The 17 December 1999 Globe and Mail article entitled "My Week on the
Cusp of War", written by Globe and Mail feature writer Stephanie Nolen,
has provided a clear example of the poor, undemanding journalism that
has come to characterise much of Canadian media coverage of Sudan. Yet
it is such journalism which claims to inform Canadian public opinion on
Sudanese issues. We strongly recommend that anyone interested in the
need for professionalism and accuracy in media reads it as an example of
how not to cover civil conflict.
Written after a one-week visit to an area within rebel-controlled
southern Sudan, the article's credibility is immediately undermined by
several fundamental factual mistakes. Ms Nolen would appear to have been
ignorant of one of the central guidelines for war reporting - that truth
is the first casualty of war. She unreservedly accepts claims by the
southern Sudanese rebels, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA),
which are questionable where not demonstrably untrue. She also turns a
blind eye to the appalling human rights record of the SPLA men she
travelled with for one week. The article contains material which
respected human rights groups such as Anti-Slavery International have
said fuels prejudice against Arabs and Muslims. And, in yet another
example of what can only be described as thoroughly unprofessional
journalism, Ms Nolen also repeats serious allegations about fellow
Canadians despite the fact that she herself admits it is "rumour".
While one can understand and even expect a degree of subjectivity in the
reporting of a journalist, what is less forgivable are blatant untruths
and distortion. The errors can, of course, be for any of several
reasons. It might be that they can simply be put down to poor journalism
on the part of the journalist. Perhaps the journalist in question was
out of her depth. Or, perhaps what she wrote simply reflected entrenched
prejudice on the part of the Globe and Mail. In any instance, the
article contains glaring inaccuracies and prejudice for which Ms Nolen
and her editors are responsible.
The Globe and Mail's "Christian South"
One of the crucial inaccuracies that fundamentally flaw this Globe and
Mail article is the claim that the southern Sudan is Christian. Ms Nolen
refers, for example, to the "Christian South". The simple fact is that
the south is not Christian, it is animist. Both Christianity and Islam
are minority religions in southern Sudan. Given the widespread
propaganda that has marked the Sudanese issue, one would have expected a
competent journalist to seek authoritative and objective sources with
regard to the religious composition of the southern Sudanese population.
One such source apparently overlooked by Ms Nolen is the definitive
United States Government's Sudan - A Country Study, published by the
Federal Research Division and the Library of Congress. This states that:
In the early 1990s possibly no more than 10 percent of southern Sudan's
population was Christian.
The 1994-95 Economist Intelligence Unit country profile of Sudan states
that Christians made up 15 percent of the southern population. This
figure is also cited in Human Rights Watch Africa's 1996 report on
Sudan. (1)
According to independent references, therefore, something between 10-15
percent of the southern Sudanese population may be Christian: a similar
percentage may be Muslim. Ms Nolen's claim that the southern Sudan is
Christian, while it may make for a convenient stereotype, is simply
untrue. Was the Globe and Mail's claim of a "Christian South" simply
poor journalism, bad research or wishful thinking? It is difficult to
believe that a "feature writer" for any newspaper would not adequately
research such a controversial article. It is simply unprofessional. It
is the equivalent of a Sudanese journalist stating that Quebec was
English or that Alberta was French.
The Globe and Mail, Jihad, Islamic Sharia Law and Religious Prejudice
On the subject of religion, Ms Nolen writes all too eagerly of jihad,
holy war and "martyrs for the spread of Islam", stating that "religious
conversion is just one of the things Khartoum wants in the South". She
also quotes an SPLA spokesman talking about Sudan having been declared
"an Arab Islamic state with sharia [Islamic] law". Sharia law was
introduced in 1983 by the American-backed Nimeiri regime and retained by
every Sudanese government, democratic or otherwise, since then. The
Globe and Mail is clearly unaware, or chooses not to be aware, however,
that it was the present government that in 1991 exempted southern Sudan
from Islamic sharia law, precisely because the population was largely
non-Muslim. The ten states that make up southern Sudan are governed by
their own laws. Once again, this is a matter of record, having been
documented by, amongst others, the American State Department in their
definitive Country Reports on Human Rights Practices:
Sudan's 1991 Criminal Act, based on Sharia law, (prescribes) specific
"hudud" punishments. The Government officially exempts the 10 Southern
States, who population is mostly non-Muslim, from parts of the 1991
Criminal Act. But the Act permits the possible future application of
Shariâa law in the south, if the local state assemblies so decide. (2)
Even the American government, therefore, has admitted that sharia law is
not applied in the south. Given the Globe and Mail's apparent belief
that the Sudanese government is waging a fanatical holy war for the
spread of Islam, is it not somewhat incongruous that one of the first
reforms the present government introduced was to exempt southern Sudan
from sharia law? The Globe and Mail's false claims of a "Christian
South", forced to live under an imposed sharia law, with all the
implications for religious conflict, merely perpetuate an inaccurate
stereotype of Sudan, and an equally inaccurate and superficial context
for the Sudanese conflict.
