Report lists names of 10,000 in slavery

Report lists names of 10,000 in slavery
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com ^ | May 29, 2003 | WorldNetDaily

Posted on 05/29/2003 12:11:06 AM PDT by joesnuffy

GLOBAL JIHAD Report lists names of 10,000 in slavery Institute confirms forced servitude in Sudan despite regime's denial

Posted: 1:00 a.m. Eastern

A noted research institute claims it has confirmed the existence of slavery in Sudan with a list of 10,000 names, contradicting denials by the country's militant Islamic regime.

Using face-to-face interviews, the Rift Valley Institute gathered details of more than 11,000 people abducted from rebel-held areas by Khartoum-backed tribal militias.

More than 10,000 of those people still are unaccounted for, said the institute, an independent research and educational association in Britain and East Africa with the backing of the British government.

"Never before have so many names been catalogued of people being enslaved in one country in our times," said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House.

But the results are just the tip of the iceberg, says Charles Jacobs, president of the American Anti-Slavery Group in Boston. His group cites civic leaders in Bahr El Ghazal in southern Sudan who report more than 200,000 women and children have been enslaved in that area alone by Khartoum's armed forces and allied militias since the beginning of the civil war in 1983.

Sudan's cleric-backed National Islamic Front regime in the Arab and Muslim north declared a jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south in 1989. Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine. About 5 million have become refugees.

Jacobs notes that while the Islamist government "denies the reality of Sudanese slavery," the European Union, UNICEF and other international institutions use the euphemism "abduction" in reference to the practice, out of deference to Khartoum.

Jacobs said he hopes "Rift Valley's initial findings spur the world community to complete the documentation of those in bondage."

Freedom House said the study gives humanitarian agencies and human rights groups an essential tool for tracing and reuniting abductees with family members.

Dr. Jok Madut, co-director of the Rift Valley project, said establishing a baseline of fact was essential to address what many regard as the world's most appalling cluster of human rights abuses.

"Abduction and slavery are horrific; the important thing is that we now know what the facts are," said Madut. "We know for certain who has been abducted, how many, where and when."

Madut worked on the project with John Ryle, chairman of the Rift Valley Institute and a respected British scholar on Africa.

John Eibner, U.S. executive director of Christian Solidarity International, has urged President Bush to help make 2003 "the year of the eradication of Sudanese slavery."

Eibner wrote after returning from a recent fact-finding trip to Sudan that the current ceasefire, amid U.S.-led peace talks, offers a "window of opportunity" for a mass exodus of slaves from the north to their homes in the south.

Eibner said he and his colleagues learned many Arab slave masters are prepared to give up their black African slaves without compensation, fearing reprisal for "crimes against humanity" as the peace process nears completion.

Christian Solidarity International has helped facilitate the redemption, or buying back, of slaves, a practice criticized by some who believe it has the adverse effect of fueling demand for slaves.

Pattern of slave-taking

One year ago, a U.S. State Department-sponsored delegation to Sudan issued a report describing the Khartoum regime's role in slavery: "The pattern of slave-taking that has developed since the start of the civil war is, to a substantial degree, the product of a counter-insurgency strategy pursued by successive governments in Khartoum. This strategy involves arming local militias from northern Sudan."

The international delegation's report said the militias attack villages in rebel-controlled areas, primarily along the boundary between northern and southern Sudan.

"They burn villages, loot cattle, rape and kill civilians, and abduct and enslave men, women and children," the report said. "Such attacks are frequently carried out by militia members while employed by the government as auxiliary guards on military rail convoys traveling though [rebel-controlled] areas.

James Lual, head of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement civil administration in northern Bahr El Ghazal, said in an interview this week with Freedom Now News there have been no raids in his area for many months because of the rebel army presence. But in western Upper Nile, he said, "government militias have been attacking civilians and enslaving people."

Lual believes the Rift Valley figures are far below his estimate of more than 200,000 slaves because the researchers did not do a complete survey, spending only a few months in the area this year.

"They had problems gaining the confidence of the chiefs and the people," he said. "They did not interview the thousands of freed slaves who have come back. I invited RVI to look at our documents, but they did not take up the offer."

Lual said it will take years to complete the documentation of slaves.

"Serious slavery research cannot be done in a backward, underdeveloped area like this with a disorganized and lightning strike approach," he said.

Another reason the institute's numbers are too low, he said, is because there has been "so much killing and displacement that a lot of people are not around anymore to report missing relatives."

"We also know that the RVI is funded by people who want to downplay slavery," said. "I mean the British government and Save the Children UK. They are helping the government of Sudan. It is the government of Sudan that wants to hide its slavery crimes. They say there is no slavery in Sudan, only abduction."