This article has been posted to DoctorZin’s New News Blog! 
Posted on 08/21/2004 10:30:59 PM PDT by quidnunc
There was something curiously understated about the report of an apparent chemical attack on villagers in the Sudanese province of Darfur, which ran on Tuesday's front page.
For one thing, the word "chemical" was never used by any of the villagers. They simply described in matter-of-fact terms how one day, instead of the usual bombs, the planes dropped plastic sacks filled with a flourlike substance that made them sick and killed their livestock.
"I came across the story just talking to the villagers in Shegek Karo about their experiences during the bombing," reporter Levon Sevunts explained in a subsequent e-mail.
"They didn't even realize what they were telling me was extremely important. For them, it was just another of many ways the Sudanese government had tried to kill them."
Mr. Sevunt's report was the first we had seen since the Darfur story broke into the headlines this year to suggest the Sudanese were using chemical weapons in the conflict.
That made it a big story, but also one on which we wanted to be very careful of our facts — especially because Mr. Sevunts, a freelance correspondent in the region for the Toronto Star, had filed to us only a couple of times before.
But the innocent quality of the villagers' stories gave the story the ring of truth, and we were impressed by the fact that Mr. Sevunts had carefully avoided making any unsubstantiated charges. He simply recounted the stories the villagers had told him.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Shegek Karo, Sudan – Inhabitants of this picturesque village in the Darfur region of western Sudan said the Sudanese air force sprayed them with a strange powder in an attack in May that killed two villagers and dozens of cattle.
Another bomb, dropped by a jet fighter on the same day, produced a poisonous smoke that injured about 50 villagers on the other side of the village, the villagers said.
A Sudanese air force Antonov plane dropped several rectangular plastic sacks containing a white, flourlike powder on a wadi — a dry riverbed — in the lower part of the village, they said.
"This is the first time I'm hearing about this," a spokeswoman for Ambassador Khidir Haroun Ahmed said. She promised the embassy would look into the matter.
A major humanitarian crisis has unfolded as the government and allied Arab militia groups battle rebel movements in the impoverished Darfur region. The United States and United Nations have criticized Khartoum over its failure to protect civilians in the contested region.
Suleiman Jamous, humanitarian coordinator with the Sudanese Liberation Movement, the political arm of the anti-government Sudanese Liberation Army, said the May incident followed other reports of strange substances that kill livestock.
"Almost every village in this area has been affected," Mr. Jamous said. "Animals die every day because they eat something that leaked out of bombs dropped by the Sudanese army."
-snip-
(Levon Sevunts in The Washington Times, August 17, 2004)
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Sudan ping
OK - any theories on what the toxin is, and did we sell it to them? And exactly who is "they".....are these Sudanese govt aircraft? If not from where.....
And who is paying for this? War, terror - or what ever you want to call it - is not cheap. Supplies cost money. Men must be trained, paid, fed, clothed, etc.
Also, wasn't it the Christian (Catholic) population of Sudan which was mostly under fire?
You may know more about the geopgraphy of that nation then I do! I feel embarrassed - I was a history/social sciences major.
I think you are right bout the locations of the oil fields.
Also, I think you are right about the Arab vs African Muslims - that is probably a source of racial conflict there.
You are quite correct that Egyptian Christians are usually Coptic Orthodox, one of the oldest churches around. There are not that many of them, compared to muslims in the region. And there are very few Roman (Latin Rite) Catholics at all.
In Sudan, there is a mix of Coptic and Latin Rite Catholics. They are African (rather then of Arab ethnicity). There has been tremendous strife, bloodshed of muslims vs Christians in the area. Christians have been literally butchered, wholesale. In some cases, whole villages have been liquidated for being Christian.
While we sit at ease in our living rooms,or smoozing listening to Father Liberal blather from the pulpit on Sunday, these people are being slaughtered for their faith.
It is one of many areas in the Third World where there is a "quiet" persecution. "Quiet" because the news media conveniently ignores ordownplays it.
thanks for the ping.
Whee are our great Intel people who should know about the details in this story.
Wasn't there speculation a few months ago that Iraqi WMD went to Syria and from there to Sudan who had always worked closely with Iraq? Somebody may have more on this but I do remember this pretty good.
Thanks for the ping!
The Christian population in the Sudan -- the majority are Catholic and African and live in the middle and South. The minority are Anglican and African and live in the middle and South. Catholic and Anglican Sudanese are equally brutalized, tortured etc. by the Arabizing Muslim Sudanese governemtn.
There are pockets of Christians in dire circumstances elsewhere in the country, including Copts (who are not black but are Egyptian by ancient ancestry).
Nope. It's Arab Muslims carrying out a genocide against defenseless black Muslims.
BTTT
BTTT
BTTT
i heard a snip of this on the radio today - O"Reilly? Rush?Ingraham? not sure who...
must get more info...
there was the news out in January and April about WMB scuds being moved from Syria...
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