by Don Cheadle
To employ starvation as a weapon violates international law under the Geneva Conventions, but the government of Sudan has never been bothered by the rules that govern warfare. Starvation in war-torn regions of Sudan is less a by-product of indiscriminate fighting than a government objective—the wholesale liquidation of civilian populations—largely achieved through the diversion and denial of humanitarian food assistance. State-sponsored mass murder has moved to the bureaucratic level, with the government vetoing relief flights destined to provide food to starving civilians, forcing many people to flee. And as the south was emptied of its citizens, like the Lost Boys (see Chapter 6), the Khartoum government gained greater access to oil, which helped finance its continuing war.
The Curse of Oil
The discovery of oil in Africa can be a blessing or a curse, as is the case in southern Sudan. Against all odds and predictions, the Sudanese regime—backed by Chinese, Malaysian, and Canadian oil companies—was able to forcibly clear out the populations of huge swathes of south-central Sudan in order to secure the way for the oil companies to begin exploiting the oil.[6] Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or displaced by these vicious scorched earth campaigns—in which everything is burned, including crops, villages, and houses—in the oilfields, and the manipulation of relief flights was an effective complement to government air strikes and ground assaults.
Oil exploitation has lined the pockets of mass murderers in Khartoum and financed the arms the government uses to terrorise its own citizens. More money from oil means access to more sophisticated weapons, and while the United States is forbidden by law from selling arms to Sudan, numerous other countries happily profit from Khartoum’s barbarism. The Chinese even helped build weapons factories inside Sudan, creating a military-industrial complex.[7]
Nonetheless, despite staggering growth in government revenue since oil first began to flow, most Sudanese remain desperately poor. The government’s social development spending is dwarfed by international aid flowing in, and millions more people would starve without the support of international relief agencies that persistently fight bureaucratic obstruction to deliver assistance.
Many companies that have cut deals with Khartoum are from Russia and China—countries that occupy powerful and permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council and have very poor human rights records. These countries’ cuddly relationship with hard-liners in Khartoum is based on greed, and protecting their interests comes at the expense of innocent lives. China in particular has used its position on the Security Council to protect the government of Sudan from sanctions and to prevent stronger action to end the atrocities in Darfur. This protection came despite the Sudanese government’s long history of harbouring terrorist organisations and radical Islamic groups.
Osama bin Laden’s Refuge
The National Islamic Front sought to establish the country as a key capital of the militant Islamic world, developing close ties with many violent organisations inside and outside of Sudan and attempting to organise them into a cohesive Jihadist network. The NIF hosted annual meetings attended by terrorist delegates from Egypt, Algeria, Palestine, Afghanistan, and more than 50 other countries, including Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.[8]
Terrorists moved freely in and out of the country, and the Sudanese government hosted bin Laden from 1991 to 1996. His main protector while in Sudan was a man named Salah Abdallah Gosh, the current head of the powerful military intelligence organisation and one of the architects of genocide in Darfur.
The Sudanese government allowed bin Laden monopoly stakes in some of Sudan’s most profitable businesses, gave fake passports to al-Qaeda operatives, allowed terrorists to set up training camps, and transported terrorists and their weapons aboard Sudan Airways aircraft. Bin Laden plotted some of his later terrorist attacks while living in Sudan, and the profits he made there undoubtedly funded attacks against Western targets.
Putting Pressure on Khartoum
In response to bin Laden’s use of Sudan as a base of operations, a small group of people working for President Clinton began to focus on the regime. They argued that Sudan’s support for international terrorist groups made it a rogue nation that needed to be pressured heavily. Susan Rice was a staff member of the National Security Council. Working for former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, she saw the threat that bin Laden’s residence in Sudan posed to US national security. Working closely with Madeleine Albright (who was US ambassador to the UN and then secretary of state), she and others (including John, who worked for her at both the National Security Council and the State Department) managed to ramp up US pressure on Sudan and were finally able to impose strong United Nations multilateral as well as unilateral sanctions on the leadership there. As a result of this year-long campaigning, the Sudanese government booted bin Laden out of the country and ceased much of their overt support for terrorist organisations. It is but one example of the Khartoum government responding to outside influence.
Near the end of the Clinton administration in 2000, the process unfolded to choose the new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. Sudan was Africa’s consensus choice to represent the continent. Against the strong advice of all of the other Security Council members, President Clinton decided to oppose Sudan’s ascension to the seat and tasked Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, US permanent representative to the UN, with leading the diplomatic effort to find a replacement and defeat Sudan’s candidacy, even though this had rarely been done in the history of the UN.
Two weeks of hard diplomacy finally produced a stunning verdict: the tiny island country of Mauritius defeated Sudan in the General Assembly on the third ballot. It was an incredible upset that demonstrated in no uncertain terms what the United States can do when it puts its political muscle behind its intentions. But there was more to come.
