As the
United Nations' Millennium Summit begins today, the founder of the Guardian Angels will be waiting outside the Sudan Permanent Mission in New York -- complete with hand-cuffs and backup -- intending to make a citizen's arrest of Sudan President Gen. Omar al-Beshir for his country's practice of slavery.
"I am appalled that a war criminal like Gen. Beshir is strolling freely on the sidewalks of New York," stated
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who will arrive at the mission at noon today. "The handcuffs we intend to place around his wrists should evoke the shackles that enslave so many African women and children in Sudan."
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa |
Government-sponsored slave trading in Sudan has been the target of many activists in the United States and around the world, though U.S. government officials have remained conspicuously silent on the matter.
In fact, according to the
Sudan Campaign, a coalition of anti-slavery groups who organized an intense lobbying campaign in May,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told humanitarian groups last year during a closed meeting that the suffering in Sudan has not been "marketable" to Americans.
But the issue is becoming more difficult to ignore as escaped slaves travel to the United States to tell their horrific stories of life as captives. Two such people will join Sliwa today in New York.
The fundamentalist group National Islamic Front has controlled Khartoum, Sudan's capital, since 1989, and since that time has funded a Muslim tribe's slave trade of black Christians and animists in south Sudan.
Additionally, the People's Republic of China, which maintains an oil pipeline in the war-torn Sudan, is involved in the slave trade.
As
reported by WorldNetDaily, Sudan has acquired 34 new jet fighters from China over the last two years, doubling the size of the country's air force
Amnesty International reported that while building the oil pipeline, the Chinese People's Liberation Army participated in displacing the indigenous Sudanese population, and that Chinese troops have assisted in ethnic cleansing and rape in the southern Sudan. Increased bombings of U.N. humanitarian aid flights by the Sudanese led to a suspension of relief flights last month.
Beshir is being held responsible for his nation's "war crimes" by the Guardian Angels and others involved in the fight against African slavery.
Sliwa's organization, famous for its "safety patrols" and citizen's arrests, began in 1978 and is now a respected volunteer crime-deterring group with chapters around the world.
Beshir is expected to attend the United Nations' Millennium Summit, which begins today and continues through Friday. Though the Republic of Sudan is not a member state of the U.N., it maintains a permanent mission in New York at 655 Third Ave., where Sliwa and his Angels will be waiting.
However, a press release announcing the intended citizen's arrest was released Tuesday, likely prompting Beshir to keep his distance.
"He probably won't be near us," said Dr. Charles Jacobs, president of the
American Anti-Slavery Group, which is hosting the event today. "He will be in some public places," he continued, adding that Beshir is scheduled to hold a press conference on Thursday.
"Why should a man who has a slave state walk free on the sidewalks of New York?" Jacobs asked. "It's as though Hitler came to New York. What would we do? Why should he be allowed freedom when he denies freedom in its most essential form?
Two former slaves will also be in attendance at today's demonstration, including Abuk Bak, a 23-year-old native of southern Sudan, who was 10 when government militiamen abducted her during a slave raid on her village in 1986. Released after 10 years in captivity, Bak noted that Beshir was a commanding army officer when she was abducted.
"For over 10 years, Gen. Beshir has presided over a regime that has killed over one million Africans and enslaved tens of thousands of civilians," said Bak. "On behalf of those still silenced in slavery, I demand Beshir be brought justice for crimes against humanity."
Moctar Teyeb, who was born into slavery in the African nation of Mauritania, also demanded that the United States arrest President Maaouiya Taya of his country while the leader is in attendance at the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York.
Teyeb, who was profiled in the Jan. 27 edition of the New Yorker magazine, demanded the arrest of Taya for allowing an 800-year-old system of black chattel slavery to fester in Mauritania.
The outreach director of the American Anti-Slavery Group, Teyeb, stated that "leaders of slaving nations should not walk freely in New York when their subject peoples are held in bondage."
Slavery never ended in Mauritania, where hundreds of thousands of African Muslims, called "Haretines," live in bondage. Islam forbids a Muslim to enslave a Muslim, but Haretines are the wholly owned property of their Arab-Berber masters. Slaves' children belong to the masters. Slaves cannot pray, marry, or go to mosque without the master's permission. They are kept illiterate and told that "paradise is under the master's foot," according to the American Anti-Slavery Group.
More than two million people have been killed as a result of the slave trades in Africa, and still more have been displaced by the brutal practice.
The demonstration Wednesday is timed to coincide with the opening of the U.N. Millennium Summit, which boasts attendance of more than 150 heads of state and government officials from around the world, including China's President Jiang Zemin.
The purpose of the summit is to discuss the role of the United Nations in the new century.
"As world leaders gather at the U.N. to discuss globalization, they must also discuss its dark underbelly: 27 million people enslaved around the world. And while cases of slavery can be found in nearly every country, leaders like Taya and Beshir are particularly complicit in perpetrating systems of chattel slavery," Jacobs said.
"In the last few years, human rights activists have increasingly pursued leaders responsible for atrocities," he continued. "We have seen strong campaigns against Pinochet and Milosevic, but African victims of genocide and slavery must also get their day of justice. Today is historic, as it is now former slaves who are using their freedom to achieve justice."
Calling Beshir a "war criminal," Jacobs said that he believes the New York police or the State Department should arrest Sudan's president and bring him before an international tribunal.
Of Sliwa's intention to arrest Beshir, Jacobs remarked, "The Guardian Angeles are the people who take dangerous people off the street. When you think of citizens' arrests, you think of the Guardian Angels."
The office of the U.N. spokesman did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
If you'd like to sound off on the U.N., please take part in
WND's
daily poll.
Related stories:
U.N. suspends aid flights to Sudan
Group kicks off anti-slavery campaign
Sudan accused of bombing school
Freedom purchased for slaves in Sudan