A translators journey through Darfur

Daoud Hari is a tall, quiet, friendly man who smiles a lot. But he's filled with hair raising stories, like the time he and a British journalist were stopped by a rebel group in Darfur. One of the rebels called to him by name, and holding a gun to Hari's head told him they had orders to kill him, because he was a spy.

"It was a very hard moment," Hari said. "You don't have too much time to think about too many things when there's a gun in your head. You have to think in a few seconds of one minute or two minutes, how to get out of this position."

Hari had one thing working in his favor: the rebels wanted to tell the journalist they were going to kill Hari.

"They have to use me as an interpreter between them and my journalist," he said.

So Hari thought fast. Neglecting to tell his friend the journalist about his impending execution, he told him to call a certain number in his cellphone. It was the rebels commander, and Hari had the journalist hand the phone to his captors.

"And they talked to him and he said 'Don't shoot this guy. Leave him back. Send him back to Chad,'" Hari said.

The rebels let them go, but Hari knew how close he had come to being just another of body littering the Sudanese landscape.

In his book "The Translator" Hari tells of some of the horrors he saw escorting U.S. and European journalists into Darfur. They saw burned villages and the bodies of men, women and children.

Even taking all precautions it was very dangerous. They could be attacked by government troops or members of the Janjaweed militia, the raiders on horseback who attack villages, killing and raping as they go. Such was the chaos; they weren't safe from the rebels either.

"If I keep being angry, I'm not going to be alive,"

In one passage Hari describes meeting a group of desperate young men:

"Emotionally they are walking dead men, who count their future in hours. This makes them often ruthless, as if they think that everyone might as well go to the next life with them. Many of them have seen their families murdered and their villages burned. You can imagine how you would feel if your hometown were wiped away and all your family killed whom you now roam the land to find and kill so you can die in peace."

Hari said it's very hard for the young men.

"They don't have any future, they don't see any future. They have to (kill) and they have to fight."

Daoud Hari was eventually captured by the Sudanese authorities while working with the American journalist Paul Salopek. Together with their driver, they were beaten and held for weeks. Hari felt it was likely they would be killed.

It was only the personal intervention of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson that they were released.

Hari became one of the very few Sudanese to be given refugee status by the U.S. He began working with a couple of U.S. writers to tell his story. Megan McKenna was one of them.

"It was very hard to ask Daoud to relive some of this, and I think there were times when we would all finish up for the evening, and we'd all just be exhausted and be emotionally done in because of all that we heard during the day."

What is remarkable in the book is the way Hari is able to keep calm despite being in desperate situations. He said there was a very good reason: survival.

"If I keep being angry, I'm not going to be alive," he said.

"And I think his compassion come through," said McKenna. "He understands that there are people who made his life very difficult, and sometimes wanted to kill him. But he can see them as more complex people than that. I think he says in the book he does see good in people and sometimes realizes you can sometimes help them get this good out and be a better person."

While in the Twin Cities Daoud Hari will address the National Service Learning conference which draws youngsters from around the world. He said he hopes the young people will lobby their leaders to end the violence in Darfur.

For his own part Hari is hoping to get a green card which will allow him to work again as a translator and help his countrymen. He said he'd like to go home someday.

"But before I go, I hope there's a peace in Darfur." Hari pauses for a moment, and briefly looks tired. "Yeah."

Daoud Hari's book is called "The Translator: A tribesman's memoir of Darfur."

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