Author:
Publication: iAbolish.com
Date: April 16, 2002
URL: http://www.iabolish.com/news/global/2002/brnt-tmmy-glor04-16-02.htm
Rescue missions secure freedom for
women and children held in chattel slavery, reveal war crimes fueled by
Canadian oil giant Talisman
"Part of me wants to die," 21-year-old
Brent Salsgiver hastily scribbled in his journal, sitting in the shade
of a baobab tree in Southern Sudan as he watched the redemption of 615
African women and children from bondage. Salsgiver, a college student intern
with the American Anti-Slavery Group, kept the diary as a record for his
concerned girlfriend back home.
"I want my memory erased. No one
should have to see this or ever live through it. I question why I ever
wanted to come. Even as I write, I have eyes staring at me. Eyes that should
be pure, but instead they are tainted with abuse, rape, and pain. I even
question why I am telling you this. I do not want you to feel how I feel
and see what I see. There are 600 people here."
Sudan is under the control of a
Taliban- like Islamic fundamentalist regime, which hosted Osama bin
Laden until 1996. For the last twenty years, the government has been targeting
African villages in the south with slave raids. Arab militiamen armed by
the government storm villages, shooting the men and abducting women and
children.
Salsgiver was now face to face with
the victims of this on-going terrorist assault.
Before him stood 27-year-old Ajak
Akol, was captured in a 1998 slave raid on her village. She watched as
her grandfather was shot, and was then marched north. Held captive in a
pen of thorn bushes, Ajak was gang-raped. She was then given to a master,
who raped her, branded her on the cheek, and stabbed her in the back.
But on Wednesday, March 20, Ajak
was redeemed via the Underground Railroad in Sudan run by the Swiss-based
Christian Solidarity International (CSI). Over the last month, CSI's network
of Arab retrievers - who risk their lives to rescue African women and children
- facilitated the redemption of over 5,400 slaves. An additional 6,000
slaves were voluntarily freed by their masters, as part of a CSI-brokered
peace agreement between Arab and African tribes.
Following Salsgiver to Sudan was
another college student, Tommy Calvert, a senior at Tufts University, and
Rev. Dr. Gloria White Hammond, of Bethel A.M.E. Church in Boston and a
leader in the Black Ministerial Alliance. They joined a follow-up CSI mission
to Sudan from April 6 through 13.
"There were lots of times I felt
overwhelmed," said Hammond upon her return. "But I was so inspired by these
people who, despite what has happened to them, have a love for life and
want to rebuild their communities." While in Sudan, Hammond, a pediatrician,
gave medical care to slaves disfigured by abusive owners.
Calvert described meeting an 11-year-old
boy who had his nose chopped off for losing a cow, a boy who was beaten
so badly his permanently deformed back is beginning to block his lungs,
and dozens of teenage girls who had been gang raped and genitally mutilated.
"I met with victims of some of the worst atrocities in the world," he noted.
In 1999, Calvert launched a student-led
divestment campaign, calling on mutual and pension funds to divest from
Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil giant whose partnership with the Sudanese
government is fueling slave raids and genocide. In response to a Calvert-organized
protest, the professors' pension fund TIAA-CREF - the largest fund in the
world - divested from Talisman.
On April 11, Calvert got to see
oil-field destruction firsthand, as the CSI team redeemed 700 slaves in
the oil-region of Western Upper Nile. "In response to our divestment protests,
Talisman would always claim life was fine around their rigs," Calvert remarked.
"But I just met with hundreds of women and children who would beg to differ.
Western investors must understand that their shares in Talisman directly
finance a genocide against African civilians. Investing in Talisman is
investing in terrorism."
Hammond, whose previous trip to
Sudan in July was featured on NBC's "Today Show," plans to return a third
time with a delegation of female leaders to form partnerships with Sudanese
women.
"I go to Sudan as a minister, a
physician, an activist, and a mother," Hammond said. "We have to explore
further the physical and psychological trauma suffered by enslaved women,
as well as the process by which they are reabsorbed into their communities
when they return home."
Salsgiver is still struggling to
process his experience in Sudan. "Words can never fully explain what we
saw. But there is one clear message: It's time to act. Every day we do
not act, another girl is raped, another woman branded, and another boy
is maimed.
"We need to demand that the international
community pay attention and end this crime against humanity once and for
all."
