Debunking A Myth p.14

By: M.L. STEIN

Baltimore Sun reporters accept Louis Farrakhan's challenge to prove slavery exists in Sudan; they buy and free two slaves

TWO BALTIMORE SUN reporters carried out one of the more unusual foreign assignments. They bought two slaves in Sudan.
The newsmen, Gilbert A. Lewthwaite and Gregory Kane paid the equivalent of $1,000 to an Arab trader for the slaves, two young boys, and returned them to their father. The exploit, achieved under harsh and dangerous conditions, led to a three-part Sun series.
According to Kane, the staffers' trip to Africa was "inspired by that eminent statesman and humanitarian [Nation of Islam leader] Louis Farrakhan ? who, [during a National Press Club speech] said he didn't believe slavery existed in the Sudan and challenged the media to go there and find proof."
Actually, however, Sun editor John Carroll had decided before Farrakhan's statement to investigate reports of slavery in war-torn Sudan.
The buying of slaves was approved before the reporters took off for what Carroll termed a "very risky assignment to a very nasty place."
White, British-born Lewthwaite, 60, is a veteran foreign correspondent, who has served in London and Paris since joining the Sun in 1971. He covered the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and traveled on assignment to Cuba, Haiti and Central America.
Kane, 44, who is black, is a Sun columnist focusing on the city's African-American community. It was his first trip out of the United States.
Loaded with bottled water, water purifiers and dehydrated meals bought mostly at a Baltimore surplus store, the pair flew to Nairobi, Kenya, and from there hitched a ride to Sudan's rebel territory on a small Cessna operated by Christian Solidarity International, a humanitarian aid group. Within two hours of pitching their tents in the bush, they heard reports of a slave trader operating a few miles from their camp.
Before going to the Sudan, the reporters wrote that their research of the country revealed it to be "one of the remotest, most disease-ridden and dangerous places on earth."
To witness slavery, their trek took them to front lines of a civil war between the ruling Islamic government in the North, and the black African tribes in the South.
They didn't have to produce passports or visas. "We came in the back door," Lewthwaite told E&P.
Of their campsite, they wrote: " . . . the temperature must be 100-plus, and we have no water to wash ourselves or our clothes. The flies seem to find us increasingly attractive. We are drinking water at an alarming rate. We are always sweating, always thirsty, and the water comes hot from sunbaked plastic bottles. It is not pleasant."
Accompanied by native guides and interpreters, Kane and Lewthwaite trudged three hours through the bush to meet the Arab slave trader, Adam El Haj, who claimed the abduction of children was organized by the government and that he had freed 473 slaves ? mostly women and children ? from slave owners, returning them to their families for five cows or the cash equivalent.
The reporters handed over Sudanese currency obtained in Kenya in exchange for two half brothers, Garang Deng Kuot, 10, and Akok Deng Kuot, 12. The children were then reunited with their father, a poor farmer in a nearby village, who had watched the transaction.
"The boys seem unmoved," the newsmen wrote. "There is no sign of joy in their eyes, not a hint of a smile on their faces."
Most of the other slaves held by El Haj were children, many with "rust-tinted hair, the ubiquitous sign of malnutrition in this land of unending need. . . .Some have bruises and scars to attest to their maltreatment," one story reported.
The purchase was not easy for Kane. In a sidebar, he mused: "Should I feel some hesitation, some uneasiness, indeed some moral revulsion, about buying a slave. What would my ancestors who made that journey on the Middle Passage think? My emotions ? which should be jumbled, colliding with each other as they struggle for priority in my heart ? are remarkably calm."
Kane noted there was a precedent for his act. In the 246 years of U.S. chattel slavery, he said, blacks often purchased other blacks ? "and sometimes for good reason" and some blacks paid for their own freedom or the freedom of relatives. The famous black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was bought from his Maryland masters by other abolitionists, Kane noted.
The columnist contended: "It's not the buying of slaves that's immoral. It's what you do with the slaves that counts. I'm convinced that our ultimate goal ? proving slavery's existence ? justifies buying a slave. If it was good enough for Frederick Douglass, it's good enough for me. Which is why I have no problem with what I'm about to do."
On his return to Baltimore, Lewthwaite observed that their venture "was different from any other overseas mission I have ever experienced."
His most lasting impression, he continued, was the young slaves' demeanor, which was "downcast, passive ? totally different from the other African children we encountered who could not contain their excitement over our arrival in their midst."
Seemingly, Sun readers, with the exception of Nation of Islam members, also had no problem with the procurement of the two youngsters, editor Carroll said.
"We got a very good response," said Carroll.
Bishop John H. Ricard of the Baltimore archdiocese and chairman of Catholic Relief Services, praised Kane and Lewthwiate's series for "providing a great service to Sun readers by exposing one of the enduring hardships of warfare in the Sudan."
One reader believed the report "merits a Pulitzer Prize," while another called the series a "welcome change from the fixation among print and television journalists on the horse-race aspects [how far is Dole behind this week] of our presidential election."
But a critic wrote: "Two wrongs do not make a right. . . .Prove Minister Farrakhan wrong by righting the wrongs of America and everyone will rejoice."
Lewthwaite, in the interview, said Nation of Islam members have bombarded TV and radio stations with protest calls after the two journalists appeared on talk programs.
In an editorial, the Sun called for an arms embargo against Sudan, a UN monitoring team on slavery, international pressure on the Sudanese government and rebel factions to permit access to relief organizations access, and freezing requests for loans and disbursements from international financial organizations.