Eradicating slavery in Sudan
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). 