Posted on 07/16/2002 4:42:40 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - The abduction and rape of boys from Dinka communities in southern Sudan by Arab-backed forces from the north is widespread, reported a human rights observer who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to the north African country.
"A lot of these boys are being brutally raped by their Arab abductors," reported Maria Sliwa, an editor with Freedom Now World News and an expert on Sudan. "This is something very foreign to [the Dinkas]. It's a major stigma for a male to have sex with another male, so these boys are quite shocked when they're dragged into this."
Boys who tried to escape their Arab masters were hunted down. Some had their Achilles tendons cut to prevent them from running again and many had scars on their legs from where they were beaten with bamboos or sticks, Sliwa said.
She collected nine hours of testimony on tape during interviews with more than a dozen redeemed slaves, all in their early teens, whose stories were corroborated by local chiefs, a senior justice official in southern Sudan and a Sudanese Anglican minister who oversees 42 churches.
"Nobody denied it. They all knew about it," Sliwa said.
One boy she spoke to said he was often beaten as a slave because he would not convert to Islam. Boys who are able to return to their communities are traumatized, Sliwa said, citing testimony by local chiefs.
"They have fits of crying, many of them can't get married and go on to normal lives," she said.
Gang rapes of women have been well documented and reported by human rights and other groups, but "no one has said anything about the boys," Sliwa said.
The Muslim government of Khartoum has been widely accused of condoning slavery in that country. But some international human rights observers and journalists have reported the total picture regarding abductions and slavery is complex.
Government-backed militias regularly attack villages of the Dinka tribe in southern Sudan, where more than 2 million Christian and animist people have been killed or died from starvation in a civil war that has dragged on for two decades.
However, because of the civil war, tribal animosities in the south have also been aggravated and rival tribes abduct many women and children, observers say.
The Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army, which is fighting the Khartoum regime also, has been guilty of abductions, observers say. The SPLA has raided villages and forced people to work for the rebel army, or forcefully conscripted them.
While the redemption of slaves for money by Christian groups has bought the freedom of many slaves, the practice also increases the profitability of slave traffic and abductions, and thus possibly encourages more kidnapping and slavery, critics say.
Not all Muslims support the abductions policy, Sliwa said. In some cases, Muslims who oppose abductions on moral grounds seek to negotiate, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves, the release of Dinka slaves from Muslim abductors, she said.
"I saw a lot of free redemptions, where slaves were returned to their communities and there was no payment," Sliwa said.
International law treats slavery and rape in the context of armed conflict as crimes against humanity, she noted. Freedom Now is calling on the U.S. government to investigate this aspect of what it calls Khartoum's "declared jihad against the black Africans of southern Sudan" and press for the establishment of an international criminal tribunal for Sudan.
E-mail a news tip to Lawrence Morahan.
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One more reason to NUKE EM ALL and let Allah sort em out. Animals, all of them!
There is no sow like unto allah, and mohammed is her pimp!
Well? Haven't they?
Are such things against the laws of Allah or not?
Are such things Islamic or un-Islamic??
Do you mean to tell me that Allah approves of slavery, rape, and forced conversion???
"One boy she spoke to said he was often beaten as a slave because he would not convert to Islam. "Is this how Muslims win "converts"?
If Islam had anything to do with truth, coersion would not be necessary.
This speaks volumes about Islam!
"The Muslim government of Khartoum has been widely accused of condoning slavery... But...the total picture regarding abductions and slavery is complex."Yes. So was the Gordian Knot.
Seems like the only thing that’s going to combat this is military intervention. Of course this won’t happen from Khartoum. Thank God for Uganda’s President Museveni who is staging raids to free slaves in Southern Sudan.
Another example of all being peace and love in Africa now that Whitey’s gone…
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Hm. Well that seems to partially explain why the Left is so "soft" on Islamist terrorism. I guess it's a "partnership" to help "raise consciousness" among the unenlightened.
Here, for example, Arabs are helping introduce "adult-child intimacy" in concert with the goals of NAMBLA and the American Psychiatric Association.
They seem to be doing a diligent job of it.
I'm glad the word tribe is used to describe these groups of people and nothing more dignifying.
May they all go to hell & stay away from us forever, please, dear Lord!
It's rather difficult to rape the women (and boys) of a village when someone in the bush is picking off members of your gang. It also makes you not to want to come back a second time.
Just my .02
The Pope issued his condemnation and apology for forced conversions only as recently as March 12, 2000. Unfortunately, the Christian community is not in a good historical position from which to condemn other religions regarding forced conversions.
On the other hand, Christians the world over condemn such things and the "false Christians" who commit them--NOW--TODAY.
Muslims? So far very little condemnation--NOW--TODAY.
Fatwas have been issued against apostates and those who "insult Islam"--but, so far, none against rapists, enslavers, terrorists, or suicide/murderers.
In fact--murder/suicide/terrorists are generally lauded and applauded by Muslims. They are held up as roll models for Muslim children.
Muslims danced in the streets to celebrate the Sept. 11 murder/suicide/terrorist/massacre. That speaks volumes.
Christians? Jews? Hindus? Wickans? No. Among them there is unqualified condemnation of such horrors the world over.
I'm afraid your arguments are hollow.
Atrocities committed by those of other religions in the past--the inquisition, pograms, witch trials--all the unspeakable horrors notwithstanding--no "religion" in the world today compares with Islam for sheer savagery.
Yes, nuke them all. They're a cancer that must be destroyed to the last lesion.
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