Ms Nolen also devotes several paragraphs to claims that Sudanese
government soldiers are involved in the slave trade. She specifically
refers to "Arab slave traders". Once again, there are neutral sources
against which one can assess claims of "slavery" in Sudan. Anti-Slavery
International is the world's oldest human rights organisation. In a
submission to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva,
these professional human rights experts on slavery stated:
There is a danger that wrangling over slavery can distract us from
abuses which are actually part of government policy - which we do not
believe slavery to be. Unless accurately reported, the issue can become
a tool for indiscriminate and wholly undeserved prejudice against Arabs
and Muslims. [We] are worried that some media reports of "slave
markets", stocked by Arab slave traders - which [we] consider distort
reality - fuel such prejudice. (3) (emphasis added)
Anti-Slavery International has also stated that: "the charge that
government troops engage in raids for the purpose of seizing slaves is
not backed by the evidence". (4) Additionally, the respected human
rights expert, and Sudan specialist, Alex de Waal, while co-director of
the human rights group African Rights, has stated with regard to
allegations of slavery that:
(O)vereager or misinformed human rights advocates in Europe and the US
have played upon lazy assumptions to raise public outrage. Christian
Solidarity International, for instance, claims that "Government troops
and Government-backed Arab militias regularly raid black African
communities for slaves and other forms of booty". The organization
repeatedly uses the term "slave raids", implying that taking captives is
the aim of government policy. This despite the fact that there is no
evidence for centrally-organized, government-directed slave raiding or
slave trade. (5)
Anti-Slavery International would seem to believe that talk of "Arab
slave traders", as unreservedly carried in the Globe and Mail, distort
reality and fuel prejudice against Arabs and Muslims.
Sudanese Exports, Sorghum and Famine
Ms Nolen continued to play fast and loose with facts when she stated
that "Sudan's chief export is sorghum". Both the CIA World Factbook 1999
and Sudan.net, a much respected Internet source on Sudan, give the
following breakdown for Sudan's exports: cotton 23 %; sesame 22 %;
livestock/meat 13 %; gum arabic 5 %. Both sources are readily available
on the Internet. Ms Nolen compounds error with the further claim that
much of this "chief export" is sold to the United Nations for
"distribution as relief supplies for the famine the government creates
in the south". The fact is that the Sudan produced so little sorghum
that, as reported by Reuters, the government for several years
prohibited any exports of the crop. (6) Had Ms Nolen checked any of the
facts with regard to the sourcing of foodstuffs by Operation Lifeline
Sudan she would have known that Operation Lifeline Sudan has had a
strict policy of not purchasing food stuffs from within Sudan. As Ms
Nolen correctly points out, Operation Lifeline Sudan is based in the
"Kenyan frontier town of Lokichokkio" from where "Operation Lifeline
drops supplies across the South". Is Ms Nolen seriously asking her
readers to believe that Operation Lifeline Sudan purchases foodstuffs in
northern Sudan, then spends vast amounts of money to fly these bulky
consignments to Kenya only to then fly them back into Sudan? Ms Nolen
should perhaps also note, for future reference, December 1999 Agence
France Press reports headlined "Sudan distributes food aid in war-torn
south", that appear to confirm that far from selling its grain to
Operation Lifeline Sudan, it has been providing thousands of tonnes of
it as food relief to 180,000 southerners. (7)
Famine in Sudan
Following on from Operation Lifeline Sudan's food sourcing, one must
examine the Globe and Mail's statement that the "famine" in southern
Sudan was created by the government. There are several things which must
be said on this issue. The famine to which Ms Nolen refers had its roots
in the drought of 1997 and early 1998. Ms Nolen's assertion that the
government created the famine in the south is not supported by the
evidence. Many independent observers have stated, for example, that the
famine was precipitated by a SPLA offensive in the Bahr al-Ghazal area.
