| Dear friends in my supporting congregations:
Hamuda came about dawn, that rare moment in Darfur when it's cool enough that you might stop sweating for a few moments. He was to drive me to the airport so I could catch a United Nations flight back to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. I apologized to him for the early hour. "No problem," he replied. "But this is earlier than you normally would start work. You could have slept in longer," I insisted. Then Hamuda put the early morning in perspective. "All my family is either dead or living in camps," he said. "And you've come to help them. For me, it's no sacrifice to get up a little early." For ten days in Darfur, the arid western part of Sudan where an ethnic conflict has produced what many term genocide against African farmers, I focused on trying to drink enough water, stay healthy, and keep the sand out of my lenses. I had failed at all three, but at last I was starting on the 45 hours of flights and airport layovers that would lead me back to the lush green of western Oregon. I confess I was starting to long for the task of pulling weeds from my garden. At least weeds are green. Hamuda's simple reminder that his family-and so many other people in Darfur-are either dead or living in crowded camps brought me back to why I'd come to Sudan. He simply wouldn't let me forget. That's a task the world faces today: not to forget Darfur. Arab nomads and African farmers have co-existed in Darfur for centuries, often peacefully, at times with tension. In the last few years, an encroaching desert and a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against a regional rebel group have brought new tension to the complex relationship between the two groups. The government's decision to arm several Arab militias has meant accelerated death and destruction. More than 200,000 people have been killed, and millions have fled their homes. As the rainy season gets underway, aid groups are providing food to about 3.5 million people. Because Sudan has oil that it sells to China and other countries, few are willing to criticize Khartoum's policies. The U.S. government has been critical at times, but the CIA has now established close ties with the country's secret police-the architects of the Darfur violence-and thus the war on terror has trumped the campaign against genocide. Meanwhile, people in Darfur continue to die of the violence of war and the disease and hunger that haunts those chased out of their homes by aerial bombing and armed militias. Women living in the camps for the internally displaced continue to be raped when they venture out into the brush in search of firewood. Personally, it was a very difficult assignment. I've never been anywhere as relentlessly hot-both day and night. And the grinding noises in my camera lenses today recall the omnipresent dust throughout the region. The days were long, bouncing in the back of jeeps for hours, trying to not fall off the back of an armored personnel carrier as I photographed African Union troops on patrol, or waiting on U.N. helicopters that might or might not show up to take me to the next stop. And it was emotionally draining to walk through the ashes of burned-out villages and witness a proud and friendly people reduced to living in sweltering camps. I've finished editing a collection of images for the ACT/Caritas network, and you can see them online. I also have provided UMCOR with a set of images from the two days I spent visiting their work in South Darfur. I've now got several articles to write from the trip, while at the same time I'm past deadline on some articles from the Philippines (from where I rushed off to Sudan). So my garden isn't getting weeded quite as quickly as I wished. But the weeds sure are green and healthy. Another moment from the trip that stays with me is an evening in Garsila, a remote and small village that's been inundated by refugees from the violence. It was hot there, of course, but the first rains of the season had begun with a brief afternoon shower, so the heat wasn't as bad as it had been. I spent the evening in the sandy courtyard of the local ACT/Caritas office, savoring by candlelight the camel and okra stew and drinking endless rounds of tea into the night with a motley team of international aid workers. Around the small courtyard were people from Zambia, Kenya, Nepal, Denmark, Zimbabwe, Great Britain, Sudan, Rwanda, and-including myself-the United States. They were water engineers, psycho-social specialists, agronomists-all the skills you need to help hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people survive in camps scattered throughout the desert. The presence of those sisters and brothers there gives me hope. They have given up the comforts of their homes to work so that the displaced might have some measure of dignity, better heath, better shelter, perhaps even some hope that someday soon they will be able to return home and live in peace. The world's churches have responded quickly and generously to the crisis in Darfur, and I've seen first-hand that we're making a difference in people's lives. Yet until the violence stops and it can be made safe for people to voluntarily return home, binding the wounds of the afflicted will be the best we can do. The international community must keep up the pressure on Sudan, and step up military intervention if necessary, in order to halt the massive slaughter in Darfur. Paul PS: Here are some additional resources on Darfur: International
Crisis Group |