Darfour, le diable arrive à cheval

A very eye opening and hard hitting experience viewing this film. I do feel that it falls short on delivering the back story and facts to truly understand exactly what is going on and why in this region. To my benefit I had already seen the film Darfur Now which does a way better job describing the where's, what's and why's of this hole situation. Darfur Now doesn't have anything close to the experiences and the photographs taken by Brian Steidle. Basically what I'm saying is that watching both these films together will give you the complete picture of this tragedy. A couple of things Brian Steidle said in this film really hit me hard, first when he described his feeling about taking pictures from the hill top over looking a village and hes says if I would have had my rifle instead of my camera I could have prevented the deaths of so many people. I can't imagine what it would feel like to have that kind of training and then be put in a situation were you can't us it to help. Second when he is speaking in front of the Darfur rally in Washington D.C. and he describes first landing in Darfur and being introduced as an American and the people all standing up and cheering. This is just one man, yet they cheer, why, because he is American, because to these people an American means hope. Wow, I could not hold back the tears, after all the latest bashing of America and our current foreign police issues, don't get me wrong we have really screwed some things up, but there are people in the world that see America as a shining ray of light. Sometimes I think the media forgets to report on all the good we do as a country, just to think that when things go bad in the world who does the world call for.

The most important aspect about The Devil Came on Horseback is its images, simply for the unfortunate fact that no one, really, has seen anything properly documenting the brutality going on over there. There's been sporadic text every now and then, and even a picture or two; but, by and large, the waves in the press about Darfur are merely ankle busters compared to this film's tsunami of pictorials and video, displaying the absolute horror of that region of Sudan.

The film follows Brian Steidle, a man who's entire career has been military-based. He served as a USMC captain and when he would no longer see combat, he left the military and accepted a contract position in Sudan with the Joint Military Commission, where he would be an integral part of the North-South ceasefire, rising the ranks from a team leader to senior operations officer. After seven months, he was invited to Darfur, where he would serve as an unarmed military observer and American representative for the African Union in that region. This film documents his findings as an observer.

What he found was systematic ethnic-cleansing genocide. The Sudanese government was not only enabling the mass extinction of its citizens, it was controlling it. The "devil" in the title of the film are the Janjaweed, nomadic black-Arab militia groups who massacre entire villages, by exterminating its non-Arab black African inhabitants and literally burn the tribes' homes to the ground. They are "paid" in plunder and are notorious for raping their female victims, castrating their male victims and torturing them all.

The Janjaweed have been more adequately equipped and become a far greater threat since non-Arab groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, have risen up against the Sudanese government, for its mistreatment of its people. Although the government of Sudan has repeatedly denied any assistance to these barbarous raiding bandits, this film has been a breakthrough of evidence, showing quite clearly the government's involvement.

To really understand this film, however, is to understand its tragedy. No one is really doing anything about this. Even after Steidle came back and lobbied before congress in an effort to call the United States to action, his plethora of images and video were dismissed as nothing more than inconvenient casualties in another state-sponsored genocide that we're unwilling to involve ourselves in. Sure, they were acknowledged and Colin Powell called it what it was--a "genocide"--but there's still over 450,000 dead and counting, and 2.5 million displaced.

I could describe to you the images I saw--the maiming and killing of men, women and children; their eyes gouged out and their bodies burned, castrated and mutilated--and how I reacted, emotionally with tears of hopelessness and regret, when I saw this film. But instead, I think it far more powerful for you to go see this film for yourself. Then perhaps you'll want to take action and help let our government know that you want it to take active involvement in stopping this nightmare. It's not enough to talk about it and acknowledge that it's happening--we need to take active measures in preventing the perpetuation of these government sanctioned massacres.

Remember, just as you've read this review in the comfort of your own home or office or wherever, the killing in Sudan continues. And it won't stop until every last one of the non-Arab black Africans are dead, or when, and if, someone steps in and takes appropriate action to stop it.

In the early 2000s, a cease fire was declared between two warring factions in Sudan (the Arab Muslims in the north and the non-Arabs in the south), effectively bringing to an end the bloody civil war that had ripped that nation apart for over two decades (though the peace treaty itself was not officially signed until 2005). Former Marine Captain Brian Steidle went to the country as part of a team sponsored by the African Union to help monitor the cease fire. However, while he was there, a new conflict broke out, this time in Darfur, the far western region of Sudan that is largely inhabited by tribal blacks. As soon as the cease fire was in place, militias and death squads, backed by the Arab government in Khartoum, began a well-coordinated and systematic campaign to brutally terrorize and slaughter the inhabitants of that region. Whole villages and refugee camps were wiped out, their people mowed down, burned alive or left to die of starvation, all for being black. Steidle - sans weapons and armed only with a still camera, a video recorder, a great deal of personal courage and a spirit of righteous indignation - spent much of that time traveling through the countryside compiling a photographic account of the atrocities. "The Devil Came on Horseback" is that account.