In late January 1998, Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, a SPLA commander who had
previously supported the Sudanese government's internal peace process,
led a rebel attack on the city of Wau in Bahr al-Ghazal. This attack,
and the fighting that followed it, led to a drastic deterioration in the
security and food distribution situation in that region. Rebel
responsibility in large part for the famine situation was reported on by
CNN in early April 1998 under headlines such as "aid agencies blame
Sudanese rebel who switched sides":
Observers say much of the recent chaos has resulted from the actions of
one man, Kerubino Kwanying Bol, a founding member of the rebel movement
He aided rebel forces in sieges of three government-held towns, which
sent people fleeing into the countryside. (8)
Newsweek magazine (18 May 1998) also reported that: "Aid workers blame
much of the south's recent anguish on one man: the mercurial Dinka
warlord Kerubino Kuanyin Bol". While the Globe and Mail article does
mention Operation Lifeline Sudan, it neglected to mention some of the
more relevant details. Operation Lifeline Sudan was unprecedented in
post-war history when it came into being in 1989, in as much as it was
the first time within a civil war situation that a government agreed to
the delivery of assistance by outside agencies to rebel-dominated parts
of the same country. It is matter of record that the government agreed
an increase in the number of food delivery sites in the south from 20 in
1993 to over 180 during the height of the Sudanese famine in 1998. Well
over one hundred sites are served today. The vast majority of these
sites are within rebel-held areas - and the government is fully aware
that perhaps more than half of such food aid never reaches the civilians
for whom it is intended, being diverted by the SPLA for its own use.
On this subject, Ms Nolen fleetingly touches on the SPLA's involvement
"the aid business". What she does not mention was that in July 1998, at
the height of the Sudanese famine she refers to, the Roman Catholic
Bishop of the starvation-affected diocese of Rumbek, Monsignor Caesar
Mazzolari, stated that the SPLA were stealing 65 percent of the food aid
going into rebel-held areas of southern Sudan. Agence France Presse also
reported that:
Much of the relief food going to more than a million famine victims in
rebel-held areas of southern Sudan is ending up in the hands of the
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), relief workers said. (9)
While Ms Nolen may have a different definition, most dictionaries
describe famine as "a severe shortage of food". (10) To most objective
observers, the stealing of 65 percent of food aid literally out of the
mouths of Sudanese men, women and children at the height of a
particularly severe famine can only but create a severe shortage of food
in parts of southern Sudan. And, as Ms Nolen admits, there exists to
this day heavy pressure to divert food and supplies from starving
civilians to the SPLA. More objective commentators may find Ms Nolen's
claim that the government creates famine in the south, while useful
propaganda for the SPLA and those they get to repeat it, is a
transparently facile one.
"[A]n official policy of shooting down planes on sight, humanitarian aid
notwithstanding"
Also on the subject of food aid, Ms Nolen states that the Sudanese
government has "an official policy of shooting down planes on sight,
humanitarian aid notwithstanding". She has probably once again accepted
SPLA claims at face value. Operation Lifeline Sudan, an agreement
between the Sudanese government, the United Nations and the SPLA, has
co-ordinated, and continues to co-ordinate, thousands of flights all
over southern Sudan, many of them across government-held areas. The
question that must be asked of Ms Nolen is whether she can point to a
single example of a humanitarian flight being shot down by Sudanese
government forces? The answer is that she cannot as it has never
happened. It may come as a surprise to Ms Nolen to learn that it has
been the SPLA that has shot down two civilian aeroplanes carrying
humanitarian aid, and attempted to shoot down several more, in the
course of the civil war. Dozens of passengers and crew were killed in
these outrages. (11) The SPLA shot these aeroplanes down, humanitarian
aid notwithstanding, at the height of a similar famine crisis. The
downing of these planes resulted in the international community
grounding all food relief flights within southern Sudan, with the
exception of Juba, for two years - a ban which severely affected
hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese civilians. Ms Nolen also
neglects to mention that the SPLA has murdered dozens of humanitarian
aid workers. (12)
Ms Nolen's somewhat na•ve decision to unreservedly accept SPLA claims at
face value does her no credit. The SPLA has a well-documented history of
making claims which have not been truthful. While she is not the first,
and will almost certainly not be the last, journalist to have been taken
in by the SPLA, she does appear to have been particularly gullible.
