Speaker 1:

Shocking images of a famine in South Sudan, in the vast Bahr El Ghazal province. 2 million people are said to be at risk of dying. It's been painted as a classic African story of drought, crop failure, and the cost of civil war. But is this the true story? The world response has been to launch a massive airlift of aid. Most through the United Nations operation, Lifeline Sudan. As concern over the famine has spread, Sudan's government has been praised for opening up closed areas of the war-ravaged country to aid, but does it really deserve this praise? Many areas still remain off limits. The government claims they are too insecure for aid drops.

This film takes you on a journey into one of those no go areas. Here, it uncovers horrific evidence of the real policy Sudan's government has been pursuing in secret under the smoke screen of opening up the nation to aid. It reveals how vast tracks of the country have been turned into a scorched wasteland where thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes. And it reveals the hidden agenda behind the state-sponsored genocide.

Jay, our bush pilot, is flying into One Rock, Bahr El Ghazal. We've been advised it's not safe to fly here, but tiny inter-church aid group, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, specialises in going to such closed areas to help those most in need.

Caroline Cox:

We were advised that this is not a safe area to visit. That's why the UN is not visiting there, but that suggests to us that the people are suffering in a big way. It suggests to us that probably aid isn't reaching those most in need. It suggest that they're very vulnerable to government attacks from the either government forces or the [inaudible] militia. And therefore, it's a danger zone.

Speaker 1:

Despite the dangers, Jay thinks it's important to fly us to One Rock. He's heard rumours of the devastation that swept this region.

Jay:

In some of the areas, especially the Bahr El Ghazal, the government troops have been on horseback lately, and they've been burning villages and killing women and children mainly. The people who aren't fast enough get out of their way, stealing livestock and grain.

Speaker 1:

When we land at One Rock, the fires from recent raids are still burning, and they're still fighting nearby. They quickly unload the aid, some of the first to reach this area since the so called famine began. CSW are bringing in a consignment of precious medicines. There has only been one United Nations aid drop here last April. The people have nothing.

Yet, this is no parched, infertile part of arid Africa. The Lol River runs through One Rock, one of many rivers in the region. There are vast swamps and wetlands here. The traditional [Dinka] inhabitants have survived for thousands of years growing crops of sorghum which they pound into flour. They keep large herds of cattle which graze on rich pastures. These are an emergency food, which the Dinka keep in case of adversity. But these scenes are deceptively peaceful. There are now hundreds of corpses rotting in the River Lol. And these are not the victims of famine, but of a secret state-sponsored genocide.

Stephen Wondu:

Come rain, come sunshine, come El Nino, or without El Nino, we have always had pastures here because of the large swamps. The huge swamps of this region ensure that there is always pasture. If we are going to put a finger on anything, it is the war. It is the tribal raids. It is the cunning and the terror by the government of the on the community. That is the cause of the famine here. They are interested in these pastures, in this lands, and of the people.

Speaker 1:

In 1989, the National Islamic Front seized power in Sudan in a military coup, toppling the democratic government. An Islamic Fundamentalist regime, it seeks to turn this once multi-religious democratic country into an Islamic state ruled by Islamic law. It's a policy opposed by the majority of Sudanese society, including Christians and moderate Muslims alike.

We're taken by the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army to witness the devastation around One Rock. The SPLA are fighting against a regime they claim is now waging a jihad, or Islamic holy war, against the black, largely Christian peoples of South Sudan. The recent massive destruction across this region is proof, they say, that this jihad has turned [inaudible] to genocide.

Just days ago, Sudan's government led forces launched a dawn raid on [Abbyandow]. A united force of over one thousand Sudanese military, [mujahideen]C, Islamic warriors, and Arab tribesmen set the whole market ablaze.

Speaker 2:

The men were lying down there.

Speaker 1:

Abbyandow was once an important regional centre. Traders came from as far away as Sudan's capital, Khartoum, in the north to buy cattle. Others came up from Uganda in the south. Arabs traded with Dinkas peacefully, side by side. Now all that has been lost.

The raiders surrounded the busy marketplace on three sides, driving the people into a trap, an ambush at the far end. It was a well planned massacre. Civilian traders, men, women, and children ran into a wall of bullets. By the time the SPLA reached Abbyandow, the killing was done. They buried the bodies in mass graves all around the town. Commander Selva describes what his soldiers found when they arrived at the scene of the massacre.

Commander Selva:

We just start to advance from water up to Abbyandow here. We got already, everybody was on the ground dead. All the area was burnt, and we saw no one alive. The number of people here was outrageous. One was 161. We buried them [inaudible] including the ladies, girls, because they were caught by surprise.

