JBL, Keep up the pressure on the slave traders of the National Islamic Front Government in the Sudan....
News Article by BOSTON GLOBE on May 13, 1999 at 17:47:04:
No wrong way to fight slavery
THE BOSTON GLOBE
Thursday, May 13, 1999
By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist
You might think that a group dedicated to abolishing slavery in distant
corners of the world would win near-universal acclaim in 1999.
But for its efforts, a 6-year-old Somerville group is instead accused of
promoting slavery by the world's most celebrated humanitarian outfit, the
United Nations Children's Fund.
Working in concert with Christian Solidarity International, a Zurich-based
human rights group, the American Anti-Slavery Group purchases slaves in
the Sudan at about $50 a head and releases them into freedom.
To its supporters, the group's members are human rights heroes; to UNICEF
they are simplistic do-gooders seemingly oblivious to their role in
perpetuating bondage.
The group's front man is an escaped slave from Mauritania who lectures
church groups and students on the evils of modern-day slavery. The group
has also recently kicked off a high-powered advertising campaign, and has
the obligatory Web site (www.anti-slavery.org), on which it wages war with
its loudest and credible adversary, UNICEF.
The new ads resemble 19th century slave-era handbills, combining
historical authenticity with a slick veneer.
''In the Sudan,'' one announces, ''it's easier to buy a slave than a
VCR.''
Especially for children, such a polished sell job risks reducing slavery
to a road show: Moctar Tayeb, runaway slave, on tour.
But that's a quibble compared to the shocking endurance of the slave
trade. Estimates of the number of modern-day slaves vary wildly, both
because the areas where the practice survives are not exactly receptive to
clipboard-carrying census takers, and because there is some disagreement
on what constitutes slavery.
But best guesses place the number of Sudanese slaves in the tens of
thousands and the number of slaves in Mauritania (which on paper has
outlawed slavery three times, most recently in 1980) at anywhere from
200,000 to a million.
In the Sudan, the age-old slave trade has a modern twist: the on-again,
off-again 30-year civil war has created a domestic market, as Muslim
forces take Christian prisoners and make slaves of them.
The anti-slavery effort is simple: the American Anti-Slavery Group raises
money in the United States, and then representatives of Zurich Christian
Solidarity International travel to Sudanese villages, buy the slaves and
return them through the war zone to their homes and families. These trips
are not for the humanitarian hobbyist.
UNICEF, however, sees counterproductive meddling. The children whose
freedom is bought are returned to a war zone, UNICEF says, in which they
could easily become captives again in short order. UNICEF also argues that
freeing one slave at a time accomplishes little. And most important, in
UNICEF's view, the practice of going into the Sudan and buying slaves
endorses the moral legitimacy of slavery.
Charles Jacobs, the co-founder of the anti-slavery group, dismisses the
criticism. He argues that slavery is going on already, and there is no
evidence that his group's activities are promoting further trading.
UNICEF, he charges, criticizes his group, but has done almost nothing
itself to attack slavery. The American Anti-Slavery Group has at least
done something.
Jacobs does admit that his group has little idea of what has become of the
4,000 people it says it has freed. They may remain free; they may just as
well have been returned to bondage.
And, as UNICEF says, it is indeed hard to see how freeing one slave will
liberate thousands, or that buying slaves, even to emancipate them, does
not tacitly encourage slavery.
And yet. I am haunted by an image: one Sudanese child - just one - walking
the road to freedom, thanks to $50 in Western currency. He doesn't care
about geopolitics or debates over whether the ends justify the means. He
has something precious in a thoroughly oppressive land. For now, at least,
he is free.
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