Perhaps she should have interviewed Dr Peter Nyaba, a member of the very
same SPLA national executive council she said was meeting in Rumbek. Dr
Nyaba has placed what he termed the SPLA's "sub-culture of lies,
misinformation, cheap propaganda and exhibitionism" very much on record
in his 1997 book, The Politics of Liberation in South Sudan: An
Insider's Viewâ:
Much of what filtered out of the SPLM/A propaganda machinery was about
90% disinformation or things concerned with the military combat, mainly
news about the fighting which were always efficaciously exaggerated.
(13)
It is sad to say, but plainly obvious, that Ms Nolen and the Globe and
Mail appears to have taken most if not all of the claims made by the
SPLA at face value. Several of the article's paragraphs are unreservedly
prefaced with "the SPLA says" or quote directly from SPLA personnel. Ms
Nolen unreservedly repeats, for example, that the SPLA "controls 80 per
cent of the South". The SPLA's claim in 1986 to have within its control
ninety-five percent of the southern Sudanese population was dismissed by
African Rights, as "a huge exaggeration". (14) One wonders how much of
an exaggeration the SPLA's claim of 80 percent is today.
The Sudan People's Liberation Army
What then is the nature of the SPLA movement whose claims the Globe and
Mail accepted at face value and whose violence it apparently condones?
For someone eager to write about human rights abuses, Ms Nolen was
remarkably selective about those that were of interest to her. It is
perhaps well worth citing some independent sources with regard to the
nature of the SPLA organisation in Sudan. Unlike Ms Nolen's carefully
managed one-week African safari, these aid groups are full-time and
first-hand observers of the SPLA in action in southern Sudan. Eight US-
based humanitarian organisations working in Sudan, including CARE, World
Vision, Church World Service, Save the Children and the American Refugee
Committee, no friends of the Sudanese government, have publicly stated
that the SPLA has:
engaged for years in the most serious human rights abuses, including
extrajudicial killings, beatings, arbitrary detention, slavery, etc.
(15)
Human Rights Watch, no friend of Khartoum, stated in December 1999 that:
The SPLA has a history of gross abuses of human rights and has not made
any effort to establish accountability. Its abuses today remain serious.
(16)
The New York Times, a vigorous critic of the Sudanese government, states
that the SPLA:
[H]ave behaved like an occupying army, killing, raping and pillaging.
(17)
The New York Times also stated that the SPLA leader John Garang was one
of Sudan's "pre-eminent war criminals". (18) Ms Nolen prefers instead to
refer to Garang as a "learned" man.
She goes on to write that "The SPLA relies on guerrilla strikes, while
the government fights its battle on civilians". Perhaps she wrote this
because it is what the SPLA told her. Other more questioning sources
continue to present a different picture. The United Nations Special
Rapporteur on human rights in Sudan documented an incident in which SPLA
forces attacked two villages in Ganyiel region in southern Sudan. SPLA
personnel killed 210 villagers, of whom 30 were men, 53 were women and
127 were children. The Special Rapporteur stated that:
Eyewitnesses reported that some of the victims, mostly women, children
and the elderly, were caught while trying to escape and killed with
spears and pangas. M.N., a member of the World Food Programme relief
committee at Panyajor, lost four of her five children (aged 8-15 years).
The youngest child was thrown into the fire after being shot. D.K.
witnessed three women with their babies being caught. Two of the women
were shot and one was killed with a panga. Their babies were all killed
with pangas. A total of 1, 987 households were reported destroyed and
looted and 3, 500 cattle were taken. (19)
This then is the SPLA with whom Ms Nolen spent several days laughing and
joking, men who burnt, shot or hacked 127 children to death. This was
sadly only one of many similar instances of gross human rights abuses
involving civilians. Amnesty International, African Rights, and Human
Rights Watch have all documented example after example of SPLA attacks
on villages and villagers - a self-evident war on civilians. That this
continues to this day is evident. In June 1999, the BBC reported on
"Growing friction in rebel-held southern Sudan", stating that non-Dinka
ethnic groups "have accused the SPLA or becoming an army of occupation".
(20) Another BBC report, in late November, entitled "Tensions in
southern Sudan", documents continuing "ethnic tensions" involving the
SPLA. These and numerous other independent reports of SPLA ethnic
cleansing of non-Dinka southern tribes undermine Ms Nolen's claim that
the "Dinka-dominated SPLA united most of the southern groups beneath its
multicoloured banner".
