The Devil and Darfur by risa
From Cinema Politica
THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29 @ 7:30pm
Concordia University: Henry F. Hall Bldg – Room H-110
1455 de Maisonneuve West, Montreal QC
Screening by donation, and open to the public.
Film info and trailer available at: http://www.cinemapolitica.org/films/60
A CO-PRESENTATION OF: Cinema Politica (Concordia University), Save Darfur Canada & The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS)
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SYNOPSIS:
THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK exposes the tragedy taking place in Darfur as seen through the eyes of an American witness who has since returned to the US to take action to stop it.
Using the exclusive photographs and first hand testimony of former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle, THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK takes the viewer on an emotionally charged journey into the heart of Darfur, Sudan, where an Arab run government is systematically executing a plan to rid the province of it’s black African citizens. As an official military observer, Steidle had access to parts of the country that no journalist could penetrate. He was unprepared for what he would witness and experience, including being fired upon, taken hostage, and being unable to intervene to save the lives of young children. Ultimately frustrated by the inaction of the international community, Steidle resigned and returned to the US to expose the images and stories of lives systematically destroyed.
USA / 2007 / 85 min – Eng / no subtitles
An INTERNATIONAL FILM CIRCUIT release of a BREAK THRU FILMS production in association with GLOBAL GRASSROOTS & THREE GENERATIONS.
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AWARDS
WINNER: SEEDS OF WAR AWARD Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
WINNER: FULL FRAME/WORKING FILM AWARD Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
WINNER: WITNESS Award SilverDocs Film Festival 2007
WINNER: Lena Sharpe / Women in Cinema Persistence of Vision Award / Seattle International Film Festival 2007
WINNER: Adrienne Shelly EXCELLENCE IN FILMMAKING Award /Nantucket Film Festival.
Directors: Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern
Producers: Annie Sundberg, Ricki Stern, Gretchen Wallace, Jane Wells
Editor: Joey Grossfield
Music: Paul Brill
Cinematographers: Jerry Risius, William Rexer, Tim Hetherington, Phil Cox, Annie Sundberg, John Keith Wasson
Producers: Ira Lechner & Eileen Haag, Cristina Ljungberg, The Fledging Fund
Associate Producers: Seth Keal, Jed Alpert, Ted Greenberg
Assistant Editor: Kristin Rodriguez
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ps. From Wikipedia on Darfur:
On October 16, 2006, Minority Rights Group (MRG) published a critical report, challenging that the UN and the great powers could have prevented the deepening crisis in Darfur and that few lessons appear to have been drawn from their ineptitude during the Rwandan Genocide. MRG’s executive director, Mark Lattimer, stated that: “this level of crisis, the killings, rape and displacement could have been foreseen and avoided … Darfur would just not be in this situation had the UN systems got its act together after Rwanda: their action was too little too late.” [132] On October 20, 120 genocide survivors of the Holocaust, the Cambodian and Rwandan Genocides, backed by six aid agencies, submitted an open letter to the European Union, calling on them to do more to end the atrocities in Darfur, with a UN peacekeeping force as “the only viable option.” Aegis Trust director, James Smith, stated that while “the African Union has worked very well in Darfur and done what it could, the rest of the world hasn’t supported those efforts the way it should have done with sufficient funds and sufficient equipment.” [133]
Human rights advocates and opponents of the Sudanese government portray China’s role in providing weapons and aircraft as a cynical attempt to obtain oil and gas just as colonial powers once supplied African chieftains with the military means to maintain control as they extracted natural resources.[134][135][136] Political China has offered Sudan support threatening to use its veto on the U.N. Security Council to protect Khartoum from sanctions and has been able to water down every resolution on Darfur in order to protect its interests in Sudan.[137] There has been further evidence of the Sudanese government’s murder of civilians to actually facilitate the extraction of oil. The U.S.-funded Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, which investigates attacks in southern Sudan concluded that “As the Government of Sudan sought to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oil fields, vast tracts of the Western Upper Nile Region in southern Sudan became the focus of extensive military operations.”[138] Sarah Wykes, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, an NGO that campaigns for better natural resource governance, says: “Sudan has purchased about $100m in arms from China and has used these weapons against civilians in Darfur.”[135] There are additional concerns that Chinese oil companies are devastating the environment further inhibiting the local population’s ability to survive. This includes the clearing of forests for timber exports that increases vulnerability to erosion, river silting, landslides, flooding and loss of habitat for plant and animal species.[139]
Calls for sustained pressure and possible boycotts of the Olympics have come from French presidential candidate François Bayrou[140], actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, Genocide Intervention Network Representative Ronan Farrow[141], author and Sudan scholar Eric Reeves[142] and The Washington Post editorial board[143]. Sudan divestment efforts have also concentrated on PetroChina, the national petroleum company with extensive investments in Sudan.[144]
On the opposite side of the issue, publicity given to the Darfur conflict has been strongly criticized in the Arab and Muslim world as exaggerated. Statements to this effect in the Arab press take the view that “the (Israeli) lobby prevents any in-depth discussion and diverts the attention from the crimes committed every day in Palestine and Iraq.”[145] and that Western attention to the Darfur crisis is “a cover for what is really being planned and carried out by the Western forces of hegemony and control in our Arab world.” [146] While “in New York, … there are thousands of posters screaming ‘genocide’ and ‘400,000 people dead,” in reality only “200,000 have been killed.” Furthermore, “what has been done” in Darfur is “not genocide,” simply “war crimes.”[147] Another complaint made is that “there is no ethnic cleansing being perpetrated” in Darfur, only “great instability” and “clashes between the Sudanese government, rebel movements and the Janjaweed.” [148]
Counting deaths
Accurate numbers of dead have been difficult to estimate, partly because the Sudanese government places formidable obstacles in front of journalists attempting to cover the conflict.[149] In September 2004, the World Health Organization estimated there had been 50,000 deaths in Darfur since the beginning of the conflict, an 18-month period, mostly due to starvation. An updated estimate the following month put the number of deaths for the 6-month period from March to October 2004 due to starvation and disease at 70,000; These figures were criticized, because they only considered short periods and did not include violent deaths. [150] A more recent British Parliamentary Report has estimated that over 300,000 people have died, [151] and others have estimated even more.
In March 2005, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland estimated that 10,000 were dying each month excluding deaths due to ethnic violence. [152] An estimated 2 million people had at that time been displaced from their homes, mostly seeking refuge in camps in Darfur’s major towns. Two hundred thousand had fled to neighboring Chad.
In an April 2005 report, the most comprehensive statistical analysis to date, the Coalition for International Justice estimated that 400,000 people in Darfur had died since the conflict began, a figure most humanitarian and human rights groups now use. [153]
On 28 April 2006, Dr. Eric Reeves argued that “extant data, in aggregate, strongly suggest that total excess mortality in Darfur, over the course of more than three years of deadly conflict, now significantly exceeds 450,000,” but this has not been independently verified. [154]
A 21 September 2006 article by the official UN News Service stated that “UN officials estimate over 400,000 people have lost their lives and some 2 million more have been driven from their homes.”[155] This now appears to be the official UN figure.
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