic.
"I fled from my village when I saw the janjaweed attacking the neighboring village," she told humanitarian workers with Action by Churches Together. "I heard the machine guns and bombs, and I could see the light from the burning houses in the dark night."
For nearly two years, as part of a civil war that has engulfed mainly the southern part of Sudan since 1983, Arab militia called "janjaweed," riding horses and camels, have ransacked and plundered villages in western Darfur. They have massacred more than 30,000 black Sudanese farmers and displaced more than 1 million others in the east African country across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia.
The United Nations and other international observers call Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis, while U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has characterized the killings as "genocide."
Critics contend that government officials in Khartoum are aiding the janjaweed to crush black Africans in Darfur who began rebelling in 2003 against the strict Islamic rule and perceptions of being passed over economically and politically. The country's leaders flatly deny the charge, but evidence cited by outsiders suggests otherwise.
Sudan's leaders are the same people who harbored Osama bin Laden until U.S. pressure forced the terrorist leader to escape to Afghanistan.
In April, the Rev. R. Randy Day, staff executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, warned that if churches, governments and organizations don't respond immediately, Sudan will turn into another Rwanda, where millions of people were slaughtered or starved to death 10 years ago.
"The situation remains critical," he said in September. "The (United Nations) should follow the example of the U.S. Congress in labeling the situation 'genocide.'"
Pressing on despite problems
The United Methodist Church of Sudan, organized in 1996, has about 3,000 members in the south, where fighting since 1983 spilled over into western Darfur in February 2003.
Religious leaders urge United Methodists and other Christians to pray fervently for the Sudanese, donate to relief organizations, become educated and hold discussions on the crisis, and write to United Nations' officials and federal lawmakers. They also want Christians to prod American corporations to remove their investments in Sudan — especially if the money is connected to the oil underneath Darfur.
In September, world ecumenical leaders, meeting in Kenya, wrote a letter to Sudan's church leaders, in which they asked how the world's churches can help press for peace in Darfur.
Dozens of religious and secular organizations are seeking millions of dollars in donations for emergency shelter, water, toilets, food, seeds, tools, health care, education and child care for refugees who continue to flee into neighboring Chad or stay behind in their ramshackle villages.
Lack of security, impassable roads and denial of access by Sudanese officials are crippling efforts to get aid to the displaced scattered over a harsh desert area of 125,000 square miles, almost as big as Great Britain.
Going beyond donations
In Lexington, S.C., two years ago, more than 100 parishioners at First Church helped relocate a 20-something husband and wife and her 19-year-old brother from southern Sudan.
With help from Lutheran Family Services and the South Carolina Annual Conference, parishioners donated food, a car, clothing and furniture. They helped family members undergo medical exams, take English lessons, look for jobs, obtain Social Security cards, settle into their apartment and learn their way around town.
"Probably the most important services we provided were love and friendship," said David Marshall, a First Church member. "After two years, we are still their family. Their baby boy was even baptized in our church."
Elsewhere, United Methodists have issued resolutions, conducted prayer vigils and even gotten arrested to draw attention to the crisis.
At the United Methodist Church's General Conference last spring, nearly 1,000 delegates, including 106 from Africa, unanimously passed a resolution condemning the violence and humanitarian crisis. Bishop Joseph Humper of Sierra Leone called on the United Nations to ward off a "human catastrophe" in Darfur.
A month later, the Rev. Robert Edgar, a United Methodist clergyman and head of the National Council of Churches (NCC), was arrested during a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.
"Only one thing will stop the killing: immediate international intervention," Edgar said.
The "Save Darfur Coalition," an organization composed of the NCC and 70 other groups, sponsored a National Day of Conscience on Aug. 25. To coincide with the day, online advocacy groups TrueMajority and NCC's FaithfulAmerica.org organized an Internet broadcast involving 3,000 participants across the United States.
During the Webcast from a camp in Chad, refugee Alhaj Abdallah Adam claimed government-backed raiders looted his Darfur village "just because we are black."