Speaker 1:

He was once a captain in the Sudanese government army, but he came over to join the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army when he saw what was being done to his people. Commander Selva says that this government-backed raid was led by a Sudanese army captain called [Awsan].

Commander Selva:

And I saw what they were wearing. I was in Sudanese army, so I know the dresses of different types of units, this or that. So, we know that those who are wearing, the real [cockadell] the Sudanese army wear, the uniform, that is reason I wear the same uniform they are wearing.

Speaker 1:

The 1000 strong force were a highly mobile raiding party, many mounted on horseback. Nearby the deserted market, a carcass of a horse of one of the raiders.

The SPLA pursued the raiders to try to stop further massacres, but the roads here are all but nonexistent. The highly mobile raiders head Northeast towards [Manaboone], deliberately targeting civilians on route. We follow the path the raiding party took as they swept east across Twic County, spreading terror in their wake. Driving through mile after mile of this blasted land, through countless now deserted villages burned by the raiders, we're taken to [Apioth]. It was once a thriving village of over 100 houses, but every hut was burned by the raiders. Flaming torches being tossed onto the tinder dry thatch and wooden roofs. All that now remain are the charred, blackened walls of the huts. This building was once the village grain store, but it too was set alight, the whole village harvest being destroyed in the process. When famine does come to this village, it will be a direct result of this raid.

Speaker 3:

[foreign language]

Speaker 4:

We just ran, and then we saw the smoke rising from the village in the morning, and we fled away. I don't know why they do this. We are simple, uneducated people. We're not soldiers. I'm just a villager with my family, but they come with their guns.

Speaker 1:

This woman's family were lucky. They fled into the bush and hid from the raiders, but many did not escape so lightly. There are rules to terror that's being spread here. The Arab tribesmen, or mujahideen, who joined the government troops are told they can keep the booty of war, so they came seeking plunder. As they swept northeast, they seized over 10,000 head of cattle. The cattle that refused to be rounded up and driven away as loot were killed. Many decapitated by the raiders' weapons, to deliberate policy to deprive the Dinka of any source of food.

The Dinka cattle herders fled for their lives, but were no match for the mounted horsemen. Many were cut down in the bush as they ran. Hundreds of corpses lay scattered across this land, slaughtered alongside their cattle. Here the stench of death was everywhere. No one has come to bury these bodies. Their relatives have fled to the only place of safe refuge.

We walk 20 miles distant to find them, to the vast swamps of [Lethabreath]. The ground is treacherous and buggy. No vehicles can travel here. And no horsemen could follow those fleeing from the terror. Over forty thousand people are thought to be hiding in these swamplands. They've made crude shelters on the mounds of earth that rise barely above the waters.

Speaker 5:

[crying] [foreign language]

Speaker 1:

Traumatised, many injured, they have found desperate refuge in these malaria-ridden swamps. They drink the swamp water, while they have to eat the roots of water lilies.

Speaker 6:

This is what they have been living on and nothing else. I myself have been living on this stuff.

Speaker 1:

But this is where the only certain safety now lies. Most are too scared to return to their villages. Few dare the destruction they would find there.

Speaker 7:

[foreign language]

Speaker 4:

We run because of the shooting, but some of us lost our children, the old people as we ran. Our goats and cows were taken, and we ran for our lives here to the swamps.

Speaker 7:

[foreign language]

Speaker 1:

With the rainy season fast approaching, tens of thousands of people are now not able to plant their crops. They're in desperate need of aid.

Caroline Cox:

Of all the Times I've visited Sudan, I've never seen such massive, manmade, systematic horror and suffering. There is famine, but that famine is entirely manmade. That famine has been created by a government that has sent hordes of militia, its own government forces pounding into these villages, massacring, burning, burning homes, burning crops, killing people in cold blood, killing livestock, driving innocent civilians to live in the swamps and under the trees in the bush. Their famine is made by the government, and they will die unless help comes to them.

Speaker 1:

Many of the raiders believe they're on a jihad, that they kill unbelievers in the name of Islam. It is impossible to communicate the terror they are spreading here. We're taken to one small village which was completely wiped out. In the ruins of a hut, we're shown the remains of people who were burned alive. One of the huts escaped being torched, but there's no one left alive to play these drums or catch fish in these traps now.

Outside the hut, we're shown the grave where the SPLA buried the bodies. One SPLA soldier shows us how the raiders trussed up their victims before killing them.

