Posted on 07/21/2005 7:59:48 AM PDT by RicocheT
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Security forces in the Sudanese capital manhandled U.S. officials and reporters traveling with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, marring her round of congratulatory meetings with leaders of the new unified government. Rice demanded an apology, and got it.
"It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have this happen," she said. "They have no right to push and shove."
Rice made her remarks to reporters after she and her entourage boarded an airplane to fly from the capital to a refugee camp in the Darfur region. At the camp, she said the United States would hold the Sudanese government to account if it fails to end the refugee crisis.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Sudanese foreign minister responded to Rice's demand for an apology by telephoning her aboard the plane to express regret for the incidents at the ultra-high-security residence of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.
Twice, Sudanese guards' hostility toward members of Rice's entourage devolved into shouts and shoving.
As Rice's motorcade arrived at the residence, armed guards slammed the gate shut before three vehicles could get in, including those carrying Rice's interpreter and other State Department officials who were supposed to attend her meeting with el-Bashir.
After protests, the officials were eventually allowed in. But guards repeatedly pushed and pulled Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson, and at one point he was shoved into a wall.
"Diplomacy 101 says you don't rough your guests up," Wilkinson said later.
Once Rice's traveling group was inside, the guards tried to keep reporters out of a planned photo shoot of Rice's meeting.
When reporters were finally allowed in, they were elbowed and guards repeatedly tried to rip a microphone away from a U.S. reporter. They were ordered not to ask questions, over State Department objections.
When NBC diplomatic reporter Andrea Mitchell tried to ask el-Bashir a question about his involvement with alleged atrocities, a scuffle broke out.
Guards grabbed the reporter and muscled her toward the rear of the room as State Department officials shouted at the guards to leave her alone. "Get your hands off her!" Wilkinson demanded. But all the reporters and a camera crew were physically forced out.
Ambassador Khidair Haroun Ahmed, head of the Sudanese mission in Washington, attempted to smooth over the situation on the spot. "Please accept our apologies," he told the reporters and aides. "This is not our policy."
Later, describing Rice's meeting with el-Bashir, Wilkinson said, "She was very direct about the skepticism of the international community about their ability to improve Darfur."
Rice put it this way: "I said action, not words."
U.S. officials said Sudanese officials repeatedly asked Rice to lift sanctions, and she gave them no promises.
But Rice later indicated she might consider requests to ease sanctions on railway and aircraft components.
"I think we have to look at the argument that this is an issue for humanitarian reasons," Rice said in an interview with National Public Radio. "Obviously if there is a case on the humanitarian side we would be willing to look at it."
The session at el-Bashir's residence capped a morning of meetings before a visit to the western Darfur providence, where the United States blames his government for recruiting and equipping militiamen to massacre rural villagers and burn their homes.
He denies government involvement, but the United States and international organizations say his military sent helicopter gunships to bomb small villages before raiders swept in with horses, guns and knives.
Rice's visit to the sprawling Abu Shouk refugee camp, the second-largest in the region, went more according to form and plan.
After a bumpy and dusty ride from the airport, she was surrounded by children reaching for her hand and chanting: "Welcome, Welcome Condoleezza."
In the area she toured, some of the 55,000 displaced Darfur villagers had tried to add cheer to the hot, sandy expanse by planting pink and magenta flowers outside the doorways of their plywood and canvass huts.
Rice said that her hour and a half visiting the camp, meeting with humanitarian workers and women who described their fear of rape and violence by government forces, put the crisis in stark relief.
"I think people have known this is a devastating crisis for so many people and the United States has called it by name, that is that a genocide was committed here," she said.
Prior to her meeting with el-Bashir, Rice had said the United States is making a difference to relieve a refugee crisis and that African peacekeeping troops are helping to stop atrocities.
War-induced hunger and disease have killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes.
Sudan formed a new reconciliation government this month, following a peace agreement to end a 21-year-year civil war between the Muslim north and the mainly Christian and animist south that killed an estimated 2 million people.
Both the Sudanese and the Washington press corps could be described as uncivilized.
Condi Rice stood up for reporters who would love to shoot her down. I wonder if the media people who have been trying to hang Dr. Rice in the news realise if Maddy Allbright had been there she wouldnt have said squat about their treatment.
Well, at least in that instance there would be a rational explanation...
No they don't - and they won't. Reporters dislike nearly everyone. I know - I used to be one. Ugh.
Good on Secretary Rice. The Sudanese are thugs.
And Mitchell and her colleagues are the first to call Bush a dictator and side with Durbin when he calls our troops Nazis. Couldn't happen to a nicer person.
Deep down, you know that Rice was probably smirking a little at Mitchell's incident, though.
I know I was smirking, Laughing out loud really , but Dr. Rice is probably "Bigger" than that. LOL
What a man!
What? Oh, yeah:
</sarcasm>
bttt
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.