There is no on-the-spot way to confirm America’s claim that the Sudanese factory it destroyed with cruise missiles was making chemical weapons
Aug 27th 1998
AMERICA’S attack on Sudan has aroused general scepticism but the Sudanese government, which has alienated many of its neighbours, is finding that it has few friends, above all powerful friends, who are willing to come openly to its defence. After cruise missiles destroyed the Shifa pharmaceuticals factory in Khartoum on August 20th, Sudan invited the United Nations to search the site for traces of the chemical-weapons components that, according to America, were the reason for the strike. A reasonable request, one would have thought, but the UN Security Council prevaricated, sucking its teeth. Nor has the region rallied behind Sudan, proffering its unconditional solidarity. The Arab League and the Islamic Conference condemned the attack, but Arab governments have mostly preserved an embarrassed silence.
The Americans claim that they cannot produce evidence without compromising their sources: intelligence agents are said to have collected a soil sample that showed traces of precursor chemicals used in making nerve gas. But the foreign diplomats, journalists and others invited by the Sudanese to inspect the rubble, have found nothing to back these allegations. One western ambassador, who worked on chemical-weapons control for five years, is particularly dismissive. While it is always possible that somebody was mixing something nasty in a back room, he says, none of the ingredients or machinery in the factory could have been used for making chemical weapons on a big scale.
Given free access to the site, your correspondent spent more than two hours clambering over—and under—the smoking ruins and found nothing to suggest that it was anything but a plant producing medicine for humans and veterinary drugs for animals. There was no sign of the hidden laboratories or storage rooms underground which some had darkly hinted at. Engineers and other specialists from Britain and Jordan, who had helped to build or run the factory, stepped forward to declare it was not, and could not be, used for making chemical weapons.
The Americans’ other claim is that the factory was linked to Osama bin Laden, the rich Saudi dissident (see article) who has been named by the Americans as the chief suspect in the recent bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. His “training camps” in Afghanistan were simultaneously struck by a much larger number of American missiles (see article). Some of Mr bin Laden’s money, say the Americans, went into the plant, which opened in 1996, a joint-venture between a Sudanese businessman and a Saudi shipping company. The two sold it last March to Saleh Idris, a Sudanese banker who lives in Saudi Arabia. With no record of support for Islamist militants, he is unlikely to be a partner to Saudi Arabia’s most wanted citizen.
Ironically, the Sudanese government’s greatest asset is Mr Idris’s lawyer, Ghazi Suleiman, who is the country’s leading human-rights lawyer and an outspoken critic of the regime. After fiercely denying that his client had any links to terrorism (and indicating that he would be seeking compensation from America), Mr Suleiman denounced Sudan’s government for its “political terrorism” against its people.
By mid-week there was a growing consensus among diplomats and journalists in Khartoum that American intelligence had boobed. A case of right issue, wrong target perhaps, since Sudan may be seeking chemical-weapons capability—though not at the Shifa factory. According to a report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch published this week, Sudan had stored Iraqi chemical weapons at the Yarmouk complex south of Khartoum in a heavily guarded military area. (By contrast, the Shifa factory stood open to the street between a power station and a sweets factory in a north Khartoum industrial estate.) Diplomats say that the weapons were transferred from Iraq to Sudan during the 1991 Gulf war. There are also unconfirmed reports of chemical-weapons development at a tannery in south Khartoum, in which Mr bin Laden reportedly has a share.
The Sudanese government cites Mr bin Laden’s expulsion in 1996 as an example of its good behaviour, along with the handing over of “Carlos the Jackal” to France in 1994. Yet his departure was not as complete as all that. He had substantial business interests in Sudan, including a farm at Jebel Kadr in the east of the country, where his militant followers trained. When he left, the farm was handed over to a UN agricultural project and his construction company was auctioned off. But he still retains some business in Sudan through front companies, and has links with Sudan’s ruling Islamist elite through its secretive Masonic-like body known as the Committee of 40.
Frustrated by their inability to hit back at the Americans, who have no diplomats in Khartoum, Sudan’s leaders have resorted to more generalised demonstrations, most of them noisy but polite little affairs. The British have been particular targets, both because they have leapt to the Americans’ support and because, as the former colonial power, they are frequently used as whipping-boy for Sudan’s ills. A well-organised crowd pelted the fortress-like British embassy with stones last weekend. The requested police protection appeared minutes after the last demonstrator had left. The government then ordered its ambassador back from London and asked the British ambassador to leave Khartoum.
The rift is not expected to last long, but it will end British efforts to mediate in Sudan’s civil war. It also means the cancellation of a symposium commemorating 100 years of Anglo-Sudanese relations. September 2nd is the anniversary of the Battle of Omdurman—tens of thousands of Sudanese died in what was more a massacre than a battle—when a British army brought Sudan under imperial rule. Sudan’s latest brush with a distant power is less cruel, but the belief that it is the victim of imperial petulance is much the same.
