A video recently released by Aegis Trust shows the testimony of four men who state they actively participated in the violence and massacres on Darfur, and who are not afraid to call it genocide. The video was uploaded on The Hub and it is hoped that people will pass it on to others in order to spread this information:
The men – whose identities are obscured – are former members of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed militia: one was a senior officer in the Sudan Army Finance, one a high-ranking Janjaweed commander, another a Janjaweed footsoldier, and the last a Sudanese soldier.
On the video, you can hear their testimonies of how the Sudanese government recruited the Janjaweed militias, gave them weapons and supplies and whenever they attacked villages, the government would cover it up and state that the attack had been done by the military against rebels, and not by militias attacking civilians.
The video is available with German subtitles, Arabic subtitles and French subtitles.
According to Aegis Trust's press release on Human Rights First, this video could assist in the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant against Sudan's president, General Omar al-Bashir:
Since 2003, at least 300,000 civilians have died in Darfur and millions have been displaced from their homes, many of them at the hands of militia nicknamed the ‘Janjaweed’ (‘devils on horseback’). Time after time, survivors stated – and international observers confirmed – that as they murdered, raped, looted and burned village after village, the Janjaweed was backed by the Sudanese army and air force. Yet the Sudanese Government has consistently denied responsibility for atrocities in Darfur and to this day, says it has nothing to do with the Janjaweed.
However, the defectors in this film – some of them speaking publicly for the first time – tell a very different story.
The video can also be seen here:
Darfur Destroyed: Sudan's perpetrators break silence from Aegis Trust on Vimeo.
Thumbnail image used from photo by Nicolas Rost/UNHCR, uploaded by hdptcar
5 comments
“End Human Bankruptcy”an idea whose time has come.
Thanks for spreading the word about this video, Juliana. I think that there might yet be hope for the marginalized people of Sudan … from a human rights and justice standpoint, it’s wonderful how we can use video in order to start bringing the Darfur genocide’s perpetrators to account. Kudos to Aegis Trust.