BY JANICE LYNN
WASHINGTON, DC - At a packed news conference here September
2, the ambassador of Sudan denounced the U.S. government's
August 20 cruise missile attack on the Al Shifa pharmaceutical
factory as a "violation of the territorial integrity of Sudan"
and part of Washington's "arrogant disregard for the peoples of
Africa."
H.E. Mahdi Ibrahim Mohamed announced he had formally advised the U.S. State Department the previous day that all diplomatic personnel in the United States were being immediately recalled to his country as the "strongest possible protest of this violation of Sudan's sovereignty."
Mohamed reviewed the evidence refuting the U.S. administration's "untrue and unsubstantiated allegations" that this plant was producing a chemical that could be used to produce nerve gas. He also reiterated the Sudanese government's call on the United Nations to conduct an international investigation into this incident. "Why is the U.S. government blocking this inquiry?" he asked.
The ambassador said the Sudanese government was requesting an apology from the Clinton administration and an acknowledgment that it "committed a serious error," as well as "compensation for the loss of life and limb and badly needed medicine for the people of Sudan."
In response to one reporter's question about why Washington had so much hostility towards Khartoum, the ambassador said he wanted to differentiate between the people of the United States who he believed were "questioning and suspicious of the legitimacy of this attack" and the U.S. government, which he believed "knowing the military might available to it wanted to show it was ready to use it against smaller countries."
He also said in response to another question that he welcomed any independent fact-finding trip of U.S. citizens. "Thousands of individuals have examined the damaged factory or breathed the air," he said, "and not one person has suffered from any chemical reaction or exposure."
Mohammed also took note of the tens of thousands of Sudanese who took to the streets in demonstrations in cities throughout Sudan as well as the international protests that have taken place. He said flowers and messages of sympathy had been received at the embassy here by ordinary Americans opposing the actions of the U.S. government towards Sudan.
Nearly 90 people attended the conference, including a number of Sudanese, many of whom opposed the government. Several of them asked questions about "human rights violations" by Khartoum and alleged that the regime there "harbored terrorists" like the Saudi Arabian businessman Osama bin Laden, who Washington has tried to paint as the mastermind behind the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Mohammed said that his government did not know of any terrorist activities bin Laden had allegedly been involved in and that bin Laden had been in Sudan in his capacity as a businessman who financed the building of roads.
Janice Lynn is a member of the International Association of Machinists in Washington, D.C.