From Deseret News archives:
Tribesman opened eyes to Darfur's grim realities
Under order of the Sudanese government, helicopter gunships have attacked Darfur, followed by militia groups on horseback who raped and murdered citizens and burned villages.
More than 2.5 million people have been displaced in Darfur.
When his village was wiped out, Hari escaped to a refugee camp in Chad and began working as a translator for major news organizations, including The New York Times, NBC and the BBC, as well as the United Nations and other aid groups.
He wanted to help any news organization that was interested in getting the story to the rest of the world in the hope that help could be found. He has written "The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur," a moving, heartfelt collection of some of his harrowing experiences guiding journalists into dangerous areas to help them get interviews with survivors.
"I learned languages in intermediate and high school, which allowed me to be a guide for journalists," Hari said in a phone interview from New York City. He lives in Baltimore now.
"They have very good English teachers in Sudan, and I know the area well geographically. I couldn't do it alone, though. The journalists have been very good to work with. When you see this with your own eyes, it is very good evidence of what is happening," Hari said.
One of the journalists Hari shepherded around was Nicholas Kristof, a prominent journalist for The New York Times. "Kristof saw a great many different things with his own eyes," Hari said. "He was able to interview someone who had lost almost all his blood, and he told us what was happening. The lives of these people is desperate. He saw the wounded, men lying down from attacks, absolutely very dangerous. They needed help. Kristof was very surprised at what he saw."
Hari said Kristof made him nervous, because he warned him many times that he had to stop interviewing so they could move on, and he would casually say, "Just a few more questions."
He thought Kristof was fearless, "a very good guy. I loved his sacrifice to get the stories, but I wanted to keep him alive."
Hari believes that good journalists writing about the genocide will help inspire the U.S. government to help, but I don't think the U.S. alone would be able to solve it.
"I'm not a big educated person who knows a lot about genocide. I only know what I saw with my people. Genocide is not a word I even understand. But I know that children are dead, that 4,000 villages have been destroyed and that even visitors have been killed. I know there are a million and a half refugees in Chad right now."
