by Sam Childers
Garang’s widow, Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior, said, “In our culture we say, if you kill the lion, you see what the lioness will do.” She was ready to stand bravely for the principles of freedom her husband had lived and died for.
One of the saddest days of my life was when I went to Juba—now considered the regional capital of Southern Sudan—later that summer and sat at his grave. I had been so blessed by breaking bread with him and attending that peace conference as his guest, and in no time he was dead. His grave is in the center of a granite platform, a raised rectangle covered with some kind of light-colored tiles or square-cut stones and a pavilion overhead to shade out the tropical sun. There’s a bigger-than-life photo of Garang on an easel at either end, and the grave is always heaped with fresh flowers. An SPLA honor guard is on watch twenty-four hours a day, a half dozen or so young soldiers dressed in fatigues holding their AKs at their sides. They take turns resting, sitting in blue plastic chairs under the edge of the pavilion.
I sat at his grave and cried for my missing friend and for all the lost opportunities. God is good and God is sovereign, but sometimes he’s so hard to understand.
Salva Kiir Mayardit, a longtime friend of John Garang and another founding member of the SPLA in 1983, took his place as president of Southern Sudan and first vice president of Sudan. He was head of the SPLA when Garang died, and was sworn in on August 11, less than two weeks after the crash. As well respected as Garang was, some of the locals in Southern Sudan now like Kiir even more because he strongly supports full independence for the South, compared with Garang, who was content with the idea of southern autonomy within Sudan. Kiir met twice with President Bush at the White House to solicit increased American support for an independent Southern Sudan. Though the peace agreement was signed in 2005, it still hasn’t been put completely into effect.
Kiir wants northern soldiers out of the south and more control over southern oil-producing areas near the Sudan/ Southern Sudan border. It’s no surprise that the Khartoum-backed Southern Sudan United Democratic Alliance (SSUDA) kicked up a fuss about Kiir encouraging President Bush to impose sanctions on Sudan. They claimed, “Kiir and his SPLM are masterminds of advocating for destruction of Sudan” (Sudan Tribune, June 6, 2007) in an attempt “to divide the peoples of Sudan in order to realize their colonial dreams.”
However you look at it, governments around the world seem to be more worried about oil rights than human rights. And what about all these celebrities showing up in Africa? Their hearts may be in the right place, but what good are they going to do in Darfur? I hear of celebrities giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations that put a little bit of money into refugee or Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, and spend the rest paying their employees unbelievable amounts of money. What I have to say to all these big-shot celebrities is, “Get involved with somebody that’s doing something!”
The refugee camps I’ve seen don’t need foreign workers making big salaries to take care of people. The care workers in Sudan know just as much about nutrition and malaria and getting rid of diarrhea as the NGO experts there making twice or quadruple their salary. And then the NGO workers have to have all sorts of expert support: directors of development, program coordinators, volunteer coordinators. The countless administrative assistants make an average of more than thirty thousand dollars a year plus benefits. The average director of development—a guy in charge of fund-raising, of which there are many—makes seventy-five thousand.
The way these NGOs pay the locals causes a whole other round of trouble. If the average driver in Uganda makes a hundred dollars a month, and all of a sudden you pay him five hundred dollars for the same work, you have a bunch of jealous drivers. Local employers lose all their help because they quit to work for the relief agencies, and the cost of things goes through the roof. I’ve seen goats go from fifteen dollars each to seventy-five dollars each, just to cash in on the salary spikes. It creates a world of problems and hard feelings in the local economy.
If they have the medicine and equipment, local workers are 100 percent up to the job. But all the medical help in the world won’t solve the problems in Uganda and Southern Sudan. The only way you’re going to solve them is by fighting in the field. The ruthless animals who are doing all this killing will keep right on doing it as long as they have breath in their bodies. Reasoning with them hasn’t worked. Giving them money hasn’t worked. Diplomacy hasn’t worked. Accepting their empty promises hasn’t worked. But I know what will work.
The only way America can stop the killing in Sudan is by going to President Omar al-Bashir, and saying, “Remember today’s date, Mr. President, because from this day forward, nothing is coming in or out of Sudan. Not a bullet, not a match, not a roll of toilet paper. A complete boycott is now in effect.” Isolate him; cut him off. Then our government goes to all the countries bordering Sudan and says, “We are cutting off every dime to anybody that even talks to al-Bashir in a friendly way!”
You want to solve this thing? Turn it over to some people who don’t know how to do anything but fight. We need to quit talking, quit giving away money, and establish an airtight boycott. I get worked up just thinking about this! Look at the millions of dollars we give away to help these other countries that are floating on oil reserves, including Sudan.
Why are we giving them all this money?