Speaker 8:

They just call the people, and they tie their hands with a rope and their legs with a rope. They tied their hands behind, and then they lie them down, and they slaughter them with a knife like a goat. It's how they are slaughtering. But the men who are very strong that they can resist, they tie them, and then they throw them into the head, which was bad.

Speaker 1:

These killings are supposedly on behalf of Islam, but contradict many teachings in the Quran and the spirit of moderate Islam. The Quran clearly states that there should be no compulsion in religion, no forced conversion by the sword, and that all prophets should be respected, making special mention of the gospel of Jesus.

The Catholic Church at Manaboone, which once served a 300 strong Christian congregation, was a main target of these raids. But unlike the thatched, mud hut villages, it could not be burned down, and the raiders had no heavy weapons to destroy it's thick walls.

Santino Manut R:

I think that before [crosstalk]

Speaker 9:

I think that before, this wasn't a religious war, but now there is a jihad against the Christians. It is a religious war now. We're living on the very borders of Islam, so what can we do? Leave this place? My grandfathers lived and died in this area. We don't want to leave this land.

Santino Manut R:

Mother died in this area. We don't want to leave this our land. [crosstalk]

Speaker 9:

There should be love in the world between Islam and Christianity. But the world needs to make peace in Sudan, and we are waiting for a very long time, and we're preparing for peace, praying for peace, but no peace comes.

Santino Manut R:

Many years, we love the peace. And we call in peace, and we pray in peace. But no peace.

Speaker 1:

Later, like at One Rock, at a meeting with village elders, there was no doubt who has orchestrated this campaign of terror.

Speaker 10:

[foreign language]

Speaker 11:

Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, he is the one organising these people to come and kill. The killers are under his command. He sends them to steal, and leaves us to die with hunger.

Speaker 10:

[foreign language]

Speaker 11:

How can you believe he is our president when you have seen that he does this?

Speaker 2:

Even the people killed-

Speaker 1:

The elders explain the huge extent of these raids. They have covered four counties, Aweil West, Aweil East, [Abyeye], and now Twic. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed. Thousands of people have been killed. Over 2 million have fled their homes.

Speaker 12:

We have [wit] and Manuel Village, burn. We have [Runbage] Village. It's burned. We have [AyeAye] Village. It's burned. For the [inaudible], we could say 50 villages forming the Bahr County area is completely burned down all. That what I could say, and if you go now, you will see all the ashes. You will move on the ashes.

Speaker 1:

The raiders also come seeking human booty, women and children as slaves who will face forced conversion to Islam.

Speaker 13:

[foreign language]

Speaker 11:

The Arabs came seeking children as slaves. Around 5,000 have been taken now, and we don't know where they've gone to.

Speaker 13:

[foreign language]

Speaker 1:

In the midst of this meeting, a young boy is brought to us. He was found in a raided village, abandoned amongst the burned ruins. He cannot speak, and has survived a week alone in the bush. His trauma is painfully clear.

Stephen Wondu:

He was found in one of the burned villages. He was abandoned in the grass. Nobody knows who his parents are. Nobody knows where his parents have gone, whether they have been killed in the battle. But some people who were trying to check them, when they found him, having been alone for a week or more.

Speaker 1:

We carry him to a local feeding centre. The coalition of tiny aid agencies have just set up here, part of an aid operation called Goal. They are struggling to provide food and medicines with pitifully few resources. A local woman, herself displaced by the raids, agrees to take the little boy and look after him as her own. The dignity of the people here is humbling.

Dan Eiffe:

What I'd like to say to the people who watch this, you're not talking about poor African people who can't feed themselves. This is a bloody rich country, and that's why they've been pushed out of it because it is rich. Because it is rich. If there was nothing here, they wouldn't be coming here for this land. Eleven years in South Africa, and I tell you, I fought against Apartheid. I was working against Apartheid as a Catholic priest, and Apartheid is a tea party in comparison with Southern Sudan. And I was there during the worst years of Apartheid. It's a tea party in comparison.

Speaker 1:

There is hunger here, but it's the hunger caused by these raids. All these people have fled their villages and now have no homes to return to. This is the cause of any famine here. It is a deliberate policy of genocide or ethnic cleansing, and one western aid will do little to stop.

