March 24, 2001

'No Greater Tragedy'

By ANTHONY LEWIS

BOSTON -- Abuk Macam is a fragile-looking young woman from southern Sudan, tall and thin and black, as are her people, the Dinka. Her calm seemed almost eerie as she told me her story.

"In 1987, when I was 10 years old, the Arab militia from the north came to our village," she said. "They killed the men — my grandfather was shot in front of my eyes — and took the children and women. We were taken to a northern town, Daien, and put in a big stockade. It was a slave market.

"A man named Ahmed Adam bought me. He made me herd his goats and do domestic work all day. If I wanted to rest, he threatened to kill me. I was there for 10 years.

"When I grew older, Ahmed Adam would come at night and try to rape me. One night he threatened me with a knife and stabbed my right leg. I started running, with my leg bleeding. I found a truck taking cattle to Babanusa, and I hid with the cattle so the driver would not see me.

"In Babanusa I saw a Dinka man, Majak. He took me to Khartoum, and I stayed with his family. Then some Muslim men came around looking for escaped slaves. Majak said it wasn't safe for me. He said he could arrange for me to marry his brother, Atak, who was in Cairo. So I went to Cairo and married Atak. We registered for refugee status, were accepted by the United States and got here on Jan. 26, 2000."

Last month Abuk and her husband were brought to Boston by the American Anti-Slavery Group, which fights slavery in Sudan and elsewhere. She has never been to school in her life but will now have English lessons. She spoke with me through an interpreter.

Another escaped Sudanese slave was with her: Francis Bok, 22 years old, like Abuk a Dinka and Christian. He was 7 when his mother sent him to the market to sell some eggs and beans. Arab militiamen came, shot the men and took the children away. Francis was tied on one side of a donkey, two little girls on the other side.

"The girls couldn't stop crying," he said. "So they shot one first, then the other. I learned to be quiet.

"My master was Juma Abdullah. He and his family called me `abid,' which means black slave. They made me sleep with the animals. `You are an animal,' master said."

Francis Bok tried twice to escape but was caught. Finally, at the age of 17, he made it to a market where a kindly Muslim truck driver took him to Daien, and then gave him money for a truck trip to Khartoum. From there he made it to Cairo and, like Abuk, got refugee status.

A Methodist church in Fargo, N.D., sponsored him as a U.S. immigrant, and he went there in 1999. Now he is working for the Anti-Slavery Group, and going to high school at night. He has already learned English.

Hearing these stories in an office in downtown Boston was an unreal experience. It seemed impossible that such things could happen in the contemporary world. But they do.

Slavery is just one aspect of the terror of life in southern Sudan. For 18 years now the south has been ravaged by a civil war: the north, largely Arab and Muslim, against the south, black African, Christian and animist. About two million people have been killed, four million forced from their homes.

The Sudanese government in Khartoum bombs southern villages and blocks food relief flights to areas where it wants the population to starve. Now oil has been found in the south, and the government is destroying villages in oil areas to clear the way for prospectors.

"There is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth today" than Sudan, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Congressional testimony on March 7. It was an admirably strong statement after years of American reticence, giving hope of leadership toward ending the slavery and the slaughter.

This country cannot do everything, but there are relatively easy steps to take against the evil in Sudan. We should make it clear to Khartoum that we will do all we can to keep it from using oil revenues to intensify its genocidal war. No U.S. oil companies are involved, but we should pressure the companies that are — Canadian, Swedish, Chinese, Malaysian. We should help break the food blockade of the south. And as a country, we should forthrightly condemn the horror of slavery.