The ‘North-South Peace Process’
In late 2002 and early 2003, after nearly 20 years of horrific conflict, the United States and others pressed the Sudanese government and the SPLA to enter peace talks. Responding to growing public pressure from conservative US Christian groups concerned about Christians in southern Sudan, George W. Bush appointed former Missouri senator John Danforth as his special envoy to Sudan. Danforth led US efforts to push both sides toward an agreement, but, like the Addis Ababa agreement, the ‘North-South peace process’ (as many people refer to it) did not address the grievances of northern Sudanese marginalised by the Khartoum government.
The Sudanese government’s policy of economic marginalisation and violent repression is not limited to the south, yet the peace talks between the SPLA and the government excluded numerous other constituencies in Sudan that opposed the National Islamic Front and its divisive policies, notably groups in Darfur. Opposition groups in northern Sudan, including those in Darfur, drew one simple conclusion from the North-South peace process: the only way to get what you want in Sudan is to fight for it. The Darfurians that took up arms to fight for their rights never imagined that the regime they were opposing would meet their mutiny with genocide.
DON:
The incredibly early drive the next morning is over a bumpy road of dust, the sheer volume of which clogs the filter and stops the car, stranding us in questionable territory. Our United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees guide that day chirps, ‘Don’t worry, the Janjaweed take Tuesday off.’ His wry sense of humour lets you know he’s been at it awhile now. It isn’t necessarily gallows humour, but obviously you have to grow a thick skin to stay out here for the length of time most aid workers do and not completely come apart. The workers are in fact in a strange position. They are both highly sought after and needed for as long as they can take it, yet cautioned against staying too long. That would create the kind of burnout that can turn a young ambitious contributor into a nihilistic fatalist. But how long is too long when the people you have come to know, come to befriend, are suffe
ring? Spend a year getting to know someone, cry with them, share a meal, a story, a laugh with them, then when ‘too long’ comes, leave them to their fate—that’s what these people reckon with. No good deed goes unpunished. Our guide to Am Nabak is in fact rotating back home at the end of this year’s tour.
He tells us this while he fixes the car and gets us back under way. We ride through miles and miles of dust, terrain that only sustains scant vegetation and trees far too small and bare for shade. The Am Nabak refugee camp seems to slowly rise out of the dust. It is truly an oasis to the weary, distraught travellers, though you’d probably never use that word to describe what we’re about to see. It is un-cinematic, stark and real.
‘We ain’t in Kansas anymore.’ John as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz now.
‘But I’m from Missouri.’
‘And we ain’t there either.’
Driving into the camp, we are immediately mobbed by kids. I don’t know what I expected our welcome to be, but I am soon told that whenever these UNHCR vehicles arrive there is a great flurry of activity because of what or whom they might carry—good news or bad. Or perhaps on a long shot, it could be an emissary from an agency, country, or municipality that has taken an interest in the Darfurians’ plight beyond simple survival and instead promises to secure a real measure of relief through political intervention. There are also many beefs these inhabitants need to air, stories from the many daily arrivals, recounting their particular journey to the camp. Each tale is eerily similar to the others in its specificity and scope: first the planes, then the soldiers, then the marauders. Basic details of cruelty vary, but death for most men and rape for perhaps thousands of women are the consistent themes.
We pull to a stop in a cloud of loose earth and hop out into the throng. The cars are at the very least providing a break in the monotony, toting some odd-looking people to gawk at. The camp leader quickly approaches the car. I don’t speak his tongue, but it isn’t necessary to; he’s clearly upset. Somebody once told me that spoken language actually comprises only a small part of communication, and watching this conversation I’m inclined to agree. It is clear that a case is being made for something serious to this man, and he wants results! Our guide nods his head in appeasement, his body language telling me that he understands. The entire time the Nightline cameras roll, and I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not in a movie with special effects, lighting, and makeup but experiencing reality on a level I have never seen. When the Nightline cameraman hops out of the car with his equipment on his shoulder, red light steady to document the moment, many of the people, especially the young ones, shrink back. The little ones are smiling. I ask about it and am told that most of the kids have probably never seen a video camera.
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Yes. You are one of the few outsiders who have ever been here except for relief workers. And never a camera crew that I can remember.’
Right. What am I thinking? This isn’t Bosnia or Somalia or Iraq; this is an itinerant refugee camp on the Chad/Darfur border, nestled in the middle of nowhere, with very little international interest to protect its inhabitants. Who’s filming them? Maybe those in the crowd who were exposed to a camera before believe by now that pictures must be taken solely for the benefit of the photographer, not the subject, as their lives go unchanged while the picture takers go. Why not turn away? Those remaining, however, the curious, are partitioned out almost in concentric circles, with the youngest forming the closest ring and the elders on the outermost, with each gradation in between fanning out in a spontaneous, human design. I walk slowly, taking it in. A father myself, I know better than to try to force some kind of exchange with these kids, although, probably because I am a father, I am hawk-like, looking for an angle to do so.
