Sudan region is no stranger to humanitarian crises he dense jungles of Central Africa have been a convenient venue for warlords and bureaucrats who exploit human rights. While recruiting young boys as soldiers is, at best, a disturbing practice, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) for which Zechariah Manyok Biar risked his life should not be confused with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Biar joined the SPLA and fought in the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) to earn South Sudan’s independence; the LRA is the guerrilla force masterminded for more than two decades by Ugandan militant Joseph Kony. More than two million people are said to have been been displaced – and untold others mutilated or murdered – by LRA forces forcing children to participate in their alleged atrocities. The LRA is active in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan and South Sudan. For a time, the Sudanese government in Khartoum supported the LRA because of Ugandan support for the SPLA. In October 2011, President Barack Obama deployed 100 armed military advisers to Central Africa to help various forces in their hunt for Kony, who has been indicted for war crimes by the international Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. In early March of this year, the 27-minute film, “KONY 2012,” (kony2012.com) became a social media phenomenon, part of a campaign to heighten world outrage against a warlord who has abducted more than 30,000 children and escaped capture for years. The film also received criticism from those who argued it oversimplified the situation and misled viewers about the current reach and strength of the LRA. On March 16, film star George Clooney and his father, Nick, were arrested at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., as they protested the actions of Sudan president Omar al-Bashir, who is blocking food aid from people who live in the Nuba Mountains along his country’s border with South Sudan. Civilians are reportedly hiding in caves while tensions between the two countries escalate, causing Sudanese missiles and bombs to rain on the region. Clooney – who has visited South Sudan, recently met with Obama to discuss his concerns, and testified before a Congressional committee – seeks to draw attention to what he argues is a growing humanitarian crisis in a part of the world that knows such confounding situations all too well. 䊱 ACU TODAY
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Winter 2012
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