In Civilian Devastation: Abuses by all Parties in the War in Southern
Sudan, a 279-page study, Human Rights Watch devoted 169 pages to SPLA
human rights abuses (government violations were dealt with over 52
pages). In her article on Sudan, Nolen deals with SPLA excesses in one
sentence stating that the SPLA "forcibly conscripts young men and deals
harshly with deserters". Ms Nolen actually spent more time writing about
the state of her nails during her trip than she devoted to the whole
issue of SPLA human rights abuses.
Even Ms Nolen's one sentence about SPLA abuse is prefaced with the
statement that the SPLA "has a reputation for treating its prisoners
well". Africa Watch contradicts Ms Nolen's claims. After capturing the
southern town of Bor, Africa Watch stated, for example, that there were
"reports that a large number of captured soldiers, possibly running into
the hundreds, were executed by the SPLA immediately following the
capture". Africa Watch also quoted a SPLA source who stated that
government soldiers captured after fighting were routinely killed. The
human rights group also recorded that there were "no accounts of the
SPLA holding prisoners of war from (pro-government) militias." (21) In
1998, the Sudanese Advisory Committee on Human Rights and the human
rights committee of the Sudanese Parliament both issued statements which
reported that the SPLA had murdered more than one thousand prisoners of
war. (22) The international community also apparently does not share
Nolen's claim about the SPLA's "reputation for treating its prisoners
well" given that it unanimously condemned the SPLA's murder of four Red
Cross aid workers they took prisoner in 1999. (23)
Ms Nolen's disinclination to check anything fed to her by the SPLA is
very apparent. She states in her article that soldiers from Iran and
Iraq are fighting as government troops. This is a SPLA propaganda line
discredited as long ago as 1994. (24) In 17 years of war the SPLA has
been unable to produce one shred of evidence to support this claim. Not
a single prisoner nor a single corpse. Iranians and Iraqis would be
particularly distinctive given they are ethnically and physically very
dissimilar to what the SPLA term the "red" Arabs of Sudan. The SPLA were
able to recycle this particular piece of misinformation on an all too
receptive Globe and Mail who repeated it without reservation.
There is recent independent evidence of systematic SPLA deception as far
as visitors are concerned. American journalist Richard Miniter, and
James Jacobson, the president of Christian Freedom International, both
critics of the Sudanese government, have given first-hand evidence of
how SPLA officials attempt to pass local villagers off as "slaves" to
Westerners for propaganda reasons and in order to obtain "redemption"
money from outsiders. (25) Miniter showed considerably more
professional caution in accepting SPLA claims at face value. Reuters has
confirmed systematic SPLA deception in the "slave redemption". (26)
Perhaps Ms Nolen could explain the methodology of her article. Does she,
or the photographer who accompanied her, speak Dinka or any of the
southern Sudanese languages she may have come across during her brief
visit to southern Sudan. If not, could she tell us who her translators
were - were they not in one guise or another SPLA personnel? Were they
present for most if not all of her "interviews"? Is it not possible that
people living in areas controlled by an organisation human rights groups
have accused of being violent and murderous might have said anything
they thought would please the SPLA? Did such a thought ever cross Ms
Nolenâs mind.? Has she read the Miniter article or the Reuters news
article describing SPLA deception? Apparently not.
The Referendum Issue
However much some groups may wish it to be, the Sudanese civil war is
not about religion. The Sudanese civil war predates the present Islamic
government by 34 years. The conflict is, and has always been about the
political status of southern Sudan. Ms Nolen states that the SPLA wants
"a referendum in which the people of the South can choose whether they
wish to be part of an equal federation with the North or an independent
country". It is hard to believe that she would be unaware that the
Sudanese government has since 1997 offered just such an internationally-
supervised referendum. This offer was incorporated into Sudan's new 1998
constitution and has been repeated on several occasions. (27) It is an
offer that has also been acknowledged by the SPLA. Despite Ms Nolen's
assurance, the SPLA is ambiguous to say the least about separation. (28)
SPLA leader John Garang has stated that: "we are not secessionists. And
if anybody wants to separate we will fight him because the Sudan must be
one. It should not be allowed to disintegrate or fragment itself". (29)
The SPLA's seriousness about a referendum can be judged by the fact that
while it acknowledged the offer of a referendum, it then said that such
a referendum must include parts of Sudan not within the previously
accepted borders of southern Sudan - some of which were not even
geographically adjacent to southern Sudan. It would be the equivalent
perhaps of a party to a future referendum on the status of Quebec
wanting to redraw Quebec's acknowledged boundaries to include parts of
Ontario and even a chunk of Alberta. If that hypothetically happened in
Canada, people might say that the party concerned was using spoiling
tactics. When the same thing actually happens in Sudan, it is not even
mentioned in the Canadian media. Such spoiling tactics mean that the war
continues, with the SPLA being actively encouraged to continue fighting
what is so clearly a no-win war despite the offer of internationally-
supervised separation.