Since the peace process started in earnest in 2004, the United States has given Sudan more than three billion dollars. This is to a country that bombs its own hospitals, murders unarmed aid workers, and condones lawless militias that steal food aid and destroy humanitarian equipment. We’re telling al-Bashir we want the fighting stopped, yet we’re still pouring millions of dollars into a country that won’t listen to us. Why?
It all goes back to oil.
If we boycott radical Muslim countries in Africa, then American businessmen are going to start squealing and complaining to their elected officials because standing tall is going to inconvenience a lot of American businesses. We have to decide if hundreds of thousands of human lives are more important than making a buck. Actually, it looks like we’ve already decided, and the money wins. If I were in charge of the whole operation, I could stop the killing in six months, guaranteed. Turn off the money tap to terrorist nations instantly and completely, and that would be the end of it.
A child—whose parents had been killed—found in the bush.
Since that’s not going to happen, we have to continue depending on warfare. As far as I’m concerned, the SPLA are the saviors of Southern Sudan. They’re the ones who have kept the people alive for so long. In Darfur, which is in northwestern Sudan, the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) keeps the peace. These groups are real freedom fighters. The majority of them are Muslims who don’t believe in the radical Islamic law. They believe in freedom. I have sat in meetings with the SLA in Juba, which will be the capital of the new Southern Sudan. I’ve supported them financially and will keep supporting them because they are there for freedom.
We have to bring al-Bashir’s government to its knees with economic warfare. Life means nothing to him and his cronies, but money does. Not only does his regime send its army to attack its citizens, but it also supplies the Janjuweed, the guerrilla militias that are destroying Darfur. Bashir gives Joseph Kony free rein—the same Joseph Kony who was in the training camp in northern Sudan with Osama bin Laden. Bashir has homes that are worth $100 million, and while we send him money, his goons keep on killing. How many will die during the next round of peace talks?
While the talks and the waiting continue, innocent children are being kidnapped, killed, and abused. As long as that’s happening, my men and I will be here saving as many as we can. Our children’s ministry would never have had the success it has nor would it be able to continue without the help and sacrifice of dedicated members of the SPLA. While I’ve mentioned some of them by name already, I want to acknowledge all those of every rank who have played a key part in our rescues.
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I’ve come to know and love the soldiers of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army from top to bottom. Lieutenant General Oyay Deng Ajak and Major General Obute Mamor Mete both have been especially good to me over the years. I’ve been in bad areas at the same time both of them were fighting. When I first went into Sudan, I was in areas that were getting bombed at the same time Oyay was there. That’s one reason why the army leadership has always been very supportive of me: I was there when the Antinovs—Russian aircraft—were dropping the bombs. I stayed, and I kept coming back.
Every officer and soldier in the SPLA deserves the world’s thanks for standing and fighting when it would have been so easy to give up. Many people left Sudan because they didn’t want to fight for their country. Every person who stayed behind is a hero, including the many brave women of the SPLA. These women can use an AK and fight just like any man. All those, both in the army and outside of it, who have fought and sacrificed for the New Sudan have earned the grateful thanks of everyone who believes in freedom.
I also want to recognize and thank the men and women of the Uganda People’s Defence Force and other Ugandan military units; the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur; the Kenyan military forces; and any organization that fights for freedom or supports those who do. In the middle of so much turmoil, President Museveni continues to lead his people with bravery, vision, and honor.
We should say a prayer of thanksgiving every day for all the people who have devoted their lives to their country, both those who are still serving and fighting and those who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom.
In addition to the men I’ve already mentioned, I want to acknowledge these as well:
Major General Jok Riak
Major General Willison Deng Wek
Major General Chol Thon
Brigadier General Edward Lino Abyei
Brigadier General David Manyok Byom
Brigadier General Kong Chol
Brigadier General Michael Majok Ayom
Brigadier General Riak Jorbong
Brigadier General Johnson Juma Okat
Colonel Igga Emmanuel
Colonel Louis Natale
Colonel Michael Mathe
Colonel Akol Majok
Major Peter Otim
Major Stephen Leim
Major Deng Wek Madut
Lieutenant Louis Tako
Lieutenant Samuel Majier
Sergeant Santino Deng
Sergeant William Guk
Sergeant Ben William
Sergeant Atem Peter
Sergeant William Deng
Corporal Lexson Night
The dedication of these soldiers has saved hundreds of lives. Without them, untold children would be lost and untold families devastated. For years they have labored and sacrificed without anyone knowing of their struggle. That has all begun to change, thanks to American prime-time television. I had been trying for years to get some media attention for our orphanage without much success. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the media came to me.
ELEVEN
word gets out
The national spotlight shined down on us for the first time in April 2005 when the Christian Broadcasting Network aired the report I had helped them with, including the interview with President Yoweri Museveni. It was a gripping account of the carnage caused by the LRA. The report showed night commuters streaming into Gulu at dusk, bedrolls on their heads, then showed examples of the terror they were escaping. They interviewed a victim who saw her husband murdered before rebels cut off her lips and ears with a razor blade. Another woman, pregnant at the time, was forced to cut off her mother-in-law’s hand to keep soldiers from killing the baby in her stomach. Then the soldiers made the mother-in-law cut off the woman’s hand in return. There was an eleven-year-old boy whose arm had been shot off. Another boy, age five, had his arm hacked off with a machete.
