Brothers in Chains

WHILE until recently Sudan has received scant public attention in North America, what little many people know of the situation had to do with slavery.

The government of Sudan in Khartoum, while officially denying the existence of slavery, is complicit in sponsoring and encouraging Arab raiders and others who plunder villages in border areas between northern and southern Sudan, mostly in the Nuba Mountains and Bahr el Ghazal.

While the raids have a certain economic incentive, providing cheap labor for households and farms in the north as well as money to further the north's war effort, the slaving has primarily a political purpose: to depopulate the south, making room for Arab and Islamic settlement.

Many in North America and Europe have become involved in "slave redemption," raising money to buy back slaves from their masters. Groups such as Christian Solidarity International raise funds to purchase freedom for the slaves, and even schoolchildren at Highline Elementary in Aurora, Colo., have collected money for such redemptions. Hollywood has gotten involved, too; last season's premier of TV's "Touched by an Angel" featured a story line about buying back slaves in Sudan.

But some raise a voice of caution. Human rights groups say the influx of money has actually encouraged the taking of slaves. They cite the fact that a slave costs about $15 in the north of Sudan, but they're being redeemed for as much as $50 to $100 a head in the south.

In an article in last August's Christianity Today, Jim Jacobson of Christian Freedom International said he has gone from being a supporter of slave redemptions to being against them. He cites examples of people being "redeemed" more than once, and families proffering children who had never been captured.

The New Sudan Council of Churches, a consortium of Christian churches, has no official position on slave redemption. "Slavery is part of a larger systemic problem that we want to deal with as a whole," said Dr. Haruun Ruun, director of the Council.

The Council believes that while hundreds or thousands face slavery in the border areas, millions face potential starvation in the rest of southern Sudan. "We don't have a permanent famine," Ruun said. "We have a permanent potential famine. A slight climatic change or troop movement can disrupt a whole population and food distribution."

Ruun appreciates Westerners' enthusiasm for helping slaves, but he stresses that Sudan's problems are much more long-term. "The church is the only institution in the south that is still functioning," he said. It is the church that will provide the ultimate solution to war, famine and slavery, and that same church needs the help of people in the West." But others insist that the redemption of slaves is a worthwhile endeavor and of crucial importance — particularly to those winning their freedom. John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International insists that the slave buybacks have not inflated the market, as the taking of slaves has primarily a political justification, not an economic one.

Bishop Macrum Gassis, the exiled leader of Sudan's Roman Catholics, recently encouraged the schoolchildren of Highline Elementary, who have raised $35,000 toward slave buybacks. "You are on the right track," he told the children last November. "The dog barks, but the camel keeps on walking. You be the camels; let evil bark."

Despite disagreements on slave redemption, however, all insist that the church needs support and prayer. Peter Tibi, a Sudanese pastor living in exile in Kenya, summed up the faith of Sudanese Christians today, despite the war, the famine and the persecution.

"The Bible tell us that we should not be afraid of those who kill us physically," he said. "We should be afraid of the one who can destroy us, both spiritually and physically, and that is God. Because of that, we stand firm to tell the truth, despite of what happens to us.

"And because of this persecution, it has made the church to grow. We as church leaders must be strong, because when we are strong, we make the congregations become strong also. But when we are afraid and become weak, they will also become weak."