Conclusion
This Globe and Mail article has poorly served both the Canadian and
Sudanese people. The Canadian people have a well-deserved reputation for
fairness, moderation and seeking the truth. Sudan is a complicated
country with complicated problems. This has not been reflected in the
Globe and Mail's coverage of Sudan as typified by Ms Nolen's article.
This coverage merely reflects stereotyping of the worse kind, prejudice
and weak journalism.
It is painfully evident that Ms Nolen was considerably out of her depth
in attempting to report on the Sudanese issue. War, and particularly
civil war, inevitably produce distortions of the truth and reality. Ms
Nolen may have been able to hold her own in reporting on domestic
affairs within Canada. She simply did not measure up to reporting on
civil war in Africa. Ms Nolen also showed herself unable to research or
check even the most basic of facts about Sudan. It appears that Ms Nolen
does not read wire or online news services about subjects she writes on,
quite a handicap for a journalist. And, not just unable to check facts,
she openly admitted to including "rumour" in her article. All in all,
hardly the professional standards one would expect from a newspaper such
as the Globe and Mail - more the journalistic equivalent of the Keystone
Kops. It has to be stated that the Globe and Mail appears to operate a
journalistic apartheid: it would seem to have one set of journalistic
standards for reporting on white people and another for reporting on
"red", brown or black people. Seemingly in reporting on the latter, one
does not need to research the story or check sources. In fact one is
allowed to get away with blatant untruths, and one is allowed to include
prejudice and rumour. Surely journalistic integrity, ethics and
responsibility should apply irrespective of which ethnic group, race,
religion or continent is being reported upon. "My Week on the Cusp of
War" would never have seen the light of day had it been reporting on
events in Canada, and the journalist concerned would probably have been
sent for retraining and reassigned to covering the opening of
supermarkets in rural Ontario. Yet, amazingly, this article stands as
coverage of Sudanese affairs.
Sources are all in journalism. One has to ask from which sources Ms
Nolen drew her information on Sudan, especially on obviously crucial
issues such as Sudan's religious composition and the 1998 famine. It is
clear that Nolen chose not to refer to reliable standard texts. It is
equally clear that Nolen chose instead to unreservedly accept claims
made by partisan sources such as the SPLA themselves or by the religious
right which has dominated the Sudan issue in North America. Not the most
professional approach, and an approach which discredits Nolen. But, what
must also be made clear is that every criticism of Ms Nolen also
directly applies to the Globe and Mail, not simply because it published
this poor article, but in its general reporting and stance on Sudan. The
Globe and Mail has shown itself to be all too receptive to claims about
Sudan that are at best clearly questionable and at worst simply untrue.
In her defence, Ms Nolen was merely following already lax journalistic
standards in reporting on Sudan.
Such lamentable journalism is particularly unforgivable given the
considerable debate on Sudanese affairs that has followed recent
Canadian business involvement in Sudan. Articles such as "My Week on the
Cusp of War" do nothing to inform the Canadian public about Sudan. At
best they make attempts to secure an objective, clear picture of what is
happening in that country more difficult. At worst they merely serve to
reinforce the reactionary and Islamophobic stereotypes being projected
about Sudan by the far right and others. To use African Rightsâ
description of other na•ve Western commentators on Sudan, the Globe and
Mail has been overeager and misinformed, and has relied upon lazy
assumptions in its coverage of Sudan. Journalistic integrity appears to
count for nothing.
It is jarring to think that Canadians are sitting in judgement on fellow
Canadians with regard to involvement in Sudan on the basis of articles
such as "My Week on the Cusp of War". Are Canadians really to be judged
on the basis of claims made by cold-blooded liars and cold-blooded
killers accepted at face value by na•ve and unprofessional journalists
such as Ms Nolen?
