It is notable that in its comprehensive 1994 report on Sudan, Civilian Devastation: Abuses by all Parties in the War in Southern Sudan, Human Rights Watch/Africa does not mention slavery. Far from claiming government involvement in “slavery”, the report actually cites a United States State Department cable which noted that government authorities in Wau and Aweil had freed kidnapped women and children, women and children detained by tribal militia.

What becomes clear is that there would appear to have been a time in 1995 or 1996 when what had previously been described as “abductions” were suddenly reclassified as “slavery”? Human rights Watch/Africa 1996 report, Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan, for example, contains an eight pages section entitled Taking Children and Women Slavery as War Booty. The section is somewhat contradictory to say the least. The report categorically denies the Sudanese government reading of the captives issue, which was that these practices are nothing more than hostage-taking done by both sides”. The section records that “ The government claims that with regard to slavery, the element of intention is decisive. In Sudan it, maintains tribal fights normally result in captives and prisoners of war on both sides of the conflict, but there is no intention to take slave”. The report also went on to deny the Sudanese government perspective that these captives would then normally be exchanged or ransomed at periodic meeting between the tribes and communities in question.

While denying these practice, and preferring to opportunistically relabel them as slavery, the Human Rights Watch/Africa report then goes on to describe exactly such circumstances later on in the section. It’s worthwhile quoting the relevant passage in the report in some detail.

In late1995, meeting reportedly were held between representatives of the Dinka and the Rizeigat (Arabized western tribes, originally nomads in Darfur), a subgroup of the Baggara in exchange for access to the fresh pasture land and water controlled by the SPLA, the Rizegat agreed to release Dinka “prisoners” captured during their raids. They reportedly brought with them to a meeting a list of 674 children already identified and whose release has been promised. They were given Ls. 250,000 (US $473) for the immediate transport and clothing twenty children said to have been gathered in Nyala in Southern Darfur.

What is cited above is precisely the sort of inter-tribal conference described by the government of Sudan, the existence of which was denied by Human Rights Watch/Africa in its report. Its incidentally a mirror image of the inter-tribal conference held between the Dinka and Nuer tribes in early 1999 during which many of the same issues, including the return of those who had been abducted or kidnapping in raiding, were revolved. What is also significant in the above instance is that the report goes on to mention that in Nyala the relatives of two young teenage Dinka women had gone to court to secure their release from captors. The report also records that government authorities in El- Diein in southern Darfur had ordered the release of the “dozens” of Dinka children brought to El Diein and surrounding villages by raiders who had captured them from the area around Aweil in Bahar El Ghazal in early 1996”. These children were then handed over to the Dinka community in El Diein. The report also cites the case of an orphaned Dinka boy who had been kidnapping in 1986 by militias loyal to Sadiq Al_Mahadi. His uncle had located him and informed the Sudanese police and “The police issued a warrant for the release of the boy to the uncle.

Sudanese parliament was in southern Sudan in early 1996 “investigating reports of slavery”. The report also confirms that on 22 March 1996, the government of Sudan “notified the UN. That it was extending the mandate of an existing special committee to investigate alleged case of slavery and related practices in the Sudan. This interior, internal and external security, and military intelligence.”

The eight-page slavery section in (Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan) is made up of four heavily- footnoted pages dealing with the post-1989 period, and the remaining four pages relate to the years 1985-1989, during which Sudan was administrated by the Transitional Military Council and government headed by Sadiq Al-Mahadi. For from proving or Substantiating the very grave of slavery, the four pages dealing with the present Sudanese government reveals that the age-old practice of abduction and kidnapping and then exchanging or ransoming prisoners taken during what are essentially tribal conflicts (albeit perhaps dressed up in pro-government and pro-SPLA clothes) is alive and well, having been rekindled and fuelled y the Sadiq Al-Mahadi governments. Human Rights Watch/Africa also unambiguously documents that government authorities have repeatedly, intervened to release prisoners from what is clearly unlawful captivity. Additionally, the report documented that civilians have been able to go to court in successful attempts to free people held illegally.

A 1997 Anti-Slavery International/Sudan Update report stated that the Dinka community has set up its own “retrieval committee” to help return abducts. The report stated that the committee “continues to co-operate with the state government of Darfur. The committee assembles information about abducts and then “presents it to the government of south Darfur. If the evidence is accepted, its representatives are given a police escort to confront the captors, and the children are then taken back without any money changing hands.”The report also recorded that shortly after the present government came to power in 1989, the new governor and government of Darfur, directly helped facilitate the holding of inter-tribal gatherings whereby over 100 Dinka children were returned from the Rezeigat tribe.

