The Sudanese government was forced to apologize to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday after a series of scuffles between Sudanese security and her entourage.
Officials and reporters traveling with Rice to the capital, Khartoum, were initially prevented from entering the compound of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. After they were allowed in there were further bouts of shouting and shoving, with one reporter being manhandled after shouting a question about alleged atrocities.
Rice, who then left the capital for a trip to the stricken province of Darfur, demanded and received an apology.
PHOTO: AFP
"It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have this happen. They have no right to push and shove," she said
The scuffles, though minor, were a diplomatic disaster for the Sudanese government given the strained relations between Khartoum and Washington. The US withdrew its ambassador in 1997 and normal relations have not been resumed. The US government last year labeled as genocide the Sudanese government's policy in Darfur, where an estimated 70,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million displaced.
When Rice's motorcade arrived at Bashir's compound, guards shut the gates before the final three vehicles could get in. These cars included US State Department officials who were supposed to be at the meeting, as well as Rice's interpreter. One of the officials, Jim Wilkinson, was repeatedly pushed and pulled by security men.
After obtaining access to the compound, US TV crews and photographers were denied entry to the meeting between Rice and the president, though it had previously been agreed that they would be allowed in.
After they got in, another row developed. Despite objections by State Department officials, security guards refused to allow questions, shoved and elbowed reporters and tried to tear a microphone from a correspondent.
The entire press corps was bundled out after Andrea Mitchell, an NBC reporter, tried to ask Bashir about alleged atrocities in Darfur. Guards grabbed her and frogmarched her to the back of the room. Wilkinson shouted at the guards: "Get your hands off her."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail had phoned Rice while she was on her way to Darfur to apologize.
At the Abu Shouk camp for the internally displaced, near el-Fesher in northern Darfur, Rice was in no mood for conciliatory gestures.
She said the Sudanese government, which has promised to end the violence in the region but has failed to do so, would be judged on its actions. "I said to the Sudanese government that they had a credibility problem with the international community," she said.
Relations between the US and Sudan have been bad since Khartoum offered a haven to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. Rice hinted on Wednesday that relations could be normalized, but a US official said she had told the Sudanese government that Darfur was an obstacle.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS