The Devil Came on Horseback

Since 2003, Sudan’s Arab government and its Janjaweed militias have been destroying villages and displacing, raping, torturing, and killing Darfur’s black African citizens.

A retired Marine, Brian Steidle, volunteers for a job as an unarmed observer in the region just south east of Darfur. He is issued a camera, a notebook and a pen. He watches for six months as the atrocities continue. He photographs, documents and sends the reports to his employer, the African Union. After 6 months, feeling helpless in the face of so much evil, he returns home to the US to spread the word about what he has seen. The movie is about him, and his journey to tell people what he saw. We see horrific and sometimes disjointed images of charred bodies, torched villages and bloody puddles in the dust. Technically, I wouldn't say the movie is well done. The editing and context are lost in the message, but the message is important. It is not easy to watch, but it should be seen.

Brian goes through a very intense transformation as a result of his experiences. His story's veracity is questioned by the Sudanese in America. He is confronted by his father who thinks that Brian's work to publish his photos and tell his story are "embarrassing" to the US Government and therefore he should stand down.

I will say that after reading countless articles from newspapers and activists, devouring Eggers' What is the What and watching God Grew Tried of Us, I still felt only partially informed, like there was a piece missing in this story. Why aren't we doing anything? This film helps to answer that question: There are complicated politics whenever it is America versus the Muslims. It would seem once again that we are saying that hundreds of thousands of black lives don't matter as much as white ones. African babies are lesser miracles and are not worth getting in the way of China's oil -- the Chinese get most of their oil from the Sudan and are then selling the Sudanese government weapons with which they continue the ethnic cleansing of Darfur's black African population. If our government wanted this to stop, they would make it so. Saying we are doing all we can is not enough. We aren't. I'm not. You're not.

There are groups working to keep the spotlight on the horrors until something concrete is done. Save Darfur, Aid Darfur and Global Grassroots. Please visit their websites. Please give if you can, even just $10, to help keep their work moving forward. Call your Senators and Congresspeople and ask what they are doing to make sure that the UN peacekeepers (who have recently been approved by the Sudanese government) are able to get into Darfur to do their work.