CRISIS IN SUDAN

May 31, 1999
		A group of fourth graders in a suburban Denver school have launched a campaign to free the victims of modern slavery in Africa. Tom Bearden reports on the movement to end slavery in the Sudan. Phil Ponce then talks to experts with three views about the region.

Online NewsHour Special Reports: Crisis in Sudan Conflict in Central Africa March 25, 1998: President Clinton visits Rwanda. Jan. 7, 1998: Hutus and Tutsis take up fighting again. Sept. 2, 1997: An interview with author Philip Gourevitch Dec. 24, 1996: A historical perspective on Rwanda and Burundi. Nov. 29, 1996: Rwandan refugees return home. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Africa.     Sudan.net Casmas Free South Sudan Republic of Sudan Freedom House	TOM BEARDEN: It was a very special civics lesson: learning about the world by trying to change it. This group of fourth graders in a suburban Denver school have launched a campaign to free the victims of modern slavery in Africa. Their campaign has already made some big waves -- moving their Congressman to raise the issue with the Secretary of State, for example. REP TANCREDO: Madame Secretary, I want to tell you something I'm very proud of: over a thousand of those redeemed slaves have had their freedom purchased by some fourth grade students, believe it or not in a school in a school in my district - Highlight Community School. MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Believe me, I know about the terrible human degradation that is taking place in Sudan. I admire those students and I will write a letter back to them.
	A crisis with many consequences.
	TOM BEARDEN: Half a world away from the kids' Aurora, Colorado, classroom, Africa's largest country has been locked in a bitter in a civil war for fifteen years. The Islamic government in Sudan's North is fighting rebels in the South - most of them Christian or adherents of indigenous tribal religions. While the Sudanese government denies it, most human rights observers say independent militias fighting on behalf of the government have been encouraged to capture slaves during their raids among the Dinka people of southern Sudan. Yet slavery has been only a part of the staggering human costs of the war: nearly two million lives lost -- more than four million people displaced. The US media have reported on all this sporadically, but there hasn't been any sustained attention. Then a year ago Barbara Vogel read a small article in a Denver paper about the resurgence of slavery in Sudan. BARBARA VOGEL:I brought the article in to my class and I said, "I have something I want to read to you today. I taught you that slavery was over and that's what our books said but I was wrong and so were they. They sat as I read that article and tears were coming down their face. Their mouths were open. And the very first thing that they said is ingrained in my mind. "What are we going to do about this?" TOM BEARDEN: Vogel's kids responded in two ways. They started writing letters to important people from the President and the UN Secretary-General on down. BARBARA VOGEL: You need to write the Secretary; and you need to tell him. TOM BEARDEN: They also started raising money -- donating their allowances -- selling their toys in the schoolyard. BARBARA VOGEL: Where did that dollar come from? CHILD: From my tooth. BARBARA VOGEL: From your tooth? Did the tooth fairy come last night?
	"We're freeing slaves."
	TOM BEARDEN: They had seen reports that two Christian organizations were using the controversial tactic of actually buying slaves and setting them free, and they wanted to help. They sent their money to Christian Solidarity International, which converts the donated money into Sudanese currency. Then people like Christian Solidarity's John Eibner make clandestine visits to southern Sudan. He buys slaves from northern Sudanese traders. The going rate for a human being is the equivalent of 50 US dollars. The redeemed slaves are then free to return to their villages. The Denver Post did a story about the children's fundraising efforts, which was then picked up by other newspapers and TV networks. Money began to pour in. NICOLE DININO: We're freeing slaves. There are people that don't think that kids can make a difference but we are. LINDY DE SPAIN: I've learned the power of one, and I've learned that even if you're standing alone, you can make a big difference. TOM BEARDEN: How big will that difference be? Vogel's class drew international press attention - BARBARA VOGEL: In Japan, your achievements are well received by the Japanese people. TOM BEARDEN: -- but also criticism. Francis Deng is a former Sudanese diplomat who's now a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution. FRANCIS DENG: I find myself frankly in a serious situation of moral dilemma because to be going to people who are known to be slavers and therefore criminals whom the world should condemn -- to be doing business with those kinds of people I just find very difficult to accept. On the other hand, I cannot say that freeing children is wrong if they can, in fact, be freed -- and I think if we can make the link so that this business with slavers is only a source of providing evidence that can arouse the conscience of humanity - then it might be a good thing. TOM BEARDEN: Jeff Drumtra, of the US Committee on Refugees, thinks that buying slaves may even perpetuate the slave market. JEFF DRUMTRA: The money that goes into buying back slaves could possibly fuel the slave trade because this money goes to the same people who are doing the raids, abducting the children and by buying back the slaves the question is are we paying money into a vicious circle that encourages more slave raids. TOM BEARDEN: Vogel says that fear is unfounded. BARBARA VOGEL: We have really researched this and there is no evidence that this purchasing the freedom, the redemption of women and children is causing any slave market. The price of slaves has not risen. As a matter of fact it has dropped.
	Raising awareness of slavery.