With this work, filmmakers Ricki Stren and Anne Sundberg clearly hope to rouse the outside world from its lethargy regarding this tragedy. Steidle's heartbreaking and compelling eyewitness testimony to Man's-inhumanity-to-Man is placed in direct opposition to the lip-service platitudes and hollow assurances he receives from the fiddle-playing leaders in the Bush administration and the U.N. when he confronts them with the evidence. First, there is the resistance on the part of the world to declare that what was happening in Darfur is a "genocide" at all - then, after the admission, an intransigent refusal to step in and take any kind of action to halt the holocaust. Perhaps the most heartrending moments come from interviews with survivors living in refugee camps in neighboring Chad, and from reflective comments made by Steidle himself as he struggles with the enormity of what he's seen and experienced and battles against the frustrating reluctance on the part of those who could actually do something to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING.

After all the horrors it shows us, after all the inspiring images of one caring man making a difference in the world, the movie turns the spotlight directly onto the viewers, challenging them to take an active part in helping to end this human tragedy. Thus, the movie concludes with a list of websites and telephone numbers where all concerned people can go to find out more about what they themselves can do to have an impact. It's a challenge well worth taking up.

I watched this documentary with my 14 year old son and we both cried. What an atrocity, what a shame that this is happening while we are all celebrating Xmas. Why is nothing being done? Thank you Brian for bringing this to our attention....and shame on us if all we do is criticize how Brian made the movie!!!!! Do something folks! Do something.

We started by going to the website and purchasing shirts and wristbands to be given out at my son's school.. and we are writing to the President and other officials....and we are doing our research on how best to help. Don't just write a review....save some lives. We can all do something.

This isn't something I usually do, and I usually can't stand it when people preach or pontificate to me, however, this is too important to let sit any longer...

As I'm sure you're all aware the atrocities in Darfur have been going on for years. I'd imagine, if you're like me, you've heard the stories and been peripherally aware of the situation for years now. So what turns someone from one who sits on their couch and thinks "God, that's awful," to someone who writes this email and gets involved? A simple answer, I saw a movie this weekend. It's called The Devil Came on Horseback. It's a documentary that details the ongoing conflict in the Sudan. Make no mistake, though we hear little about it anymore, the atrocities continue. Since 2004 approximately 2.5 million Sudanese have been displaced and 400,000 killed.

In DC, the movie is playing at the Avalon Theater on Connecticut Avenue in NW. It's the only place in the area where the movie is showing. If you live outside the DC area, you can go to www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com for theaters and show times in your area. The film is, to put it mildly, disturbing. The images shown will be forever burned on to the IMAX in my mind.

It's as if the ethnic African Sudanese people have been forced into slavery. Now, that word has a lot of power, and most would suggest that it's foolish of me to use it, but, in essence that's what's going on. Not in the same sense as Africans were enslaved in this country, but slaves nonetheless. Slaves to the corporations who would rather protect profit than people. Slaves to their own government who defend and enrich only themselves. Slaves to the outside influence of countries who covet only the resources they can export, not the resources inherent in the humanity of those who reside there. Slaves to the circumstances around them over which they have no control and from which they have no escape. And it's time it stopped.

They say those that fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it. History is repeating itself. Let me ask you this.... If you could go back to the 1930's and stop the Holocaust before it happened, would you? What about the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia? The genocide in Rwanda? We're too late to stop this before it starts, but we can help put an end to it before any more lives are uselessly wasted.

So, why am I writing this? Because, perhaps naively, I believe that a small group of dedicated people can change the world. And, what am I asking of you? See the movie. If you can't see the movie, and I know most of you have busy lives, jobs and other things that will probably keep you from getting to the theater, go to www.savedarfur.org or www.glabalgrassroots.org and donate $10 (the cost of a ticket). I know, asking for money is the fastest way to get people to hit the delete button, but you should know that 100% of the charitable partner proceeds earned from the film go to Global Grassroots (www.globalgrassroots.org), a non-profit charity that helps Darfuri refugees and Rwandan genocide survivors rebuild their lives. Think of it this way, it's one less drink when you're out one night or two less trips to Starbucks this week or month.

The reason this movie affected me so is I looked at those people and saw my friends and family. The dead and displaced are someone's mother or father, brother or sister or child. What would you do if they were yours?