NYPost

WHERE ARE YOU, JESSE?

By ROD DREHER

April 11, 2001 -- JESSE Jackson will arrive at the four-star Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, Calif., today to kick off a three-day conference of his Silicon Valley Project, the Left Coast version of his Wall Street shakedown scheme.

Jackson will pass the hat among the Valley's techno-tycoons, and tell them what they can do to become racially correct. He will spend the next three days wining and dining among the captains of America's high-tech industry.

Meanwhile, half a world away, Al Sharpton will be waking up in a Sudanese war zone, on hand to observe the slavery being inflicted on Christian and animist Africans by Muslim Africans.

Sharpton & Co. are in the midst of one of the world's disease hot spots. Aside from the usual epidemiological horrors, there's currently an outbreak of African sleeping sickness in the area.

If an infected tsetse fly bites you - and the fierce buggers can chew through light clothing - your nervous system is attacked. There's a cure back in the West, but it involves two years of treatment, including multiple spinal taps.

A visit to the Sudanese war zone is not a trip to safari camp. If there is a hell on earth, this is it, and no Westerner who travels there to help the embattled Dinkas does so without assuming considerable personal risk.

There's no money in it, either. The people of this desperate region are the poorest on earth.

So it's no wonder that Jesse Jackson knows the way to San Jose, but hasn't shown any interest in the road to southern Sudan.

Well, it is puzzling to some people: Those who once believed in Jackson.

"The thing that's tragic is he has a great reputation for going in to free hostages," says Jesse Sage, assistant director of the American Anti-Slavery Group.

"Here you have the worst kind of hostages: unarmed women and children suddenly abducted in their villages and taken as slaves. And he has yet to step up and try to free them."

Since 1994, the Boston-based abolitionist group has been begging Jackson to speak out on behalf of the tens of thousands of black Africans forced into bondage by their Muslim countrymen.

"We must have asked at least half a dozen times," Sage says. They have never heard from him.

To be fair, says Sage, a number of other prominent people have failed to respond to their appeal.

But we have a right to expect more of Jackson. It's hard to know what to make of a so-called civil-rights leader who speaks out for black America's right to watch "Moesha," but won't let a word of support for black slaves in Africa cross his lips.

Jackson's silence on Sudan is a mystery, even to those who know him. Perhaps Jackson, who never met a black African dictator he didn't praise, doesn't want to be seen criticizing non-white African governments. It may be that for Jesse Jackson, the only black man worthy of his attention is one who has been oppressed by a white man.

Activists who have actually visited Sudan and participated in the liberation of slaves say that the experience transcends the concerns of American racial politics.

"You're there with these women and kids, and they're telling you these absolute horror stories, yet you also see the enormous human resilience they have," says Sage. "I believe Rev. Sharpton will come back a changed person."

"It's life-altering. It is the happiest and saddest moment of your life, all combined in one," says Barbara Vogel, an elementary-school teacher from suburban Denver.

Vogel made the journey to Sudan in 2000, two years after she and her class started a fund-raising and letter-writing campaign on behalf of Sudan's slaves.

It started when her kids were studying the history of slavery in the United States, and the children were startled to learn that slavery still goes on in the world.

They began writing letters and raising money to buy slaves' freedom. So far, they've contributed about $50,000 to the cause of liberty, enough to buy the freedom of 1,000 human beings.

The kids also wrote to Jackson on four occasions, asking for him to help. He sent their letters back.

"He completely ignored these children," Vogel says. "I don't know of anybody in the movement who's heard from him in any way."

Vogel is thrilled that Sharpton has stepped in where Jackson fears to tread.

"He will gain, unfortunately, a greater understanding of man's inhumanity to man, and hopefully will come back seeing that it's everybody's responsibility to end this holocaust," the teacher said.

"I cannot imagine that man coming back without more compassion for humanity than when he left," she continued. "I think Jesse's afraid to anger other cultures. It's just easier to turn your head."

For the price of an average room at Jackson's Silicon Valley hotel, you could buy the freedom of five African slaves. But why would America's premier civil-rights leader want to do a thing like that?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001