The churches should intercede with the international community to stop the slaughter in
Southern Sudan, a Roman Catholic bishop told the assembly yesterday.
Bishop Paride Taban of Toriti of Sudan said, "Many friends of Sudan are very keen on
relief work. Spending on relief alone is like fattening a cow for slaughter. How long can
one be doing relief work without spending time, energy and resources on root causes?
"The suffering people of Sudan hear that the great nations have imposed a no-fly zone
on the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein to protect the Kurds in northern Iraq. Our
people ask, ‘Are we not worth human life to be protected from the Sudanese air force
by the imposition of a no-fly zone from the 13th to the 14th parallels?
"Recently we heard that the president of Yugoslavia was forced by Europeans and
Americans to stop the massacre of the people of Kosovo and to pull out his troops or face
the wrath of Nato. This sounds great. And what about us in the Sudan? Can anyone, please,
tell the Americans and Europeans to do the same thing for us in the Sudan?"
Bishop Taban told delegates and visitors he had recently returned from a visit to the
western part of Eastern Equatoria, Southern Sudan.
"I witnessed two blitz-style bombing raids carried out by Khartoum," he said.
"The animals provided us with an advance warning facility. Dogs hastened to the
bunkers. A pet monkey joined them. Hens and chickens took off in hurried flight to the
shade beneath the nearest bushes. Birds stopped singing. A sudden stillness gripped all.
"We quickly followed those dogs and the monkey to the bunkers. Animals and humans
shared a paralysing fear.
"There was no military presence in either of the centres where I witnessed the bombs
fall. The recipients are simple, struggling, uninvolved civilians. I saw them as people
trying to reconstruct their lives, trying to experience and taste again some of the
normality that you and I take for granted," the bishop said.
"They are building schools — their children hunger for knowledge. They construct
small chapels — they want to be a community, to be close to God, to live out their
hope. They plant food — they want enough to eat.
"The devilish bombs from above continually rip their ambitions apart. The planes from
Khartoum come almost daily. Who knows the deep psychological and emotional scars that are
on the souls and minds of these innocent people?
"They suffer from chest complaints. They cough and wheeze. ‘Do these bombs
contain chemical, dangerous gases?’ they ask me. ‘Can we have doctors to test
us?’
"They feel abandoned. They are alone and frightened, disillusioned and
confused. The cry that arises from all this suffering and pain is, Is there anybody,
anywhere, who knows us? Is there anybody, anywhere, who really cares? "
Bishop Taban, who was preaching at an Africa Day service organised for the assembly in a
Harare stadium by Zimbabwe churches, said that the people of Southern Sudan had asked him
to put these challenges to the WCC.
"They ordered me to do everything I can to stop this senseless war and killing, to
stop the suffering. I promised to try, to be their voice and bring their message and cry
to the world.
"Can anyone help me, delegates of this great fellowship of Christians from all over
the world? Can anyone assist us to bring a lasting and just peace to the people of Sudan,
to live in peace as brothers and sisters?
"Let me add that the war in Sudan is not as it is simply portrayed — Christians
against Muslims. There are leading Christians and Muslims on both sides of the war. At the
heart of the problem is a group of Muslims who prefer to use Islam as an ideology of
power, of control and domination."
The bishop said that the people of Sudan needed a voice to speak out on its civil wars, on
increasing poverty, urbanisation, international debt, the arms trade, refugees and
displaced people, demographic concerns, the oppression of women, the spread of Aids, the
survival of slavery in places such as the Sudan, and the education of young Africans.
"Are there anointed voices to proclaim liberty to captives, to set the downtrodden
free? There are. They are you and me."
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