The 1995 Human Rights Watch/Africa report (Children of Sudan: slaves street Children and child Soldiers) a 23-page chapter entitled Slavery or forced labor of minors kidnapping from their families during militia raids, The evidence cited to support the claims of slavery were described as “summaries of the testimonies of some of the individual victims and outlined over eleven pages. The evidence provided, in fact, rested upon three cases, those of three Dinka children called Alang, Mabior and Akom (The last two are pseudonyms). Once again far from proving any case against the present government of Sudan, these testimonies are an indictment in effect of the Sadiq regime. Alang, was six years old when she was captured during a raid in 1986 by militias loyal to Sadiq Al-Mahadi. Her father was killed and her mother injured in the raid. Mabior story is somewhat confused. The introduction to his testimony states that he was abducted at the age of eight by a soldier during a raid on his village near Bor in1988. It’s then mentioned that he was abducted during a raid in 1992. Akom was five years old when militiamen loyal to Sadiq Al-Mahdi kidnaped him during a raid in 1988. In all three case soldiers or militiamen loyal to, or serving, sdiq governments had abducted these southern Dinka children. In all three cases the abducted children were subsequently kept in conditions of domestic servitude and abuse. And in two cases the children were released as a direct result of legal or judicial action during the tenure of the present government: in the third case legal action was under way but was curtailed by the removal of the child to a place of safety, which was interestingly enough, Khartoum, where the child was said to be living in freedom”. Amnesty International has also documented the use of the courts to free illegally held children. Amnesty International has also reported that government authorities have intervened to free villagers being held as prisoners by tribal in 1993 and 1994.

Even the material presented by Christian Solidarity International in its evidence to the United States Congressional sub-committees on International Operations and Human Rights, and Africa in March 1996, reflected that a considerable number of the people cited as victims of slavery had abducted during in the late-1980s by forces loyal to Sadiq Al-Mahdi.

If this then is the best evidence that can be gathered to support allegations of slavery or the condoning of slavery by the present government in Khartoum, then there is not much of case to answer. Human Rights Watch/Africa has undoubtedly been very keen to gather as much direct evidence of these allegations as possible. If they are not able to support the claims then that does not say much for the veracity of the allegations.

Far from proving their case material presented by Human Rights Watch/Africa in fact contradicts the claims that the government of Sudan supports or condones slavery in Sudan. Despite Iurid claims that the present government is implicated in the slaving of thousands of Southerners, the specific evidence produced by Human Rights Watch/Africa proves that military forces loyal to Sadiq Al-Mahdi were directly involved in the kidnapping and abduction of southern Sudanese children.

The specific evidence provided by Human Rights Watch/Africa in two reports also clearly demonstrates that the present government local government and police authorities have directly intervened on several occasions, occasions documented, in passing, by human rights groups, to release women and children detained by tribal militias. Indeed, once again even evidence by Christian Solidarity International includes testimony that slavery-related practices “takes place in secrecy”. And lastly, Human Rights Watch/Africa has also provided ample evidence that in case after case when evidence has been produced of illegal abduction, kidnapping detention, the government has acted to free those victims of an earlier government Excesses. There is not one single recorded instance of this happening during the Sadiq Al-Mahdi governments.

The recourse to law to free illegally detained people as mentioned in the various Human Rights Watch/Africa reports cited above is very significant. In (Children of Sudan:, Slaves Street Children and child Soldiers,) for example, Human Rights Watch/Africa spends some time discussing the definition of slavery. This is clearly a crucial area. In the above report, Human Rights Watch/Africa cites “one authority” who states that: “The term slavery is technical and limited in scope, inasmuch as it implies ownership as chattel by another person and the destruction of the juridical personality.”

It is clear through the repeated use of the judicial process to free those subjected to involuntary domestic servitude that far from having been destroyed, the judicial personality exists and has been seen to have been enforced on numerous occasions (and in most cases far away from any Western eye, presumably precluding, therefore, any public relations motive).

Human Rights Watch/Africa attempts to define slavery has included the following positioning. Slavery was defined in the 1962 Slavery Convention in Article 1 (1) as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” Human Rights Watch/Africa added the following observations: Once power attaching to the right of ownership is the power to completely dispose of the (unpaid) labor of the slave.” Human Rights Watch/Africa then cited this as justification for classifying the kidnapping of Dinka children and their subsequent use as forced unpaid domestic servants as slavery. Given that the evidence produced by Human Rights Watch/Africa dealt with individuals abducted during a previous government, and made to work as unpaid domestic servants until freed by legal intervention by the present government, the government or implication in slavery or related practices of present government is unproven at best and unclear at worst.

It is also significant that Human Rights Watch/Africa has declined to answer three simple questions concerning their use of the term “slavery” in respect to Sudan. The following questions were publicly put to Human Rights Watch/Africa in 1998.

Why did Human Rights Watch/Africa from 1995 onwards reclassify what had previously been described as abduction and kidnapping in Sudan as “slavery”, particularly given evidence to the contrary, and given what are perhaps insurmountable difficulties in defining what constitutes slavery in Sudan?

How it differs from the definitions contained within international treaties and conventions and how Human Rights Watch/Africa applies its definition to the Sudanese situation?

How do SPLA raids with the clear purpose of securing men, women and children to be subject to involuntary servitude, as forced labor or forced conscripts, outside of any judicial process, and denying those detained any “juridical personality” differ from your definition of slavery?

Answers to these questions, and particularly the first one, are of course important as three are some who suggest that the decision by Human Rights Watch/Africa to reclassify what had previously been termed abduction and kidnapping as “slavery” was in response to United States government policy shifts. Human Rights Watch/Africa have not responded to these questions.

To maintain its credibility as human rights organization Human Rights Watch/Africa can not afford to be seen as contradictory, inaccurate and apparently whimsical in its evaluation and assessment of anything relating to Human Rights Watch/Africa has to be particularly careful in its evaluation and coverage of controversial allegations of slavery in Sudan, something it has singularly failed to do.