CBN came to our Children’s Village and learned the stories of Betty and Mary. Betty was nine at the time and had been so brutally raped she could scarcely walk. Vivid scars on Mary’s back bore silent witness to the whippings she had survived. These two were co-leaders of our children’s choir, gradually remembering how to laugh and play again, slowly healing in body and spirit.
This young woman was captured along a road by the LRA. They made her choose between having her breasts or her fingers cut off. She chose to lose her fingers because she still had young children to feed.
As I told the reporter, “A lot of these young children have never experienced God the way we have. We lift everything to heaven because it’s our only hope. And these children, all they know is their only hope could be us.”
One fan of The 700 Club was watching the show on the road that night, and the story of our ministry got his attention. John Rich, half of the best-selling country music duo Big & Rich, was sitting in his tour bus relaxing in front of the TV before a concert. The story blew him away. The next day I answered the phone in my office, and a big voice with a Southern accent said, “Hey, I’m John Rich, and I’m a country singer. I saw you on The 700 Club last night, and I’m calling to say I want to help those kids in Africa.”
John Rich? Country singer? Who was this random guy wasting my time with this big line of bull? I didn’t exactly hang up on him, but I wasn’t exactly polite either.
Two or three days later, I got a call from another Rich, this one named Jim. Jim lived in Tennessee and was a preacher and guitar picker who also sold cars to fleet managers. “I don’t think you know who my son is,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” I answered, “but I got a call the other day from somebody by the name of John Rich.”
“He wants to help you,” Jim explained.
I was unimpressed. I’d heard it all before. “A lot of people have told me that over the years,” I continued.
“My son is half of Big & Rich. They cut Top 40 hits for Warner Brothers and tour to sellout crowds with Martina McBride and Tim McGraw.”
Oh. That John Rich. “Oh man, I’m so sorry.”
Not only did John forgive me, but he also overnighted a check for a large sum! That was the first donation our ministry ever received from a celebrity. We used it to buy a replacement food truck for the orphanage because the old one had just been RPG’d. John started to spread the word in the music world about our work. I actually had someone call me with the idea to produce a movie about my life. I thought, Why not? I signed a contract for a year to let her give it a try.
The real media jolt came when a major TV news magazine broadcasted a segment about the orphanage. I had actually contacted them about doing a feature but never heard back from them. Some time later they wanted to go to Sudan, and their government contact there told them to see me about arranging the trip and being their guide. Once we finally connected, and they found out what I was doing, they decided to do a story on me too. Sometime near the end of 2004, a production team came over with their correspondent. He has a commanding presence on the air with his compelling voice, square jaw, and flowing blond hair peppered with gray. Although he narrated the finished piece, he never actually went into Sudan. He stayed at our guesthouse in Gulu, Uganda, and sent his camera crew to the orphanage on their own.
On the evening of August 22, 2005, Lynn and I sat on our living room couch, glued to the television as the newsmagazine host introduced one of “the most dangerous places on earth to be a child.”
The segment started off with clips of the night commuters streaming into town—a phenomenon the correspondent suggested “may be the world’s most astonishing migration”—and an interview with a boy named Alex who spoke of the rebels killing children and their parents with axes and guns.
There was an interview with Jan Egelund, the emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations. “This is terror like no other terror,” he said, describing the LRA. “I’ve been in a hundred countries. I’ve been working with human rights, with peace, with humanitarian problems for twenty-five years. I was shocked to my
bones at seeing what happened there. I’ve never seen as bad. For me this is one of the biggest scandals of our time and generation.”
Then came some historical background on the civil war in northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, along with the fact that the war was largely being fought with children. Joseph Kony had some screen time, bleating about God’s wrath. According to the program, he believes he’s a reincarnation of Jesus and Moses. I hadn’t heard that before. “In the end the sword will kill you,” he rants. “The children will be taken into captivity, and they’ll be burned to death.”
They interviewed a boy who had to help kill another child who had stopped walking because he was thirsty. He beat his victim to death with a club. A girl talked of being gathered with other girls thirteen and above and distributed to rebel commanders as their “wives.”
There were pictures of drawings the children had made—people tied up and bleeding, soldiers shooting, bullets flying. They showed a refugee camp where some of our children, maybe most of them, would live if we weren’t there for them. Sixty-three thousand people lived in squalor, ten to a hut, malnourished and exposed to cholera, malaria, and HIV. Their villages had been destroyed, and then the rebels had attacked the camp and burned it. As bad as it was, risking capture in the bush was worse.