According to Christian Solidarity International (CSI)—a relief agency at the forefront of the slave redemption effort—slave raids have been encouraged or sponsored by the government of Sudan since the 1980s. The practice has actually been endemic to the region for centuries, with Arabs typically enslaving Africans. But it heated up dramatically in 1989 when the military junta of General Omar Bashir—closely allied with the National Islamic Front—seized power.

The victims in this tragic sidebar to the decades-long civil war between Sudan's politically dominant northern Arabs and its southern, predominantly black semi-nomadic tribes have mostly been Dinka and Nuer women and children. Despite a record redemption rate of 10,000 slaves in the past year alone (as many as 35,000 slaves have been bought back since 1995), estimates are that between 15,000 and 100,000 still remain in bondage.

Two socially committed Ontarians, Jane Roy and husband Glen Pearson, have almost singlehandedly brought the plight of the Sudanese slaves to Canada's attention. They have raised many thousands of dollars on behalf of CSI, inspired a MacLean's cover story, successfully lobbied the federal government to get involved, and—toting their own tents and backpacks—redeemed many of the slaves themselves during their unique "vacations."

"The price," Roy told MacLean's this spring, "is around $50 a head, about what it would cost for a couple of goats at the local market."

"There is absolutely no doubt that slavery is being employed as a weapon of war by the government of Sudan . . . to make [the oilfields] safe for the oil companies, including those from Canada."

The MacLean's cover story this April helped galvanize the commitment of ordinary Canadians to "the new underground railroad" (an allusion to our role in rescuing American slaves during the Civil War). But, ironically, Canadian business interests in Sudan's oil-rich south stand accused of simultaneously fuelling the disaster. According to Hamouda Fathelrahman, M.D., a Sudanese Muslim Arab exile who is Secretary General of the Sudan Human Rights Organization, "there is absolutely no doubt that slavery is being employed as a weapon of war by the government of Sudan . . . to clear the oilfields of potentially hostile populations in order to make them safe for the oil companies, including those from Canada."

Poised to make billions from Southern Sudan's buried lode of oil, Calgary oil company Talisman Energy Inc. is taking most of the heat; its senior partner—China—is, as always, morally unaccountable. "Amnesty International, the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and dozens of church and civil rights groups around the world say the ruling military dictatorship in Khartoum has killed between one million and two million people in its efforts to suppress rebel forces in the south, and will use the royalties from the Great Nile project in which Talisman is a 25% investor to finance its continuing efforts to displace civilians from the oil lands," writes David Olive in The Financial Post.

No one—not even Canada’s department of Foreign Affairs—seems to buy Talisman CEO Jim Buckee’s argument that the company is a civilising and stabilising force in the war-torn region. In February, after a three-week government-sponsored mission to Sudan, Canadian diplomat John Harker concluded that "oil is exacerbating the situation in Sudan" and that Talisman has turned a blind eye to Sudanese attacks on civilians from oil-industry air fields. Still, the Canadian government has stopped short of sanctioning Talisman for its behaviour in Sudan.

Some agencies have questioned whether CSI's slaves for dollars redemption campaign might, ironically, help fuel the slave trade. But "Pearson maintains that criticism does not stand up because slave raids are down from previous years," writes Barry Came in MacLean's.