World News
Political,
government officials
shift views on Sudanese bombing
by Askia Muhammad
Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON-The United States has failed to prove its case for bombing a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant and has undermined justification for its attack on Afghanistan at the same time, according to a growing body of current and former government officials and opinion leaders.
On Sept. 29, Mustafa Osman Ismail, minister for External Relations of the Sudan, told the United Nations General Assembly that the bombing of the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant by the United States was a "grave act of terrorism," as heinous and cowardly as the bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
"The factory had produced essential and life-saving medicines and nothing but medicines. In this instance, the United States acted as adversary, jury and judge" and opposes a fact-finding mission by the Security Council urged by the Arab League, he concluded.
The United States vetoed a request for a Security Council fact-finding team. Former President Jimmy Carter has also expressed doubt that there was credible evidence to warrant the Aug. 20 bombing.
According to published reports, Mr. Carter supports a Sudanese call for an independent investigation of the Cruise missile attack on El Shifa Pharmaceuticals and an apology if U.S. justification proves false.
President Clinton said the factory was producing nerve gas for terrorists. "I have grown more and more skeptical of the justification for the bombing of the factory in Sudan," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said in a Sept. 24 letter to Mr. Clinton. "I now write to say that I think it was an error to engage in that attack, and this error weakens our ability to engage in legitimate acts of self-defense in the future."
The Clinton administration's explanation "was deliberate falsification," charged former Attorney General Ramsey Clark in a broadcast interview after returning from Sudan.
El Shifa was the Sudan's main source of locally needed agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines. The loss in this case is even greater, according to Mr. Clark, because import of U.S. pharmaceuticals is prohibited, and the United States has refused to license sale of medicines to cash-strapped Sudan by Eli-Lily, and by the pharmaceutical giant's subsidiaries in Europe. At least nine heads of state who have visited the facility since the attack also agree with this position, he said.
Mr. Clark and President Carter say the United States should offer to replace lost production of agricultural and veterinary products from the plant, if the attack is proven unwarranted.
In order to justify a military attack claiming self defense under the UN Charter, "there ought to be a degree of certainty or a fear of imminent danger which in neither case seem to be present regarding Sudan," Mr. Frank said in his letter. "This is a crime, a crime under international law beyond question, a serious crime, a deadly crime," Mr. Clark said when asked to evaluate the legality of the U.S. attack. While in the Sudan, he spoke at a Khartoum rally, protesting the U.S. action.
"How many countries are producing nerve gas that we haven't bombed? What nerve gas do we claim (the Sudanese) have ever used? There is no evidence. It is absolutely not there."
Sudanese officials, he said, have taken pains to "relate to the American people," and to not confuse U.S. government action with the will or sentiment of the American people.
"They really believe that the U.S. has targeted Islam," Mr.
Clark conceded. "They look around and see how we deal with the Palestinians,
they see how we deal with the Iraqis," he said, pointing out that
UN sanctions against Iraq violate the Genocide Convention of the Geneva
Accords.
(Eric Muhammad contributed to this report.)
Related Story: Sudanese ambassador blasts America's 'act of terrorism'
[ National News | World News | Features | Columns | Perspectives ]