Dan Eiffe:

Well, I'm 11 years in Sudan, and I swear to God, this is the worst situation I've seen inside Sudan. This has been created by the government of Sudan, and now suddenly, they send down these Arab [inaudible] army mixed with these [merhaleen] to loot, to pillage, and to rape, and to take women and children. Driven to the people, the poor people really badly off, into the middle of the swamps where in two weeks time, we cannot reach them. It's all swamp. We cannot reach them. Like humanitarian assistance here is not enough. The Sudan Liberation People Army are trying to defend their people. To the outside world, it might look like rebels, but to the local people, they are their only hope, the only defence against these Arab raiders and their own soldiers.

We need political action on the Sudanese conflict to stop the damn war, to stop the damn war, and to make people let the people live, and fish in the river here, and cultivate.

Speaker 1:

We were told that had been just one air drop of aid here last April. So far, this area appears to have remained outside the United Nations mounted operation, Lifeline Sudan. On our final day at One Rock, a UN jeep does arrive. James Abelee says he's come here to assess security. We ask him what the UN thinks the cause of the crisis is in Sudan and how that might explain the UN's apparent absence here.

James Abelee:

Drought and the crop failure spreads throughout South Sudan. It's quite difficult to do, to support food drops in an area twice the size of France with one Hercules. But, if you ask me where the UN has been, the UN has been here.

Speaker 1:

As we prepare to leave, the SPLA receive new reports of another column of raiders preparing further attacks from the east. Whilst we may fly away to safety, people here are left behind to face yet more raids.

Caroline Cox:

Aid is not the answer, but they're getting desperately to need aid, and particularly while they're displaced by the terror tactics the government. They're living in the swamps, malaria-infested swamps. They're going to need mosquito nets on a huge scale until they can come back to their own villages. The villagers are devastated. They've got no shelter, so when the rainy season comes, they're going to need aid just to survive in those villages. Their crops are being burnt, so you have no food if they come back, so they're going to need food aid. Yes. Medical aid. They've got virtually nothing because everything was taken. So they're going to need medical aid on a huge scale too. So aid is needed, but aid is not the answer. The answer has to be the international community putting a stop to the genocidal policies of the regime in Khartoum.

Speaker 1:

Local SPLA commanders believe they are holding the front line in a war to stop the global spread of Islamic fundamentalism. But they receive little if any help from the free world.

Commander Pyang:

My message is simple, that please turn an eye to the suffering people of Sudan. Your [inaudible] should be also connected with humanity and for sure I'm seeing that there is no situation. We say a thing, it is a war situation. More than the situation with our people are in.

Speaker 1:

But is there also a hidden motive for the terror we've just witnessed? If there is, it lies beneath these planes with its $45,000,000,000 worth of oil. With Chinese, Malaysian, and North American money, the Sudanese regime are building a pipeline to extract 200,000 barrels of oil a day by 1999. Clearing civilians and the SPLA from this land is vital to their plans.

We head for a secret rendezvous with Dr. John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Army. He has few doubts why Sudan's government is pursuing genocide in South Sudan and why he must carry on fighting. At his base, our plane is quickly camouflaged. If he is defeated, claims Garang, Islamic extremists will sweep into Africa and beyond.

John Garang:

It's complete devastation of the area, killing anything that they find inside, taking what they can, and destroying what they cannot take. Human beings, animals, the burning of houses, a total havoc, total destruction. That way they are able to clear the area around the oil fields so that they are able to, according to them, export oil by 1999, and even prosecute the war much more vigorously. So, this is a calculated, coldblooded genocide that is going on in northern Bahr El Ghazal, while at the same time they are sending positive signals to the international community. So, they are getting a pat on the back from the international community while they are actually killing children, destroying the whole countryside.

Caroline Cox:

Just burnt houses-

John Garang:

Yeah, just burnt houses and burnt houses, and in houses you get dead bodies burnt in the houses. Some are thrown into the houses. And this government claims to be a government of the Sudan. It isn't. It's a government of killers. It should be condemned. Sanctions should be made against this government. It should be isolated. And those who are struggling to defend themselves must be assisted.

Speaker 1:

The Sudan People's Liberation Army, a part of the recently formed National Democratic Alliance, is a coalition of Sudan's pro-democracy forces based in Eritrea, uniting Christians and Muslims, Arabs and black Africans, against the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Khartoum. They seek a democratic future for Sudan, one free from the religious and ethnic hatred that presently grips this land. Whilst recent images of famine may have forced the world to act on Sudan, no amount of aid alone will halt the genocide now taking place there. The brooding regime is bent on converting Sudan into an Islamic fundamentalist state and exterminating all those who stand in the way of this process. How many civilians must die in Bahr El Ghazal and elsewhere before the world wakes up to this slaughter?