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United Nations Economic and Social Council
Commission on Human Rights
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and protection of
Minorities
Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery
22nd Session
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Geneva, June 1997
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It is ten years since two Sudanese academics
exposed evidence of slavery in Southern Darfur while they were collecting
information about a massacre in the town of ad-Da'ein. In 1997 such
abuses have not yet ended. I realise that the Commission on Human
Rights and the General Assembly itself are now informed of reports
of slavery on a regular basis, notably by the Special Rapporteur on
Sudan, but I want to draw the attention of the Working Group to a
new report entitled Slavery in Sudan, which Anti-Slavery International
is publishing this month with another organisation, Sudan Update.
With your permission, Madame Chair, I will submit to you a copy of
this 24-page report.
One reason for issuing the report now is not just that slavery has
been going on for ten years - in fact it started up 12 years ago -
but also that the whole issue has been the subject of controversy,
in particular about the scale of the problem and the question of whether
the government itself is responsible for slavery.
Slavery is rooted in Sudan's history, and is part of its war-stricken
present. Because of its emotional potency, it has also become an object
of particular attention and debate in the international media, sometimes
to the exclusion of other abuses committed during Sudan's prolonged
civil war. Our new report outlines how slavery has re-emerged as a
consequence of government conduct of the war and inflammation of racial
and religious hostility.
Actually enslaving people is the most extreme manifestation of a range
of abusive practices, including abduction, kidnapping, hostage-taking
and forced labour, which are taking place against a background of
massive destruction in Sudan. Both sides in the war have committed
such abuses: both have conscripted young teenagers to fight. Slavery
stands out in this pattern of dehumanisation in being imposed exclusively
on southerners by northerners.
As the Working Group has heard in previous years, since the mid-1980s
governments in Khartoum have provided automatic weapons and vehicles
for local militias to create a "buffer zone" against rebel forces
in the south. The militias raid civilian villages, killings, looting
and seizing captives, some of whom are enslaved. While successive
governments cannot be described as having directly participated in
slavery, they have engineered and profited from the social chaos out
of which slavery has reappeared.
The government which has been in power since 1989 has been more ruthless
and systematic than its predecessors in many ways. However, there
are dangers in singling it out for blame over slavery, which reappeared
while an elected civilian government was in power in the mid-1980s.
The current government is guilty of enough crimes for its critics
not to need to exaggerate its record. Unfortunately, this is precisely
what some of its opponents are doing in the slavery debate. There
is a danger that wrangling over slavery can distract us from abuses
which are actually part of government policy - which we do not believe
slavery to be. Unless accurately reported, the issue can become a
tool for indiscriminate and wholly undeserved prejudice against Arabs
and Muslims. I am worried that some media reports of "slave markets"
stocked by Arab slave traders -- which I consider distort reality
-- fuel such prejudice and end up being a gift to the current government
in its search for solidarity abroad. Furthermore, it distracts attention
from the most serious crime of the Sudan Government -- its vast and
brutal programme aimed at the social dismemberment of traditional
societies and political subjugation of those who survive the onslaught.
Our new report is not only intended to replace myth by fact. It also
lists some of the measures which the Government of Sudan should be
taking to end slavery, such as requiring the police to assist families
in locating their relatives and to issue warrants for the release
of relatives without any payment once they are located. It calls on
the government to stop arming local militias, as this has resulted
in slave raiding and child abductions. It also makes a number of recommendations
to the international community, both on how to work for the retrieval,
rehabilitation and reunion of any children in captivity with their
families, and on providing independent human rights teams to monitor
all parts of Northern and Southern Sudan in conjunction with local
human rights observers. |
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