By Sam M. Lucero
Catholic Herald

Sudan bishop: 'Don't forget us'

STILLWATER, Minn. -- Bishop Macram Gassis's eyes glow when he boasts about the young children of Sudan. But when he describes the atrocities that have dimmed or extinguished the lives of so many Sudanese children, those warm brown eyes explode with rage.

Sudan is a country at war. The fight is for religious freedom. The African nation is ruled by an Islamic fundamentalist government that has instituted oppressive laws aimed at limiting the religious activities of non-Muslims who practice traditional African beliefs and Christianity.

With his own eyes Gassis has witnessed government airplanes dropping bombs on civilians. He has ministered to fellow Sudanese Christians whose arms and legs were mutilated by shrapnel bombs.

Gassis's vocal condemnation of the Sudanese government's killing of innocent civilians led to his banishment from Sudan. He now lives in exile in Kenya and travels abroad calling for international help for Sudan.

Presently on a tour of the United States, Gassis held a press conference at St. Croix Catholic School May 30 before celebrating Mass at the adjacent St. Michael Church.

Gassis is a native of Sudan. He studied for the priesthood in Italy and England and was ordained in 1964. After four years in parish ministry he was named chancellor of the Khartoum archdiocese. Five years later he was appointed secretary-general of the Sudanese Bishops' Conference. In 1983 he was named apostolic administrator of the Diocese of El Obeid, located in central Sudan, and was appointed bishop there in 1988.

At his press conference, Gassis echoed the same concerns that the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Regional Conference presented to a delegation of U.S. bishops who visited Sudan in April on a fact-finding mission. In a letter to the U.S. delegation the Sudanese bishops asked that six steps be taken to help end the country's 18-year-old civil war.

There is no question that the fundamentalist Islamic leadership in Khartoum wants to eradicate the non-Muslim, African population in central and southern Sudan, said Gassis. It is no coincidence that aerial bombings take place on religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas, he added.

On a rare visit to Sudan last Easter, Gassis narrowly escaped injury when a military aircraft dropped 14 bombs on a crowd of several hundred civilians. One person was killed in that attack and two others were injured.

"Khartoum is bombing the civilians," said Gassis. "They are bombing villages."

During the April 16 attack, Gassis was saying his goodbyes to villagers of Kauda, located in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan. Soon the sound of a Russian Antonov plane cut through the noise of the bishop's plane.

While his life is endangered any time he returns to Sudan, Gassis said he is not intimidated.

"It is worthwhile taking the risk because these children are the future of the church and they are the future of Sudan," he said, "and we have to do our level best to save them."

Save them not only from bombs, but kidnapping.

"The youngsters who are being kidnapped from their habitat are brainwashed" by the Islamic military, said Gassis. Military leaders "instill in these young men hatred for their race and for their own people. They get military training and at the end of the day they are put in the Islamic militias and they come back (and kill) their own people. This is catastrophic."

Gassis decried the complicity of North American, European and Asian investors who support the genocide of non-Muslims in Sudan through oil development.

Weapons used on civilians are being purchased with the millions of dollars in oil revenue the Sudanese government is receiving from foreign oil producers. The bishop pointed to Canada's largest oil company, Talisman Energy, as one corporation that is profiting from Sudan's oil reserves at the expense of civilian lives in central and southern Sudan.

"Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver and we are sold for barrels of oil," he said.

Gassis was pleased to learn that the Wisconsin Investment Board sold off its 180,000 shares in Talisman last September and hoped other U.S. groups will follow suit.

He warned that Sudan's battle with Islamic fundamentalism is not isolated and will lead to a regional conflict.

"It's not only the oil. It's the destabilization of an entire region," he said. "If tomorrow Kenya is totally destabilized by Islamic fundamentalists, and there are already Islamic fundamentalists in Kenya, I would like to see whether Europe is going to be happy with that.

"That's the last bastion of having people living in peace in Africa. We are playing with fire if we allow this regional conflict to go unabated," he added.

TO LEARN MORE ...

... about Sudan and Bishop Macram Gassis's relief efforts, visit www.petersvoice.com.

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2001