	SPOKESMAN: America, a country which tore itself apart over the issue of one man owning another, is nothing, if not an abolitionist nation. I don't -- TOM BEARDEN: Tactics aside, Vogel's class continues to find more and more allies in their crusade. They recently participated in a day-long video conference on slavery staged at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. The audience watched some of the news coverage from Sudan. They also heard from Christian Solidarity's John Eibner. JOHN EIBNER: The time is long overdue for people of goodwill, regardless of creed or color, to raise their voices in protest. The silence of our national leaders has so far been deafening. TOM BEARDEN: A key goal of the teleconference and of the growing movement the children have sparked is simple consciousness raising. One of the oldest and most prominent American human rights groups, Freedom House, has gotten involved by organizing college students. They hope to spur a nationwide protest movement. Because many of the enslaved Dinkas are Christians, Freedom House has found especially strong interest at Christian schools. Although Freedom House does not help redeem slaves, it held a conference at Georgetown University to hear from England's Baroness Caroline Cox, a member of the House of Lords, who has organized her own slave redemption missions. CAROLINE COX: A hundred and sixty thousand Christians have died for their faith each year -- our faith each year. Many of those are in Sudan. TOM BEARDEN: Students also attended meetings on how to organize a letter writing campaign or set up a Web page about slavery. STUDENT: Put the history of Sudan and like a map and like pictures 'cause pictures really speak like a thousand words. TOM BEARDEN: On other campuses early this year, some students set up mock slave pens and created newsletters about human rights abuses in Sudan. Freedom House's Nina Shea thinks all this will eventually have an impact. NINA SHEA: There is complete silence from our political leaders. It's going to become politically untenable for this silence to go on
	Facing apathy.
	TOM BEARDEN: This new abolition movement may be growing, but it also faces a lot of apathy. New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne has been trying to get Congress and the Administration to focus on the issue for several years. When Vogel's students wrote to him, he responded with a certificate of appreciation and words of encouragement. BARBARA VOGEL: " -- for your dedication as little abolitionists to end slavery in Africa." TOM BEARDEN: Payne is pleased by the increased attention, but says it has been long time in coming. TOM BEARDEN: When the anti-apartheid coalition was waging its campaign against South Africa, the protests were loud, the passion was evident. Where is the passion here? REP. DONALD PAYNE: It isn't here. We haven't seen arrests. We haven't seen demonstrations at the embassy of Sudan. I'm hoping now that we will start to see that. I think that once we start to demonstrate, the passion will build because the education of what is happening will become more widespread, and that's when you'll see people start to move forward. TOM BEARDEN: Payne and others have decried the slowness of the world's response. Freedom House's Nina Shea is more specific. She points her finger at human rights groups in particular. NINA SHEA: I'm very disappointed in the human rights community as a whole. They've barely uttered a word of protest about this slavery issue, and this is real slavery where children are being shipped by the freight carloads North to slave markets. TOM BEARDEN: Jeff Drumtra believes the sheer scale of the misery has made it hard to focus on a single response. JEFF DRUMTRA: It's not that the human rights organizations are opposed to each other. I think that the issue is how do you get the American public and how do you get the highest levels of the Administration focused on this issue for a sustained period of time. For some people, slavery is what will compel them. For others, the idea that a hundred thousand people died of famine last year --in this day and age that people die of starvation. TOM BEARDEN: Some civil rights groups have gone on the record opposing slavery in Sudan. Critics think they should be doing more. REV. CHUCK SINGLETON: It's not a matter of popular democracy when it comes to human rights. TOM BEARDEN: One black leader who has spoken out is Reverend Chuck Singleton of the Loveland Church in California. REV. CHUCK SINGLETON: Human rights come by demand. Human rights come because somebody resists the powers that be and say it's got to change. TOM BEARDEN: The anti slavery folks say they've approached some of the black civil rights organizations in this country and they've not been interested in the issue. Is that the case, and, if so, why? REV. CHUCK SINGLETON: I think that's an exaggeration to say they're not interested, but that they haven't responded on the level that we would expect, I think that's accurate to say. Leaders tend to get busy. When they get busy they become maintenance people. They've got to keep going what they got going already. So to call their attention to and get them to change directions or add another agenda item is a very difficult thing to do. TOM BEARDEN: The kids are singularly unimpressed with the adult arguments over competing agendas. CHILD: They say we're wrong, and we think we're right. TOM BEARDEN: They don't claim to have solutions to problems that have baffled world leaders for years. But they are absolutely convinced that if they continue to speak out, they can make a difference. In fact, awareness campaigns have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to free slaves. And although the Sudanese government still denies slavery even exists, it has recently established a committee to end what it calls the abductions and forced labor of women and children. As political movements go, this one is very young. It has no national leader, no cohesive tactics, no unified agenda, no nine point program. It is not yet a mass movement--but it is growing. Some believe it's likely to fade in the face of apathy -- but Mrs. Vogel's fourth grade doesn't intend to let that happen. CHILDREN SHOUTING IN UNISON: Let freedom ring!