|
U.S. Denies Expelled Diplomat Did Anything Wrong In Sudan
by Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline & AFP) - The United States on Thursday categorically denied that a U.S. diplomat ordered to leave Sudan after meeting opposition leaders had done anything wrong, and said it was considering how to respond.
"We utterly reject the assertion that our diplomat did anything improper or inappropriate," said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker.
"The Sudanese government never informed us of any restrictions on the ability of our diplomatic personnel to meet with anyone in Sudan," he said.
"The U.S. government is reviewing appropriate responses to this unwarranted action."
Political officer Glenn Warren was ordered out of Sudan within 72 hours Thursday after authorities raided the meeting with seven people identified as leaders of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
"The articles in the Khartoum press suggesting that the meeting was somehow subversive are absolutely absurd and without foundation," Reeker said.
The NDA members were charged with plotting a U.S.-backed popular uprising aided by opposition members but Reeker said the meeting "involved nothing more than discussion on the general political situation in Sudan."
"That is what diplomats do," he said.
The incident, just a few days before presidential and parliamentary elections in Sudan contradicted claims by the Khartoum government that it intended to respect basic political freedoms, Reeker said.
He did not specify what kinds of reprisals the United States was considering, but noted that Sudan does have a small embassy in Washington.
Sudan Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said earlier that Warren, had "to leave the country in 72 hours" for violating diplomatic norms by holding such talks with the opposition.
Ismail told reporters that the seven NDA leaders would be granted a fair trial and allowed a proper defense. Warren was not arrested, as he has diplomatic immunity, state security said.
The seven were accused of plotting "a popular uprising backed by a military action and of passing information over to the rebel movement to help it occupy cities and destroy installations with assistance by the United States."
Khartoum's Islamist government has been waging a 17-year war against southern opposition, who have received military backing in the past five years from northern groups, all under the NDA umbrella.
Security forces said they seized the minutes of the meeting, which a newspaper report said included questions by the U.S. diplomat on the likelihood of a military coup and the political situation in Sudan.
Ismail added that the security authorities also seized documents "in line with the current American policy, which is targeting the government in Khartoum and is aimed at shaking its security and stability."
Ghazi Suleiman, an opposition figure who considers himself a leading NDA member, immediately rejected the allegations as "fictitious" and vowed to organize a defense for those arrested.
Among those arrested were the NDA's domestic secretary general, Joseph Okelu, and spokesman Ali Ahmed al-Sayyed.
Sudanese observers said the arrests appeared designed to punish the NDA for planning to boycott the December 11-20 presidential and parliamentary elections and to discredit it as alleged collaborators with the United States.
They said the crackdown might also target Washington after Khartoum protested Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council over a visit last month to opposition-held southern Sudan by Susan Rice, a high-ranking U.S. State Department official.
U.S. diplomats only returned to work at the U.S. embassy in Khartoum in April for the first time since security fears rose with the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in August 1998.
The United States retaliated with a cruise missile attack on a pharmaceutical plant near Khartoum, which was allegedly producing chemical weapons for Islamic militants linked to the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
It was later proved that the chemical weapons link was highly dubious and that the U.S.’s attack was unwarranted.
|