Aug 27th 1998
AMERICA’S attack on Sudan has aroused general scepticism but the Sudanese government, which has alienated many of its neighbours, is finding that it has few friends, above all powerful friends, who are willing to come openly to its defence. After cruise missiles destroyed the Shifa pharmaceuticals factory in Khartoum on August 20th, Sudan invited the United Nations to search the site for traces of the chemical-weapons components that, according to America, were the reason for the strike. A reasonable request, one would have thought, but the UN Security Council prevaricated, sucking its teeth. Nor has the region rallied behind Sudan, proffering its unconditional solidarity. The Arab League and the Islamic Conference condemned the attack, but Arab governments have mostly preserved an embarrassed silence.
The Americans claim that they cannot produce evidence without compromising their sources: intelligence agents are said to have collected a soil sample that showed traces of precursor chemicals used in making nerve gas. But the foreign diplomats, journalists and others invited by the Sudanese to inspect the rubble, have found nothing to back these allegations. One western ambassador, who worked on chemical-weapons control for five years, is particularly dismissive. While it is always possible that somebody was mixing something nasty in a back room, he says, none of the ingredients or machinery in the factory could have been used for making chemical weapons on a big scale.
Given free access to the site, your correspondent spent more than two hours clambering over—and under—the smoking ruins and found nothing to suggest that it was anything but a plant producing medicine for humans and veterinary drugs for animals. There was no sign of the hidden laboratories or storage rooms underground which some had darkly hinted at. Engineers and other specialists from Britain and Jordan, who had helped to build or run the factory, stepped forward to declare it was not, and could not be, used for making chemical weapons.
The Americans’ other claim is that the factory was linked to Osama bin Laden, the rich Saudi dissident (see article) who has been named by the Americans as the chief suspect in the recent bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. His “training camps” in Afghanistan were simultaneously struck by a much larger number of American missiles (see article). Some of Mr bin Laden’s money, say the Americans, went into the plant, which opened in 1996, a joint-venture between a Sudanese businessman and a Saudi shipping company. The two sold it last March to Saleh Idris, a Sudanese banker who lives in Saudi Arabia. With no record of support for Islamist militants, he is unlikely to be a partner to Saudi Arabia’s most wanted citizen.
Ironically, the Sudanese government’s greatest asset is Mr Idris’s lawyer, Ghazi Suleiman, who is the country’s leading human-rights lawyer and an outspoken critic of the regime. After fiercely denying that his client had any links to terrorism (and indicating that he would be seeking compensation from America), Mr Suleiman denounced Sudan’s government for its “political terrorism” against its people.
By mid-week there was a growing consensus among diplomats and journalists in Khartoum that American intelligence had boobed. A case of right issue, wrong target perhaps, since Sudan may be seeking chemical-weapons capability—though not at the Shifa factory. According to a report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch published this week, Sudan had stored Iraqi chemical weapons at the Yarmouk complex south of Khartoum in a heavily guarded military area. (By contrast, the Shifa factory stood open to the street between a power station and a sweets factory in a north Khartoum industrial estate.) Diplomats say that the weapons were transferred from Iraq to Sudan during the 1991 Gulf war. There are also unconfirmed reports of chemical-weapons development at a tannery in south Khartoum, in which Mr bin Laden reportedly has a share.
The Sudanese government cites Mr bin Laden’s expulsion in 1996 as an example of its good behaviour, along with the handing over of “Carlos the Jackal” to France in 1994. Yet his departure was not as complete as all that. He had substantial business interests in Sudan, including a farm at Jebel Kadr in the east of the country, where his militant followers trained. When he left, the farm was handed over to a UN agricultural project and his construction company was auctioned off. But he still retains some business in Sudan through front companies, and has links with Sudan’s ruling Islamist elite through its secretive Masonic-like body known as the Committee of 40.
Frustrated by their inability to hit back at the Americans, who have no diplomats in Khartoum, Sudan’s leaders have resorted to more generalised demonstrations, most of them noisy but polite little affairs. The British have been particular targets, both because they have leapt to the Americans’ support and because, as the former colonial power, they are frequently used as whipping-boy for Sudan’s ills. A well-organised crowd pelted the fortress-like British embassy with stones last weekend. The requested police protection appeared minutes after the last demonstrator had left. The government then ordered its ambassador back from London and asked the British ambassador to leave Khartoum.
The rift is not expected to last long, but it will end British efforts to mediate in Sudan’s civil war. It also means the cancellation of a symposium commemorating 100 years of Anglo-Sudanese relations. September 2nd is the anniversary of the Battle of Omdurman—tens of thousands of Sudanese died in what was more a massacre than a battle—when a British army brought Sudan under imperial rule. Sudan’s latest brush with a distant power is less cruel, but the belief that it is the victim of imperial petulance is much the same.
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