...one film that really should be seen by all of the public.
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It isn't very often that after watching a film, I find myself sitting on the couch in my darkened living room wanting to do nothing else than just sit there for a few moments and gather my thoughts. To try piece together all the horrific and saddening things I just saw, to find some way to make sense of it, and in a strange way, sort of decompress. That's precisely what happened to me the night before last, and as I write this, I'm still in a processing mode.
Originally a book by former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle, the documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback" from filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern hit theaters in 2007, produced in part by a grant from the Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of how one man (Steidle) witnessed firsthand the tragedy most would call genocide going on in the Darfur region of the Sudan in 2004 and made it his mission to get the word out to the rest of the world.
The film begins by introducing Brian Steidle and provides some background on his history. Rather than accepting a desk promotion after serving four years in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1999-2003, Steidle decided to withdraw from the military to find new employment where he could make a difference. In 2004, Steidle signed a six-month contract for a position as a U.S. military observer for the African Union in the Sudan. His duty was to monitor the cease-fire at that time and report on any incidents to the Union. However, since his role was to be impartial, the man gained access to restricted areas of the region that reporters weren't allowed to enter, allowing him to collect evidence of crimes against humanity that will surely haunt him for the rest of his life.
The Darfur conflict has been reported on in the newspapers, news broadcasts, with even television dramas like "ER" touching on the subject, but a good portion of the population is still unsure exactly what the conflict is and how it evolved.
Now, I haven't read the book so I can't really comment on it, but the documentary goes into great detail exposing every layer of the tragic situation, which I'll try to summarize briefly. Tension in the Darfur region of the Sudan had been building for years, as the government had been neglecting the Sudanese people in harsh times by using most of its oil production for other countries. This created a ripple effect as drought and overpopulation began forcing the Arabic Africans to travel southward into the farmlands and herding grounds of non-Arabic Africans. The straw that broke the camel's back was when a group of rebels from the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement had enough and launched a protest against the central government by attacking a military airport. Infuriated with the defiance, the government resorted to the despicable position of striking against and eliminating all who opposed them.
The title of the book and documentary refers to the Janjaweed, which loosely translates to "Devil on a Horse." The Janjaweed are the nomadic Arabic tribes responsible for burning down entire villages, destroying food and water supplies, and raping and slaughtering thousands of villagers. The film showcases a lot of destruction caused by the Janjaweed, and Steidle provides actual footage and photographs of everything from burning villages and mutilated survivors to charred corpses.
Although the Sudanese government continues to deny any involvement, defecting members of the Janjaweed have blatantly admitted in interviews for the documentary that they are on the government payroll. The common practice was for the military to use air strikes to bomb villages and then send in the Janjaweed to annihilate anything that remained.
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