Statement on CBS 60 Minutes Program on Slave Redemption by Bona Malwal, Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford

The American media was at it again this week - trying to damage the only humanitarian program that has been attempting over the years to raise international awareness on the internationally outlawed criminal act of slavery - an act that still goes on in Sudan with the active support of the Government of Sudan.

On Wednesday, May 15, CBS aired 60 Minutes II, in which it implied that the long running slave redemption program of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) was at least questionable and at worst fraudulent. CBS anchorman Dan Rather used old evidence from an elderly Italian Catholic priest, Father Mario Riva. CBS apparent flew Fr. Riva to New York, at their expense, to give 60 Minutes II a new face for an old, discredited story.

Fr. Riva claimed that nearly six years ago he stood very discretely behind a group of slaves to listen to what calls deliberate mistranslation. I personally witnessed that redemption. I did not hear incorrect translations. I saw real slaves and real Arab slave retrievers.

If Fr. Riva is to be believed, then he could not have heard any of the translation he claims to have heard, because the crowd was too large for anyone hiding in the background to hear anything. There was no public address system in use to enable a Fr Riva to hear what was being said. Moreover, CSI interviews with slaves are normally conducted out of earshot to protect confidentiality and to eliminate possibilities for outside interference. Unless Fr. Riva was a spy for someone - and this someone could not exclude the Government of Sudan itself - then why would Fr. Riva hide behind the crown to listen in? Is it perhaps conceivable that those who may have hired Fr. Riva to spy for them have defaulted in their payment to him and that he now wants his due from CBS?

It is extremely difficult these days for the people of Southern Sudan to have much faith in anyone who tries to make a false name for themselves in their cause, including a priest like Fr. Mario Riva. For if Father Riva was so concerned about fraud in the slave redemption program, why did he wait for so long to speak out? I understand that Fr. Riva left the Dinka country years ago and had enough time to speak out about his concerns. Moreover, he apparently never informed CSI about his concerns before making allegations in the press. If Fr. Riva had good intentions and the well-being of the enslaved at heart, shouldn't he have drawn CSI's attention to problems in the redemption process long ago? It is the motives of Fr. Mario Riva that are questionable rather than the slave redemption program of CSI.

60 Minutes II turned up no new or convincing evidence of fraud to present to its American viewers: not a single fake slave, not a single fake Arab slave retriever, not a single witness to corroborate Fr. Riva's testimony. 60 Minutes II has only recycled an old, story published by several other newspapers, written by two correspondents who never went to Southern Sudan to interview slaves, slave retrievers and the community leaders of the enslaved. They depended entirely on hearsay stories from disgruntled and vindictive individuals like Fr. Riva.

What is the motive of CBS and the two western journalists who filed the original story from Nairobi? Here is a situation where these western news organizations admit that there is slavery in Sudan, and that the Government of Sudan is implicated in it. Instead of cracking down on the Government of Sudan for its role in enslaving its own citizens, they crackdown on CSI which offers the only real hope for the enslaved people of Southern Sudan. Dan Rather and his 60 Minutes II team should should have reported that the redemption program of CSI in Southern Sudan has the support of civil society leadership of this community, including its own senior church leaders. Among the church leaders is Bishop Macram Max Gassis of the diocese of El Obeid whose Dinka Ngok people also benefit from the CSI slave redemption program. For CBS to broadcast the story of a single elderly Italian priest, who happens to be white (as were the rest of the people on the program), and to suppress the evidence of a senior Sudanese bishop like the Rt. Rev. Macram Max Gassis and the testimonies of Black victims of slavery says more about the racist intentions and attitudes of Ran Rather and his 60 Minutes II than it does about problems in CSI's slave redemption program.

The racist attitude conveyed by 60 Minutes II and the original press articles seems to be that CSI, a Christian organization, should stop its slave redemption program and let the people Africa get on with slaving themselves. Fortunately, we know that the leadership of CSI and those who support the slave redemption program have no intention of stopping. CSI's program really makes a real difference to the people who matter most, the slaves of Southern Sudan.

Bona Malwal Rome, May 17, 2002