"The janjaweed and the government are the same thing," said Adam, whose entire family is missing. "The only solution is the overthrow of the government."
Nicole Henze, a representative of Doctors Without Borders, said the camp's physicians were treating 140 people a day for diarrhea and respiratory infections, and 400 new refugees were arriving daily.
On the same day, the Rev. Darren Cushman Wood, senior pastor of the Speedway Church in Indianapolis, helped organize a prayer vigil that drew Christians, Jews and Muslims.
"Because many humanitarian and human rights groups are paying attention to this issue, governmental officials are taking notice," he said. "President Bush and Congress should be congratulated for what they are doing, but Bush's other foreign policies are hurting our efforts to build support on Sudan."
'Genocide' then, 'genocide' now
Unfortunately, war is nothing new to Sudan, where unspeakable atrocities have devastated the country since it became independent in 1956. Some 2 million people have died, mostly in the south where government forces from the north have clashed with rebels.
The two sides reached a peace accord earlier this summer, but the agreement inexplicably did not include Darfur. The omission leads critics like Brent Salsgiver of the Central Pennsylvania Annual Conference to charge that the Darfur crisis revolves around billions of dollars worth of oil beneath where black Sudanese live — and the government's unrelenting goal of controlling it. Salsgiver and Jay Williams, New York Annual Conference, spent the summer of 2003 in Sudan with Christian Solidarity International. The two wrote the resolution the General Conference adopted.
While investigating the trafficking of female slaves there, Salsgiver interviewed a teenage boy who witnessed intruders shooting his parents to death, gang-raping his sister and then shooting her in the head at close range. In another case, attackers strung rope through a woman's numerous religious earrings, tied the other end to a horse and forced the animal to gallop off, dragging the woman behind and ripping off nearly all of both ears.
"The church needs to be the voice of those Sudanese who don't have a voice," Salsgiver said. "If we keep Sudan where it is now, we'll have a doubling of Rwanda."
In September, Powell issued even more sobering news when he called for a U.N. investigation into possible violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in Sudan.
"When we reviewed the evidence, we concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur — and that genocide may still be occurring," Powell testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. Richard Lugar, a United Methodist from Indiana.
The U.S. has pledged $299 million in humanitarian aid and $11.8 million to the 53-nation African Union through 2005. The United Nations wants 3,000 AU peacekeepers in Darfur, compared to the 80 AU military observers and 300 troops from Rwanda and Nigeria that were stationed there in September.
In late September, however, peace talks between Sudanese government and rebel negotiators about Darfur collapsed.
The militia attacks and killings continue.
For now, Cushman Wood, the Indianapolis pastor who organized the prayer vigil, said he's tired of people asking why he is involved.
"What is significant is not that one white guy in America is concerned," he said. "They are human beings created in God's image, and I am a human being. It is as simple as that."
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To help in Sudan
United Methodists can give donations to the United Methodist Committee on Relief's Sudan Emergency, Advance #184385 through churches or by mailing gifts to UMCOR, 475 Riverside Drive, Room 330, New York, NY 10115. They also can call (800) 554-8583 to make credit-card donations. UMCOR has joined the ACT/Caritas Darfur Emergency Response (ACDER) to Sudan. The group is appealing for $17.5 million to assist 500,000 people.
Learn more about Sudan and the humanitarian efforts.
Use the word 'Sudan' to search the following sites:
United Methodist Committee on Relief, http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor
United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, http://gbgm-umc.org
Church World Service, www.churchworldservice.org
United Nations, www.un.org
National Council of Churches, www.ncccusa.org
Action by Churches Together, www.act-intl.org
Doctors Without Borders, www.doctorswithoutborders.org
Amnesty International, www.amnestyUSA.org
Sudan Tribune, www.sudantribune.com
U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov
Sudan Embassy, www.sudanembassy.org
General information about Sudan:
www.sudan.net
www.yahoo.com/regional/countries/sudan
www.allafrica.com/sudan
--Steve Smith is a freelance writer living in Dallas.
