Posted on 10/03/2007 6:28:55 AM PDT by Freeport
KABKABIYA, Sudan (AP) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter got in a shouting match Wednesday with Sudanese security officials who blocked him from a town in Darfur where he was trying to meet representatives of ethnic African refugees from the ongoing conflict.
The 83-year-old Carter walked into this highly volatile pro-Sudanese government town to meet refugees too frightened to attend a scheduled meeting at a nearby compound.
Carter was able to make it to a school where he met with one tribal representative and was preparing to go further into the town when Sudanese security services interrupted.
"You can't go. It's not on the program!" the local national security chief, who only gave his first name as Omar, yelled at Carter, who is in Darfur as part of a delegation of respected international figures known as "The Elders."
"We're going to anyway!" an angry Carter retorted, telling security officers they didn't have the authority to stop him.
As a growing crowd gathered around the former president, Carter's U.S. security detail and his African Union escort tried to ease tensions. Carter later agreed to a compromise by which tribal representatives would be brought to him at another location later Wednesday.
"I'll tell President Bashir about this," Carter said, referring to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
The Darfur conflict began when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed -- a charge it denies.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven out of their homes in four years of violence.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
typical lib - if talking doesn’t get you anywhere, try shouting the other side down...
Idiot...he willing puts his own security detail at mortal risk to appease his foolish pride in a thrid world country where his name means next to nothing.
Don't you know who I am? I'm going to tell on you! Whhaaaaaaa!!
I wonder how much it would have taken to bribe the Sudanese into just keeping that nitwit there permanently.
Was his security detail Secret Service? If so, then they should be jerked, since he had no right putting those guys in danger just so that he could feed his ego.
Just like a slime ball liberal. The law does not apply to them. Do as they say, not as they do. They can have 30,000 foot houses, we little people have to live in 1,000 sq. ft. Kerry, Kennedy, Karter, Kedwards, Klintons, KAlgores, they can have their big mansions. They DO SO MUCH for society. They DESERVE it. /sarcasm hot as lava.
If he’d had this much chutzpah when he was prez against the Iranians then we wouldn’t have the Iranians today.............
Ugly American.
Carter later agreed to a compromise by which tribal representatives would be brought to him at another location later Wednesday.
In other words, he once again tried to appease his way out of the situation....he chickened out. Idiot. Of course he probably would have been killed.
Idiot...he willing puts his own security detail at mortal risk to appease his foolish pride in a thrid world country where his name means next to nothing.
I’m going to tell...I’m going to tell - Whaaaaaaaaaaa. Baby.
Here in the US his name means four dreary wasted years of a disastrous administration. It also means volunteers pounding nails into tarpaper shacks creating new ghettos.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. At a minimum, his passport should be revoked ... and if former presidents don’t need passports, his travel abroad should be restricted, although no one in the administration has the brass to do it.
I am ashamed to have read some of the comments posted above. People on these threads constantly castigate leftists for their failure to act on their rhetoric. Carter, a man whose principles I generally deplore, showed courage and conviction in actually going to Sudan and actually confronting people who, I doubt not, fully support the murdering that has been taking place there for decades. That he is there at all puts him in a class not shared by 99.9999% of the rest of America including the “principled conservatives” on this thread.
Politics and ideology has a way of turning people into depraved loudmouths. I have fallen prey to this too many times in the past not to recognize it when I see it. It is far better to recognize that even enemies can display virtue and that their ideological stances do not make them evil, stupid or craven. They can be wrong on many things and still display courage or charity or any other virtue.
I'm gonna tell your daddy..... uh, huh. (whining like a little b#tch)
The United States is a third world country?
And all the while he could just stay here, where his name means next to nothing.
I would have to know which side he is on first. Historically, he is always on the wrong side.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.