April 27, 2006

By ROBIN LINDLEY
Contributing Writer

The photographs sear the mind, haunt the spirit. A village aflame, oily black clouds rising. A helicopter gunship strafing civilians. Soldiers looting, burning food stores. A man burnt alive in his locked hut. Blood seeping from wounds that perforate the bodies of men, women, children. An infant girl with punctured lungs from a high-powered rifle round that passed through her. Dead men in puddles of blood after rape and castration. Empty sockets in the faces of the dead where their eyes were gouged out. The scorched and pocked plain smoldering.

The photographs show the crimes against humanity committed by the Arab Janjaweed militia with the Sudanese military who have been killing, mutilating, raping, and displacing African civilians in a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a remote region of western Sudan. Since 2003, as many as 400,000 Darfuri civilians have been killed, and more than two million have been displaced from their homes in a horrific conflict that the U.S. Administration has labeled “genocide.”

Brian Steidle, 29, shared the haunting photographs he took in Darfur at the March 28 meeting of the World Peace through Law section of the Washington State Bar Association, as part of a national speaking tour to raise awareness of the savage violence that continues there.

Steidle, a former Marine captain, served as U.S. representative to the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur from September 2004 until February 2005. He is one of the few Westerners to witness and investigate crimes of war in Darfur over a prolonged period.

Growing weary of the merciless slaughter of civilians in Darfur, Steidle returned to the U.S. to launch his own offensive to stop the violence. He met with members of the Administration and Congress as well as the media.

To end the genocide, Steidle urges the deployment of an international force in Darfur with an explicit mandate to protect civilians and secure routes for humanitarian aid, as well as a no-fly zone to stop the Sudanese government from bombing and strafing civilians.

Steidle recently discussed his experience in Darfur, the continuing violence, and what can be done to stop the genocide.

Real Change: Could you tell me about your work now, and what you witnessed in Darfur?

Brian Steidle: I came back in February last year, and I’ve been traveling and telling others about what I’ve seen. I’ve seen villages of 20,000 burnt down in front of me. I’ve seen helicopter gunships attacking villages, and the after-effects of these attacks. I’ve seen civilians who were killed, tortured before being killed, mutilated, burned alive in their huts. I’ve seen looting and burning.

RC: Your photographs are stark evidence of crimes against civilians, such as the photo of the wounded infant girl and the mutilated bodies of dead civilians.

Steidle: I saw all different kinds of pain. This one-year-old girl, Mihad Hamid, was shot in the back, her lungs punctured. These things happen every day in Darfur. They toss babies in the air and catch them on bayonets. They do the most horrific things. I’ve documented [this] with photography, and there’s no disputing the evidence. It’s there, before your eyes.

RC: What’s the nature of the conflict: religious or racial or ethnic?

Steidle: It’s a racial conflict. There’s no religious issue. The populations in Darfur are 99 percent Muslim. Arab tribes [which are hungry for land] are attacking and oppressing African tribes.

RC: What are the casualties to date?

Steidle: It’s estimated that 300,000 to 400,000 people have been killed, two and a half million displaced from their homes, 250,000 of which are across in Chad. And three and a half million rely on food aid, because it’s not secure enough for those not pushed from their homes to farm.

RC: How is the Sudanese government supporting the Janjaweed militia?

Steidle: The government is of the same tribe as the Janjaweed. The government supports them with helicopter gunships, training, and ammunition, and they fight side by side. The government and militias attack in concert.

RC: The Sudanese government argues that they have legitimate reasons to fight the rebels in Darfur. What’s your impression?

Steidle: I don’t understand that. They are killing civilians and forcing them from their homes, burning their villages. I don’t see how that plays into a war scenario whatsoever.

RC: You have photographs of a town that was destroyed in a joint mission of the Janjaweed militia and the Sudanese Army.

Steidle: The Sudanese government attacked Labado, a village of 20,000. About 3,000 government troops and 600 Janjaweed fought side by side. They used helicopter gunships to strafe civilians. I documented with photography their looting and burning of the village. It was done in front of us.

RC: You’ve said that the violence in Darfur could be stopped with a relatively small number of troops. Didn’t 35 African Union troops stop the razing of another village?

Steidle: The government planned to attack the village of Muhajeryia after Labado, and a small number of African Union troops there convinced the government to halt their attack and actually withdraw. [But] we need another, larger force with the mandate and capability to protect people.

RC: What can AU troops do now if they see civilians being attacked?

Steidle: Nothing. All they can do is watch. They don’t have the mandate nor the capability to protect people.

RC: You were an unarmed civilian observer in Darfur. Were you attacked?

Steidle: Sure. We were fired at on occasion. We were held hostage by a civilian defense force that was frustrated with the African Union mission. We were restricted in movement by the Sudanese government. We couldn’t enter villages, or we couldn’t get fuel for our helicopters. Most definitely we were restricted in doing our jobs.

RC: You described crimes of sexual violence against men, women, and children.

Steidle: The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed do not distinguish between men, women, and children. To them they’re all the same, and they kill them indiscriminately. They rape the women, they gang rape [to impregnate] women. And there were cases of men who were sexually assaulted, castrated, and then executed. It’s awful.

RC: Your photographs showed mutilation and other atrocities, including bodies with the eyes gouged out. Is there something cultural or ritualistic about the killings?

Steidle: I don’t know why anyone would do this to anyone else. There’s no religion on the face of the earth that doesn’t condemn this, so I don’t know why it’s done.

RC: Has there been any improvement in Darfur since you were there?

Steidle: No, there hasn’t been any improvement. There’s been a shift from large-scale military attacks on large villages because most of the villages have been burned, so there’s a shift in the violence to IDP [internally displaced persons’] camps in Darfur and crossover attacks on refugee camps in Chad.

RC: What can the government of Chad do to protect civilian refugees there?

Steidle: Absolutely nothing. The civilians in the camps in Chad and Darfur are very vulnerable.

RC: What is the condition of civilians in these camps?

Steidle: They live in tents and rely on aid organizations for survival; for food, water, shelter. They are completely reliant on aid groups and the international community.

RC: What can be done immediately to stop the violence and aid the victims in Darfur?

Steidle: There’s a three-part solution. We need security on the ground, and initially that would come from NATO because they can move quickly, and in the longer term it comes from the UN because that’s their job. Then we need accountability for those who committed these crimes. They need to be tried, and the guilty put behind bars for the rest of their lives. And then we need to begin to rebuild the nation, to develop it economically and politically.

RC: What can the U.S. do specifically?

Steidle: We need to take a leadership role in NATO and the UN to put troops in Darfur to protect civilians.

RC: What can individual citizens do to stop the genocide?

Steidle: Write personal letters to the President and members of Congress and ask [that the U.S.] take a leadership role in ending this crisis.

RC: Could you talk about the plans of the Save Darfur Coalition for April 30?

Steidle: On April 30, a big event will take place in Washington, D.C. to deliver postcards to the President about Darfur and show that people in this country really do care about what’s happening. There will be a rally and march. Our message [to the President] is that we appreciated what’s been done in calling this a genocide and calling for international support and supporting the African Union and aid organizations, but we need to turn words into action and take the next step and protect these people. n