SUTERWALLA: Does your work with Chris-tian Solidarity Worldwide encourage the slave trade?
COX: The answer is an emphatic “no!’’ The National Islamic Front [NIF] regime [in Khartoum] is a fundamentalist Islamist regime that takes and keeps power by military force. It represents no more than about 7 percent of the Sudanese people and is deeply loathed by the rest. It has declared jihad against all those who oppose it–be they Christians, animists or even other Muslims. The objective of the jihad is the forced Islamization of non-Muslims and the forced Arabization of Africans. Slavery is an effective weapon: by cutting children off from their spiritual and cultural roots, they can be brought up according to the will of their masters; also, women and girls are sexually exploited, changing the genetic identity of the dignified African Dinka people forever. The government of Sudan would use slavery whether or not we redeem some of the enslaved. It is an ideological, not an economic, policy.
Is the money that you give to free slaves used to fuel jihad?
The money goes to the Arab traders, not to the government. The money enables the traders to buy the freedom of women and children. Following the escalation of slave raids, local African leaders turned to [friendly] Arab traders for help. These peaceable Arabs do not like the brutality inflicted on the African people, with whom they come [to the south] to trade and on whose fertile land they graze their cattle in the dry season. So these Arab Muslim traders have entered into an agreement with the local Dinka people to buy back and bring back those who have been enslaved. They risk a great deal because they can get severely punished for undermining the jihad if they are identified. Obviously, the Arabs are not operating just from humanitarian motives, and they undoubtedly make a profit. But when they buy back slaves, they use their profit to feed and clothe them before bringing them home. We have been told by the slaves that they are kindly treated by the traders, and that the price the traders pay [to buy the slaves from their masters] is not inconsistent with the price they ask from us, so they are not making big money.
What happens to those who are freed? Will they be captured again?
The local community leaders take great care to reunite women and children who have been freed with their families. If, as tragically often happens, their families were killed in the raids, the local community, which is their extended family, will take care of them. There is always a risk that government troops will return.
Are the international community and the United Nations doing enough to help?
The U.S. is better than Britain. The U.S. is honoring the U.N. Security Council sanctions. Last year I think Britain violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the sanctions… One of the sanctions restricts invitations to diplomats of the regime. Britain invited [Sudan’s] foreign minister here last summer and gave him the red-carpet treatment, and, of course, this greatly encouraged the NIF regime. Also, the Department of Trade and Industry in Britain has a lovely brochure encouraging investment in Sudan. I’m trying to get the British government to be robust in defending the human rights of the Dinka people. It maintains a policy of “criticism and dialogue” with the regime–however, it is short on criticism and long on dialogue.
How would you like to see matters changed?
I don’t think it is in the interest of any government to sit around and watch the obliteration of human rights in another country, regardless of commercial interests. One of my deep concerns is that the British government has become conciliatory towards Sudan since oil became an issue. Oil makes friends quickly, and Britain has been seduced. I see this as a problem, because the existence of oil in Sudan–which should be a blessing–is actually a curse: it is the cause of very systematic ethnic cleansing of the African tribes who live around the oil-rich areas. The men are killed and the women displaced.
Although Britain and Europe pride themselves on humanitarian work, they need to show their commitment to help stop the violence. The local people are highly cultured and are very capable of developing their own civil society, given peace. At the moment, the priority for the Dinka people is not developmental aid to rebuild infrastructure; the priority is survival and freedom.
