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Janus Addiction Singer Helps free 2,300 slaves
very cool (:
i had no idea jane's addiction was politcally active or aware. i shall
really have to give them a listen now.
rhys
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Jane's Addiction Singer Perry Farrell Goes to Sudan on Slave Redemption
Mission
December 11, 2001
AWEIL COUNTY, SUDAN (iAbolish) - Fresh off an arena rock tour with his
band Jane's Addiction, singer Perry Farrell played to a new kind of
audience last week: hundreds of newly-liberated slaves in southern Sudan.
[boombox.jpg]
Perry Farrell provides music for newly freed slaves.
Farrell, who participated in a rescue mission led by the Swiss-based
Christian Solidarity International (CSI), helped redeem over 2,300 slaves
- and led a massive freedom celebration in the Sudanese bush.
Farrell just returned to Los Angeles following seven days in Sudan, where
the CSI team liberated six different groups of slaves in Aweil County.
Since 1995, CSI has freed over 60,000 slaves through an "Underground
Railroad" in cooperation with local black African leaders and a network
of Arab slave retrievers, who risk their lives to purchase the freedom of
slaves.
Reached by phone in Zurich, CSI official Gunnar Wiebalck reported that
Farrell immediately connected with the women and children who were
liberated from bondage. Since 1983, militia forces armed by the Sudanese
government have been terrorizing black African villages in southern Sudan
with slave raids: shooting adult males and abducting women and children
as chattel slaves.
Armed only with a boombox and his legendary voice, Farrell started up
freedom parties at various redemption sites. "He began dancing and
singing," said Wiebalck. "I wasn't sure what would happen, but then
everyone joined in."
Belting out tracks from his new album "Songs Yet to Be Sung" (Virgin
Records), Farrell sang about freedom with songs like "Happy Birthday,
Jubilee", which evokes the biblical injunction to free those in bondage
every 50 years.
Christmas sparklers, tree lanterns, and torches lit up the night sky,
their light reflecting in the dust kicked up by hundreds of dancing feet.
A local band quickly joined in, playing their instruments through
Farrell's mic and battery-powered boombox.
"Everyone was dancing," Wiebalck recalled. "Even the Arab retrievers
joined in. It was Christians, Muslims, and Jews all dancing together.
Arabs, Africans, Americans, and Europeans - all celebrating the joy of
freedom. I have never seen anything like it."
Farrell's party no doubt came as welcome relief in villages where the
ever-present danger of bombs and slave raiders remains. One of the
villages where Farrell performed had been bombed by the Sudanese Air
Force just days earlier. One woman was burned to death, and another man's
head was severed by shrapnel.
During the week-long visit, Farrell welcomed back to freedom women and
children who had experienced all kinds of victimization. Hundreds had
been gang-raped. Others had boiling water thrown on their chests by angry
masters, or their throats slit by slave raiders.
Shocked by these stories, Farrell made the connection to the September 11
terrorist attacks on the US, noting that Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan
until 1996. "He saw that these women and children have been on the
frontlines of a terrorist assault for years," remarked Wiebalck. "It's
the same kind of attack, in many ways."
Farrell was introduced to the modern-day anti-slavery movement by Aaron
Cohen, of the Jubilee Freedom Foundation. In September of 2000, Farrell
and Cohen came to Washington to watch escaped Sudanese slave Francis Bok
testify to the Senate. A few months later, Farrell brought Bok on stage
in front of a crowd of 40,000 to launch the American Anti-Slavery Group's
website, iAbolish.com.
Farrell vows to return with dozens of celebrities and leaders - to visit
the frontlines of terrorism in Sudan and to celebrate the preciousness of
freedom with his African brothers and sisters.
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chomp while $carrots >= 1;
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