John,
While we're at it, remember the clincher of that France/Israel connection in the US embassy bombings:
Carlos' Saga: A New Dreyfus Affair in Paris
The saga of a Venezuelan terrorist, Illich Ramirez Sanchez, known to intelligence as "Carlos-the-Jackal", has thrown France into another Dreyfus affair.
Carlos who was wanted for the April 1982 car bombing in Paris, which killed one French woman and wounded 63 other persons, was extradited from Khartoum in what has been largely regarded as a Franco-Sudanese "deal." [Actually a French-brokered Israelo-Sudanese deal] The Western media covered the story so earnestly that the matter embarrassed the French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua who was involved in the matter. An indignant Pasqua told journalists that there was no deal made. Khartoum also denied vehemently such a deal was ever made. But as time went by it became apparently clear that several deals were in fact made -- which have been part of their diplomacy. However, it seem both sides are unwilling to take the cloud.
Carlos is also reported to be serving live imprisonment in absentia for killing two French counter-espionage agents who interrogated him about his alleged participation in a 1975 Orly Airport attempted bomb blast. Now in France, a writ of habeas corpus may be issued to retry him of that alleged crime as well.
According to intelligence reports, Carlos entered the Sudan late last year bearing a Jordanian passport with an Arab name Abdalla Barakat. Sayid Abdalla Barakat (Carlos) was destined to Khartoum, a new haven for terrorists, after being denied residence in Jordan. Carlos was received at the Khartoum Airport late last year by security officials who took him away under "strict security," a privilege which is normally reserved only for high ranking government officials and foreign dignitaries. While in Khartoum, Carlos was given all diplomatic immunity, provided with body guards, offering lectures and speeches at various branches of the Sudanese Intelligent Agency and Security, meeting senior government officials (including Hassan al-Turabi), and being allowed to drink alcohol in public places in contradiction of the norms of an Islamic state.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese government presented the case differently. Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of the ruling National Islamic Front (NIF) Party told German Der Spiegel that "Carlos entered the country with a forged Jordanian passport. Since any citizen of an Arab country may visit our country without a visa, we did not have any reason to check his papers in any special way. We did not even know that Carlos was hiding in our country." Other official reports also said that Carlos had just entered the country a few months ago, and that he was arrested while trying to conduct terrorist activities. These were politically incorrect and logically absurd statements. Carlos was not that kind of an alien as the regime puts it. Carlos was simply bartered for something more than his utility in Khartoum could continue to offer. The 44 year-old Venezuelan, was described as "rugged and overweight" appearing much older than his real age. His strength to carry any future terrorist activities, according to experts, was "extremely diminished" except [perhaps] of "strategies" which he could have continued to offer to young Sudanese novices. Carlos, according to Turabi, "did not represent an ideology, he sold himself to various customers" -- like Sudan. And apart from that he is not an Arab nor a Muslim. There is no political stigma from the Arab World that would
further reduce Khartoum's credibility beyond its current isolation. As a matter of strategy and calculated cost and benefit analysis, Carlos offered more outlays from extraditing him to France than keeping him in Khartoum.
The Sudan also wanted to prove to the international community that it does not support nor harbor terrorists, thus attempting to disapprove charges which the U.S. has all along maintained. On August 15, 1994, exactly one year since Warren Christopher included the Sudan in the list of nations sponsoring international terrorism, the Sudanese Minister of Justice, Mr. Abdel Aziz Shiddu, called upon the U.S. to remove the Sudan from the list of nations supporting terrorism. Although the U.S. welcomed Carlos' extradition to France, Mr. Mike McCurry, the State Department spokesperson and other senior officials in the Clinton administration [such as CIA Director, double-agent John Deutch] said the Sudan will have to do much more before such a decision could be taken. The U.S. had included the Sudan in the terrorist list long before Carlos entered the country.
As Carlos' lawyers will defend their client and the press will keep probing into the matter, French politicians will continue to face embarrassments similar to what their predecessors faced during the Dreyfus affair in 1898. Dreyfus, a French Jew then working in the French consular section was accused of giving military secrets to Germany during the war between the two countries. During that time, the Dreyfus affair had embarrassed France and destroyed its credibility especially as it had just lost the war to Germany. To recognize German strength, France had no choice but to give a scholarship to Emile Durkheim to go and study German sociology as a possible way to emulate the German superiority. However, the difference between Carlos' deal and the Dreyfus affair is that, the latter turned out to be false, but the former is full of evidence as supported by French policy towards Khartoum since 1992. On August 17, 1994, barely three days after he was extradited from Khartoum, Carlos appeared before Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a French judge regarded as an expert on crimes of terrorism. As the allegations against Carlos are believed to be overwhelming, it is likely that Bruguiere will find Carlos guilty of the allegations. But as Professor Yongo-Bure put it, "it is suspect that the Franco-Sudanese deal was just to obtain Carlos. The French politicians might be forced by the embarrassments of the deal to wash off their hands clean and abandon the Sudanese Islamists." Unless the French defy reason and logic they may as well continue to flirt with their Sorbonne educated lawyer, Hassan al-Turabi, in spite of all the outburst of the deal. But what was the nature of the Franco-Sudanese deal anyway?
CARLOS SOLD FOR MORE THAN 30 PIECES OF SILVER
According to Carlos' defence lawyers, Jacques Verges and Mourad Oussedik, Carlos was bartered for military hardware and an undisclosed amount of money. Mr. Oussedik charged that his client was "betrayed and sold for a sum much bigger than 30 pieces of silver." He said his client was bound by his Sudanese body guards, drugged and handed over to the French DST (counter-intelligence) without any extradition proceedings. And that his client was shown a warrant of his arrest when he was already in La Sante military prison in France. An American lawyer would have added that her client was denied his Miranda Rights at the time of the arrest.
