Customer Reviews

The Devil Came On Horseback

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I just saw this movie at Webster University in St. Louis and can't believe it is not playing in mainstream theaters across the country. It is a well crafted documentary that deserves wide spread availability.

This film is Brian's photographs, video, audio recordings, and emails from his time in Sudan as an investigator in the cease fire agreement and his return visit to Chad. The images in the film are nothing short of shocking, graphic and deeply disturbing on a level I never knew existed. If you think you "know" about the situation in Darfur, you haven't seen anything until you sit through 85 minutes of systematic genocide, rape, torture, and mutilation.

This film is Brian's personal account of the atrocities of the Sudanese government (whom is Arab), and its calculated genocide toward the black Africans within its borders. It even goes after those that have fled to neighboring Chad.

But it isn't just Brian showing you a picture and saying 'See, bad things are happening here.' He explains the recent historical highlights of Sudan and its government, the presence of China and its oil pipeline, the Russian and Chinese supplied weapons, the Janjaweed's relation to the government of Sudan, the Sudan Liberation Movement, and other players. You get to see the reaction he received upon his return to America: how the State Department asked him NOT to show his pictures (!); how the Sudanese government sent out people to speak against him; how the New York Times helped give him a voice and get his pictures out to the public.

Excellent production, editing and camera work. I would have liked to have heard some of the politicians speak on the topic. And possibly some more on the links between Sudan, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, and how they are all in bed with each other. It was briefly discussed how China is heavily dependent on Sudan's oil, but does not explain the fact that they need massive amounts of oil in order to supply the U.S. (among other countries) with goods. Though, I guess that this could all be summed up in a documentary of equal length by itself.

The situation in Darfur, Sudan is a complex and dirty situation that can go on for decades. I didn't expect an 85 minute documentary to cover it all, but it does an excellent job of getting the word out that the Sudanese government is committing widespread genocide.

I hope you all get a chance to see it: you will not be disappointed; you will not walk away unaffected.

We shared this video during this past summer preview (2007) for the Rochester, MN community. I am thrilled to see it out for mass distribution. For every family with kids (and especially with College Students) I recommend this video as a gift. Make it a gift you give to every student who is deciding what to do with their life after graduation or still "undecided" in their major. For a family, the film can be a bit graphic with war death (but death is only shown in still photography so it is not that shocking to children). But we can no longer afford to shield children from the truth.

When we showed it to our community we packed out the auditorium and over the weeks that followed people chose from about 7 different ways to get involved in Darfur including water wells, building schools, solar ovens and thousands upon thousands of dollars for use by the foundations and NGOs in Darfur. The intriguing part of the film is the author's wisdom about dealing with "post-genocide" and to explore this issue the author and his sister traveled to Rwanda to discover how to help a country and people groups when the war has ended.

This year is an award winning year for video production. I would recommend to Amazon and any family to buy two videos this year and to watch them with neighbors, friends, co-workers, church friends, and more. The videos would be "The Devil Came on Horseback" and "Amazing Grace: The Story of William Wilberforce." This is a set of videos to sit with your kids, to watch and to discuss. America has enough doctors, lawyers, aid workers and more...challenge your kids to study and learn and to give their life overseas.

I didn't know very much about the genocide in Darfur until I saw this movie. It changed my life.

The film follows the sedate and kind Brian Steidle as he documented the atrocities done by the Sudanese government to the ethnic African Sudanese. I was so moved by Brian's determination to bring this issue to the American consiousness, his sense of guilt for not preventing the genocide (when he had the "chance" to eliminate a Janjaweed caravan in the beginning), and the Sudanese people who are so grateful for what Americans are doing for them.

It is an excellent film: shot well, includes lots of facts, statistics, and interviews with the Sudanese refugees and Janjaweed members, and features first-hand photos that Brian took. I can't wait to receive my copy and share this issue with everyone I know.

Former Marine Captain Brian Steidle got a job in 2004 without much prior knowledge to monitor the ceasefire in Darfur for the African Union. Little did he know he would be walking into one of the biggest human rights travesties in recent history.

After two decades of war, a cease-fire in Darfur is not being followed. The present-day Muslim government restricts Darfur development, and the only hope the black Africans have is two meagerly supplied rag-tag armies (Sudanese Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement). Unfortunately for the black Africans, they are up against the Janjaweed, a government trained, supplied, and supported militia that raids the villages in Darfur and is responsible for the majority of the crimes. Janjaweed, which literally translates as "Devil on Horse", get paid in loot; in other words, they get what they steal, pillage, and plunder. They take more than material possessions, also taking the purity of females, and the hearts of villagers via the destruction of daily life.

Where this story gets even more nefarious is when the details of the oil deal with China are uncovered. Not only is China refining the majority of the oil in Darfur, they are also the means by which the Muslim-led government gets the funding to continue the suppression of black Africans, continuing to flout the cease-fire's mandates.

Through Steidle's photographs, movies, stories, first-hand knowledge, and perserverance, this message has been given a larger stage than it ever would have previously. Hopefully, this is just the first step towards awareness.

Babies shot. Schoolgirls handcuffed and burned alive. Women systematically kidnapped and raped. Brian Steidle--a former Marine who became an unarmed military observer for the African Union in Darfur--watched it happen, documented it, and thought his photographs and reports could not be ignored. Nicholas Kristof brought attention to the photos with a New York Times Op-Ed piece in 2005. "The Devil Came on Horseback" makes clear how the funding and infrastructure for this genocide was made available--the roads the Chinese oil companies paid for and built to transport out oil from Sudan were the same roads used to transport troops and munitions, and transport Janjaweed militias in and out of Darfur for training. Once inside Darfur, a lot of the killing, burning and raping was carried out by the Janjaweed, whose very name translates as "devil on horseback." Evil, yes. Heavily armed, yes. But these guys didn't have weapons of mass destruction. They rode into villages on horseback. They could have been stopped.

****1/2

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.

It's a travesty that this film didn't get a huge distribution. I was fortunate to see it at the Seattle International Film Festival with a full house of movie-goers who were as dumbfounded as I as to why it wouldn't be playing in theaters across America. It's a well produced and directed film which deftly illustrates the experience of an ex-Marine who is thrust into the genocide in Darfur with no permission of any kind to intervene in the killings he documents around him. His mounting frustration takes him on a journey to spread the word about the genocide to anyone willing to listen. The determination and compassion of Brian Striedle is evident in this harrowing documentary which is a must see for anyone who wishes to be well informed about Darfur.

What a powerful reminder of the destructive force of evil; the devil is real! That evil was personified by the destructive forces of Muslim raiders on horseback and their leaders in Sudan was totally expected. But sitting-by and the culpable inaction by Western leaders, including the US Government, gives another face to the manifestation of evil. One flaw in the DVD is the lack of any hope that the Darful situation can be or will be resolved. We must be relentless in our pursuit of positive solutions.

The 2007 world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK offers up an analysis and expose of the genocide in Darfur as seen through the eyes of a former U.S. Marine Captain who served as an unarmed military observer with the African Union. His photos and first-hand observations provides a wild ride into the heart of Darfur society, politics, and social issues and will prove a striking addition to any film library strong in African history and society.

A great documentary for anyone who wants to know more about the Darfur Genocide. My students really loved it.