As long as the Canadian government and media remain transfixed with an
anti-Sudanese outlook, an outlook encouraged by a discredited American
Administration and a "slavery" agenda in large part dominated by far
right Christian fundamentalists, Canadian policy towards Sudan will
remain skewed. If anything remotely positive is to come out of this
appallingly unprofessional, prejudiced article, let us hope that it
might be a watershed in Canadian media reporting on Sudan.
Notes
1) Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan, Human Rights
Watch/Africa, New York, 1996, p.193.
2) See, for example, Sudan Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
1995, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Washington-DC, 1996.
3) The reference number of this submission to the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights is TS/S/4/97, and is available to view on the
Anti-Slavery International web-site at http://www.charitynet.org/asi/sub
mit5.htm
4) Slavery in Sudan, Anti-Slavery International and Sudan Update,
London, May 1997, p.20.
5) Alex de Waal, "Sudan: Social Engineering, Slavery and War", in
Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1997.
6) See, for example, "Grain Shortage Expected in Sudan Next Year", News
Article by Reuters on 8 November, 1999 at 14:33:03.
7) "Sudan Distributes Food Aid in War-Torn South", News Article by
Agence France Presse on 18 December, 1999 at 13:15:26.
8) "1 million people face famine in Sudan, Ethiopia", April 10, 1998,
Web posted at 6:04 p.m. EDT (22:04 GMT).
9) "Aid for Sudan Ending Up With SPLA: Relief Workers", News Article by
Agence France Presse on July 21, 1998 at 08:23:48.
10) See, for example, The New Collins Concise English Dictionary,
Guild Publishing, London, 1988.
11) See, "Denying the 'Honor of Living': Sudan A Human Rights Disaster",
Africa Watch, London, 1989, pp.116-17.
12) Ibid, p.116.
13) Peter Nyaba, The Politics of Liberation in South Sudan: An
Insider's View, Fountain Publishers, Kampala, 1997, pp.55, 66.
14) Food and Power in Sudan, African Rights, London, 1997, p.87.
15) "Humanitarian Organizations Oppose Plan Providing Food to Sudanese
Rebels" Press Release by InterAction, the American Council for
Voluntary International Action, Washington-DC, 30 November, 1999.
16) "Rights Group Warns US Against Feeding Sudan Rebels", News Article
by Reuters on December 14, 1999 at 11:34:40.
17) "Misguided Relief to Sudan", Editorial, New York Times, 6 December,
1999.
18) Ibid.
19) "Situation of Human Rights in the Sudanâ" UN Special Rapporteur
Gaspar Biro, E/CN.4/1996/62, 20 February 1996.
20) "Growing Friction in Rebel-Held Southern Sudan", News Article by BBC
Online on 9 June, 1999 at 16:36 GMT.
21) "Denying 'The Honor of Living': Sudan A Human Rights Disaster", op.
cit., p.155.
22) "Sudanese Government Accused SPLA of Killing 1,000 POWs", Agence
France Presse, 15 May, 1998.
23) See, "Sudan Aid Workers Executed", News Article by BBC World on 3
April 1999 at 03:25 GMT.
24) See, "'Innocent Sudan' Exploits Carlos Case", The Independent,
London, 23 August 1994, which reports that "intelligence assessments say
that reports of Iranian revolutionary guards [in Sudan] are without
foundation".
25) "The False Promise of Slave Redemption", The Atlantic Monthly, July
1999. The article is also available on the Atlantic Monthly website,
http://www.theatlantic.com
26) "Aid Group Tries to Break Sudan Slavery Chain", News Article by
Reuters on 11 July, 1999 at 23:40:58.
27) See, "Sudan offers South secession", News Article by BBC, 22
February 1999 at 00:16:14 GMT; "Southern secession better than more war:
Sudan's president", News Article by Agence France Presse, 22 February
1999, at 10:04:31; "Referendum agreed at Sudan peace talks" News
Article by BBC World, 7 May 1998, at 11:06 GMT;"Sudan Says Happy for
South to secede", News Article by Reuters, 7 May 1998.
28) See, "SPLA plays down deal on referendum in southern Sudan", News
Article by BBC, 7 May 1998, at 13:24 GMT.
29) John Garang, The Call for Democracy in Sudan, Kegan Paul, London,
1992, p.137.
