Just when it looked as if the horrifying situation in Darfur was taking a turn for the better, key rebel leaders blamed the Sudanese government for an attack on a village near the Chad border, thus breaking their own day-old unilateral cease-fire. The rebels also announced their intention to boycott a conference, brokered by the United Nations and African Union for the sole intention of finding ways to end a five-year conflict that’s claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people.
Annie Sundberg’s The Devil Came on Horseback documents the crusade by former U.S. marine Brian Steidle to open the eyes of world leaders to the terrible truth of the situation, which, after much semantic debate, was declared genocide by the UN Security Council and International Criminal Court. Steidle, no bleeding-heart liberal, had taken a job as an official observer of a previous peace accord in Sudan when he was made aware of the displacement of tens of thousands of villagers.
He wasn’t allowed to carry arms or photograph scenes of atrocities committed by mercenary tribesmen, who rode into villages on horseback in the wake of aerial raids by government gunships. He couldn’t resist photographing scenes of carnage, however. Neither the pictures nor his eyewitness testimony was well-received in Washington. White House officials had been bolstering the Arab-led government of Sudan, in exchange for intelligence on al Qaeda. Neither did they want to antagonize China, which was dependent on the country for oil.
Eventually, though, Bush’s minions couldn’t keep the reality of the situation from reaching the American public. The Devil Came on Horseback DVD arrives at the same time as the theatrical openings of Darfur Now, about the efforts of several individuals who have made a difference there, and a fabulous success story about Ugandan refugees in similar straits, War/Dance. The DVD also includes the short film Saving Survivors, about the organization Global Grassroots. If the calamities in Sudan and Uganda had gotten half the media attention as that reserved for Ellen DeGeneres’ dog last week, far fewer African children might have gone to bed hungry.
The Devil Came On Horseback
****
Not Rated
$26.95