Moreover, the Western media carried disturbing reports that the French provided Khartoum with satellite photographs which pinpoint the movements of the SPLA guerrillas fighting the Sudanese government. The Sudanese airforce -- thanks to arms from France, Iran, South Africa, and China -- then uses these photographs to carry its routine aerial bombardments in the South. French diplomats, like Col. Jean-Claude Mantion, use their influence in Central African Republic (CAR) to allow the Sudanese army to pass through the CAR and Zairean territories to attack the SPLA positions in Western Equatoria Province.
At the time we went to press, two contingents of the Sudanese troops are already reported to have landed in Ituri district of Zaire-Sudan border. More airlifts may be expected before another dry season starts. As it is now unearthed, there is no doubt that France is a joint tortfeasor participating in the crimes of genocide with the Sudanese Islamic fundamentalists. In fact the French government has long been suspect due to its silence since many Western nations, including the U.S., Australia, Britain, and so forth, have all passed resolutions condemning the gross violation of human rights in the Sudan. French diplomats, instead, have been trying to argue whether the Sudan was really capable of harboring international terrorism. Another fear, especially from the humanitarian groups, is that France will chair the European Community this coming year. This could weaken the European lobby against the Sudan. Efforts are being searched to circumvent such a pariah.
MUTUAL INTERESTS BETWEEN FRANCE AND SUDAN
Meanwhile, both Paris and Khartoum have their own interests. The French interests in the region had not been diminished by France's abandonment of Captain Jean-Baptiste Marchand in 1898. The French Total Oil Company and Elf Aquitaine want to gain access to contracts to prospect oil in south Sudan, the area where Marchand once transversed nearly 100 years ago. To gain these contracts, which can't be granted by anyone else in the South (given the endless splits in the SPLA), someone who has power in the region must be consulted. Khartoum welcomes such an interest because, as broke as it is, Sudan badly needs the money from Bentiu oil.
After cancelling licenses of the American Chevron Oil Company, which discovered the oil in South Sudan in late 1970s, Sudan moved to entice the Arab oil rich nations to come and drill the oil in Bentiu. But the Bentiu oil, estimated at 540 Million Barrels of crude oil, has a special wax which must be extracted, but the Arab World does not have the technology to do so. The main purpose of Hassan el-Turabi's trip to Canada, where he was assaulted by a Karate Champion two years ago, was to find some Canadian contractors for this purpose.
Paris has also been using the Sudanese Islamic fundamentalist leader, Hassan al-Turabi, to diffuse tensions in Algeria and possibly to expel the Algerian dissidents [of the FIS party] including some Tunisian dissidents which are also believed to be getting sanctuary in the Sudan. Since the French annulled the 1992 elections in Algeria, which were swept by the FIS, violence has claimed at least 4,000 lives there. Recently five French citizens and two native lawyers were among those claimed by the escalating violence. Paris is also indignant with the U.S. for attempting to settle the violence in Algeria through dialogue. Paris politicians believe there can be no negotiation with Islamic extremism nor can there be moderacy of any kind. But surprisingly, Paris flirts with the Sudanese Islamic fundamentalists, which have even the worse human rights record than the FIS. At least the latter has the backing of the Algerian masses, as proven by the 1992 general elections.
THE MUSEVENI FACTOR
The other common interest between France and Sudan is the rise of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Museveni, considered to be the American darling in the region by implementing all the IMF economic policies and bringing stability to a land that saw nothing but Amin's and Obote's terror, is an envy of France.
Paris accuses Museveni for supporting the Tutsi-led rebels, RPF, to seize power in Kigali.
On the other hand, the Sudan accuses Museveni for supporting its arch-dissident officer, Colonel John Garang de Mabior, leader of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), that has been fighting the Sudanese government since 1983 for a greater autonomy of the South and the Nuba region.
It seems now crystal clear what interests each side has in the dealings. In the case of being indignant with Museveni, Paris and Khartoum undoubtedly just fit perfectly in the dictum that 'an enemy of your friend is also your enemy' and since both France and Sudan have their own stakes, the cartesian coordinates converged in Kampala but the obiter dicta is Carlos the Jackal.
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES
Meanwhile, the Sudanese government has protested vehemently against a report issued by a French Relief Organization, M‚decins Sans FrontiŠres (Doctors Without Borders). The report detailed the gross human rights abuses committed by the Sudanese government in the South and the Nuba region.
The Sudanese government has been quick to condemn, brush aside, seek further evidence than already provided, or simply manipulate reports about its war crimes. The Gaspar Biro Report was, for instance, condemned and instead the UN Commission on Human Rights rapporteur was personally attacked as being anti-Islam and likened to Salman Rushdie. It was a very ridiculous, stupid, and vicious pattern of attempting to scare away independent human rights groups. Nevertheless, concrete facts about war crimes in the Sudan outweighed Khartoum's hypocrisy.
Given the nebulous and vicious reputation of the Sudanese government -- denying red-handed crimes it commits -- it could as well use its improved relations with France (using French underdogs like Colonel Jean-Claude Mantion) to freeze this report.
It is the hope of the Sudan Newsletter that the French government will withdraw its contacts and support for the Sudanese Islamic fundamentalist regime. We strongly encourage human rights groups to document and write clearly about what they see in the Sudan.
Excerpted from:
sas.upenn.edu |
