Book Review: "The Translator" by Daoud Hari

Fortunately for Mr. Hari, because he was arrested and detained with an American National Geographic reporter, his case caught the attention of the United States government. The US State Department exerted strong pressure on the Sudanese government to release its three captors. If not for the fact that he was arrested with a reporter from a major American publication, no doubt Mr. Hari's outcome would not have been such a "happy" one.

Along with thanking his many friends that he'd made through his previous translating assignments for working so tirelessly to secure his release, Daoud also expresses his profound thanks to former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, who was also influential in helping Daoud and the others gain their freedom.

I too, have great admiration for Mr. Bill Richardson. Richardson's involvement in helping secure the release of Daoud and his fellow captors is just one of many reasons why I think that the smartest thing Barak Obama could do right now would be to select Bill Richardson to be his vice-presidential running mate. Richardson is a universally respected and admired diplomat and a tough but fair negotiator whose formidable experience would serve to significantly complement Obama's relative greenness. Adding Bill Richardson to the Democratic ticket would provide balance, maturity and credibility to a potential Obama administration. (Barak, I hope you read this and follow my unsolicited but wise counsel.)

Statistics vary considerably concerning the exact number of people affected by the genocide in Darfur. This ambiguity concerning how many have been affected is quite understandable when one considers the Sudanese government's penchant for either publicly denying or minimizing the extent of the ongoing genocide. However, even the most conservative NGO estimates place the number of people killed somewhere at a minimum in the hundreds of thousands. Apparently, this number falls short of the threshold required to shock our collective consciences into action. When compared to the millions of people who perished in the Nazi holocaust, I suppose that the paltry sum of only hundreds of thousands of deaths is hardly enough to enrage our "modern" consciences to the point where we are ready to act. But no matter how we look at it, hundreds of thousands of people is a lot of people!

The Nazis killed millions of Jews and others who were considered inferior to their evil and twisted minds more than half a century ago. I have visited the site where the Dachau concentration camp once served as an extermination center during the holocaust. The central theme that most visitors to this gruesome place walk away with is: "Never Again". The sad truth is that it is happening again. Perhaps the relatively "small" number of those killed during the present holocaust occurring in Darfur – mere hundreds of thousands – is too low to even compare to the millions of Jews and others hunted down and killed by the notoriously wicked Nazis of a half a decade ago. After all, if only hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives in this genocide, we can dismiss it from our minds as just a freak isolated incident.

But the Nazi holocaust was then. The genocide that is being perpetrated by the Bashir government of Sudan and his Janjaweed henchmen is now. Perhaps our generation has developed a much higher tolerance for violence and injustice on the way to our "advanced" state of development? Perhaps we are not cut from the same fabric as our forefathers who, upon hearing of the atrocities that were occurring across the Atlantic Ocean throughout Europe, mobilized the civilized world to stop them.

We have come a long way indeed. We have reached the point where we are now willing to engage in wars of commission, such as the one we are fighting today in Iraq, as well as wars of omission, such as the one that we are not, but should be fighting in Darfur. Perhaps, if we give it enough time, the situation in Darfur will someday resolve itself. Perhaps one day President Bashir and the Janjaweed fighters will wake to find that they have grown a conscience and voluntarily stop their genocide. Or maybe, if we wait long enough, the death tolls will eventually reach into the several millions required to provoke our "modern" consciences into action. Perhaps one day we Americans will join with other "civilized" peoples to take real action to intervene in the situation and prevent further atrocities from occurring. Perhaps?

The humanitarian refugee crisis created by the genocide in Darfur is one of staggering proportions. Even conservative estimates from NGOs such as the Save Darfur Coalition place the number of refugees who have fled Darfur at probably more than 2.5 million people. These refugees survive today in squalid conditions in camps scattered throughout eastern Chad or other areas inside Sudan. Many of these refugees would like to return someday to their villages in Darfur. However, they know they would face certain extermination if they were to attempt to return to their homes now.

Mukesh Kapila, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, called Darfur the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in March of 2004. Since then, despite the efforts of several movements advocating humanitarian intervention, only token progress has been made in resolving this crisis. As the governments of the "civilized" world continue to quibble over semantics about whether or not what is happening can be properly called a "genocide", the disenfranchised people of Darfur continue to suffer and die.

Mr. Hari tells of the Janjaweed's systematic modus operandi for invading once-peaceful villages. The indigenous Zaghawa, Fur, and Masseleit ethnic villagers have usually had advance warning of an impending attack, and usually prepare to evacuate as many people as possible before the Janjaweed arrive. The word Janjaweed means "devils on horseback". The Janjaweed fighters are given this name because of their traditional method of launching their attacks against their non-Arab fellow countrymen by riding on the backs of horses or camels. Today, they also use modern vehicles and are sometimes aided in their assaults by Sudanese government helicopter gun ships. They then proceed to loot, torture, rape, and massacre all those who have stayed behind. Some of the villagers stay behind by choice, to fight the invaders and buy time for others to escape. Others stay behind because they are too badly injured or old and frail to flee. Those who stay behind know they will receive no mercy from the well-armed and brutally vicious Janjaweed fighters. They know that, if they're not lucky enough to be killed by gunfire from the militia's automatic weapons, they could end up spending their final moments being incinerated alive in their traditional huts. The Janjaweed have a well-deserved reputation for rampaging and overtaking entire villages and efficiently and systematically reducing these peaceful villages where children once played to nothing but smoldering ashes littered with the corpses of their non-Arab brethren.

Differences which were once settled peacefully through tribal negotiations are now routinely settled at the end of the barrel of automatic weapons. While the Sudanese government under President Bashir continues to deny its involvement in the Darfur genocide, few doubt that the Sudanese government is actively supporting and encouraging the Janjaweed militias. Except for maybe a handful of Bashir's inner circle loyalists, virtually no one close to the situation would look you in the eye and tell you that Bashir and his government are not behind these atrocities. It is clear to anyone who has eyes to see that Bashir and the Sudanese government authorities are actively participating in the Darfur genocide.

The international community has largely ignored the genocide of Sudan's non-Arab majority in Darfur. Under President Bush, the American government has provided a steady chorus of lip service denouncing what it has only recently even acknowledged is genocide. The United States government – the supposed bastion of freedom and justice in the world – stands idly by as hundreds of thousands of innocent victims continue to pile up. America – the land of the free which professes to champion the causes of liberty and justice for all – apparently follows a hierarchal formula for determining which countries and peoples deserve the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and human dignity. Apparently, special priority is given to countries and peoples whose land is rich in valuable resources. Countries and people whose land happens to be largely barren desert devoid of any precious commodities such as oil find themselves down on the bottom of the list of American military priorities.

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Aka "Peace Brother", I am a health professional and writer interested in promoting global peace and justice.

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