Sudan Violence Spurs Church

March to protest attacks against fellow Christians

By Matt Pacenza

STAFF WRITER

Newsday

16 Oct 2000

Horrified by stories of torture and murder he heard during a trip to Sudan in June, Dana Antal returned to his Jamaica evangelical church determined to raise awareness about the persecution of Christians in the war-torn African nation.

Antal, of Bellerose, and about a thousand fellow worshippers at Highland Church took to the streets yesterday for a March for the Persecuted Church-a vibrant display of their concern about attacks against Christians abroad. The march began on Highland Avenue in Jamaica.

"We must stand up for people who are persecuted for their faith," said the Rev. Subash Cherian, 49, who has been a pastor at Highland, an ethnically diverse church with more than 3,000 members, for 17 years.

Sudan, a nation of 35 million in northeastern Africa, is governed by its Arab Islamic majority. Roughly 1.9 million people, most of them black Christians who live in the south of Sudan, have been killed during a 15-year civil war, according to the United Nations.

The UN Commission on Human Rights, in a 2000 report, accused the Sudanese government of "severe restrictions on the freedoms of religion" and "continuing violations of human rights in areas under the control of the Government of the Sudan."

Antal, 30, a real estate investor, said the Sudanese Christians he spoke to during his three-week trip "asked how come their brothers and sisters in America don't speak out about their suffering."

One Sudanese immigrant came from his home in Rutherford, N.J. to join the march.

"My father was killed by Islamic forces in 1987," said William O. Levi, 36, who says he also lost his mother in a Ugandan refugee camp.

Levi said Sudanese Christians are "choking because of Islamic persecution. I am here today because somebody has to have a voice for the voiceless."

Although Cherian said the march was "nothing political," church members said they are pressuring oil companies and mutual funds to stop backing the Sudanese government.

Talisman Energy Inc., a Canadian oil producer, owns a 25 percent share of a multinational conglomerate that pumps oil in southern Sudan. Human rights groups argue that oil revenues help fund the Islamic government's persecution of the Christian minority.

"Western oil companies must take responsibility because they are acting destructively," Levi said.

Talisman, in a February news release, responded to criticism of its oil field investment by citing its financial support of the peace process in Sudan and of community development projects in the poor nation.

The Fidelity Overseas Fund owns nearly $43 million in Talisman stock, according to Vickers Stock Research. This had led Highland Church activists like Stuart Willett, 40, a stockbroker, to pressure Fidelity to sell its Talisman stock.

"They're putting money in an African government that perpetuates genocide," Willett said. "They're helping the government wipe out Christians."

Fidelity officials were not available for comment yesterday.

A growing Sudan divestment campaign has prompted investors such as TIAA-CREF, the nation's largest pension fund for teachers, to sell their Talisman stock in recent months