The international section of today's New York Times carries a report from Washington that says Secretary of State Colin Powell may name Chester Crocker as a special envoy to deal with the conflict in Sudan. The Times reports, "The conflict has become a lightning rod for Christian advocates and for black lawmakers because of what they call the Sudan government's policy of allowing Christian black Sudanese to be abducted and sent into slavery in the Islamic north. Some church groups have financed 'redemption' missions, in which visiting Americans pay money to 'free' abductees."
What's with the snide, dismissive "they call"? It's not just "Christian advocates" and "black lawmakers" who say the government of Sudan is allowing slavery. It's the U.S. State Department (even during the Clinton administration); many established and nonsectarian human rights groups such as Freedom House and Human Rights Watch; and independent journalists like the ones that the Baltimore Sun and the Atlantic Monthly sent to go find and redeem slaves in Sudan. According to the Web site of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the State Department reported to Congress on October 22, 1999, that "The capture and sale of hundreds of persons, mainly women and children, into slavery continued in the south and has been tolerated and backed by government forces. Baggara raiders, supported by the Popular Defense Force (PDF) and regular government troops, took hundreds of women and children slaves during raids in Bahr el Ghazal in mid-1998. The practice has religious as well as racial aspects; victims are largely black Christians or practitioners of traditional indigenous religions. Some of the children captured and sold into slavery were forcibly converted to Islam."
And why is the word "free" in quotes? Does the Times not really believe that the slaves being freed are actually slaves or are actually being freed? If the Times has a shred of evidence that the State Department, the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the Baltimore Sun, the Atlantic Monthly and Freedom House are all the victims of a massive hoax being perpetrated by Christian conservatives and the Congressional Black Caucus, then the newspaper should share it with readers. If the Sudanese government denies involvement in slavery, then that denial should, of course, be reported in the article. But the end result in today's dispatch is that it looks like the Times is trying slyly to cast doubt on the generally accepted facts about the horrible abuses in Sudan.