We are introduced to Emile Belem, head of operations at Am Nabak as well as two other camps in the area. He’s been here a year and today is his last day.
‘When they come first to the camp and you approach them, you will see that they are very sad.’ Emile breaks it down.
‘Very sad,’ I parrot.
‘Now you see them, they are smiling, and this is, this is a very good image.’
Images of my two safe-at-home, well-fed, educated kids are swirling around in my head, and reverberations of reality find another pitch to hum inside me. My daughters’ faces are now joined by others. I feel my own face starting to shift, my expression beginning to change, but I’m maintaining, masking well the sorrow that’s creeping over me for those little boys and girls whose faces remind me of my childhood—looking in the mirror of my sister and brother’s faces, my cousins and friends. Faces taking me back to old pictures in only slightly newer family albums of happy times, Little Donald surrounded by the people he knew and loved most in the world. I hear the voice in my head speak up, the one my reason uses: ‘Maintain, Little Donald.’
Just then, I catch the eye of a little boy, no more than ten or 11, staring at me tripping. I hope he didn’t vibe my slippery state. The last thing I want to do is somehow present a sour mug, a face wracked with pity when pity in this situation is a useless and obvious indulgence, insulting even, if no action follows it. I shake it off. This child is the first one since we’ve pulled up that’s looked unwaveringly in my eyes. So I do what any clown would do: I make a silly face at him. Thankfully, he laughs, the wordless joke translating. Uh-oh. The Ham is loose. I got inroads now. I kick a rock over near him nonchalantly, still getting downloaded on camp specifics. When he kicks it back, though, I excuse myself from the tutorial; it’s on! Pretty soon other little kids are jostling around the impromptu soccer match, laughing and giggling. John jumps in as well and we’re having a nice little game now. One of the kids does a fancy between the legs move, and I reach out to give him a pound, and he pulls away, avoiding my contact and my culturally specific way of saying ‘good one,’ an outstretched fist. Toward a child, no less. Am I an idiot or what?
Don’t they know I’m only five short generations away from being an African myself? When my six-foot-one, melanin-challenged travelling companion reaches out, I understand these kids’ reservations. But me? For these kids, however, regardless of my skin and similar facial features, I am a ‘Them’ from a foreign land and don’t quite have pound privileges yet, harmless though I know myself to be. I turn their reticence into a game too, walking away like I couldn’t care less, then darting back to grab at them. The kids think this is a laugh riot, and it trumps the soccer game, carrying us deeper down the roadway and into the heart of the camp, comprised of small, makeshift mud, stick, and found-plastic homes. Completely bereft of any adornment, only the most basic of structures serve as a buffer to the harsh elements for their inhabitants, who sometimes number eight or more. We settle near a small area where women sit beside tarps laid out on the ground with beans, grain, and small knick-knacks strewn across them. Is this a market? Emile goes off to find Fatima, the woman we are to meet with today and interview for Nightline, while John and I survey the camp over the tops of the tiny heads huddled closer around us. The kids are braver now. The older ones, and even the adults now, close the circle behind them, and for a few minutes, that is all that happens: them staring at us staring at them. I don’t know what to do at first, then I remember I am a clown, here to entertain. I pick up a little stone, bend my arm back so I can balance it on my elbow, and then swipe my hand down fast, snatching the stone out of the air. Big reaction. They want me to do it again. John chimes in.
‘You’re a hit, buddy.’
‘I’m a seal. They just want to see how far I’ll go.’
I do the trick a couple more times then hand the rock to one of the kids, inadvertently inciting a pushing and shoving match as they all want to take possession of the stone, now apparently imbued with some kind of unique otherness that it lacked just five minutes ago. The conflict doesn’t last long, however, as an elderly woman, perhaps a camp elder (
a small yet significant distinction), appears from behind one of the small huts carrying the innards of a box spring overhead, its metal coils rusted and black. She throws the thing at our feet and begins an impassioned rant. I look around for Emile, but he’s off dealing with camp business, and no one near can translate. John is no help.
‘Do you have any idea what she’s saying?’ I ask.
‘No. She looks angry though.’
She does.
‘Maybe she’s talking about what happened to her in her village,’ John adds.
‘Maybe this bed and all her other possessions were destroyed by the Janjaweed.’
Sounds about right. Like I said before, trucked-in strangers like us often signify witnesses, and very likely her story was one she knew we needed to hear. But I had to take it further. ‘Could be. Or maybe she’s looking for some payback and wants to tie one of us to that bed and set it ablaze.’
I push John an arm’s length away and point to him, hoping she’ll understand my gesture as the sincere offering it is: ‘Take the white man.’