News Article by LAT posted on November 24, 2000 at 11:17:50: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudan's Bombings Boost U.S. Resolve to Aid Civilians in South
By ANN M. SIMMONS
Los Angeles Times
LUI, Sudan--A stepped-up government bombing campaign that has
exacted a high
civilian toll has sparked outrage among the international
community and strengthened
U.S. resolve to beef up its humanitarian and moral
support to the people of southern
Sudan, who are bearing the brunt of a
17-year-old civil war.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan E. Rice visited
parts of
rebel-held southern Sudan this week, where she met with bomb victims
and women
who had escaped slavery in the north, and condemned Sudan's
flagrant violation of
human rights.
"Just being here makes me violently angry," said Rice, visibly moved after
speaking
to people who had been wounded by bombs dropped on a hospital in the
remote town
of Lui.
But her admonitions to the Sudanese government are likely to fall on deaf
ears. In
what appeared to be direct retaliation Tuesday for Rice's trip to
the south--which
Sudan did not approve--the government in Khartoum canceled
the visas of American
diplomats who make short visits there from neighboring
Kenya to run the U.S.
Embassy.
The intensified bombing campaign, Khartoum's denial that it is targeting
civilians and
the rebels' belief that they will likely win the war through
force instead of negotiation
have dampened any hopes that the conflict will
end soon.
The war, and the famine it has caused, has claimed about 2 million lives and
forced
millions more to flee their homes. The fighting pits the predominantly
black African,
Christian and animist south--which is seeking greater autonomy
and religious
freedom--against the largely Muslim and Arab government of the
north. But the issues
are far more complex, involving competition for
resources, political power and other
historical struggles.
At the hospital in Lui, which was bombed five times between March 1 and April
16,
civilians told Rice of their constant fear. The ominous sound of military
aircraft triggers a
scramble for shelter in nearby caves; those too slow or
feeble to make it are blasted by
flying shrapnel and debris. Deep craters
near the hospital compound and central market
bear testimony to the exploded
shells.
The hospital is the only functioning medical facility for miles. Patients
sometimes
walk for as long as three days to reach it.
In one ward, 2-year-old Boboya Lobutu lay curled up on a bed attached to a
drip,
next to his aunt. Boboya's mother died trying to reach the hospital
after she was injured
in a bomb attack Sunday on the town of Tali, about 55
miles north of Lui. Shrapnel had
ripped her thigh, and she bled to death,
hospital officials said. Boboya's left hand was
almost blown off, and doctors
said he could have difficulty using his fingers.
The psychological terror is as harmful as the physical injuries, according to
medical
personnel.
"We are still afraid because we fear the Khartoum government can come any
time
and bomb us," said James Sanitale, who showed Rice the deep shrapnel
wounds in his
legs.
Relief organizations said Monday that government planes had bombed a market
in
the rebel stronghold of Yei 14 times, killing 18 people and injuring more
than 50.
"It's carnage in Sudan," said Dan Eiffe, liaison coordinator for Norwegian
People's
Aid, adding that the Sudanese government is bent on depopulating the
south. "It wants
the land without the people."
Rice told the wounded in Lui that the U.S. would "continue to keep the
pressure on
until the government in Khartoum stops these terrible actions."
Washington, the single biggest donor to relief operations in Sudan,
imposed
sweeping sanctions on Khartoum in 1997, and in 1998 U.S. aircraft
bombed a
pharmaceutical factory there, alleging that it was being used for
terrorist purposes.
But Eiffe, who has worked in southern Sudan for 15
years, said that such actions
were doing little to sway the Sudanese
government.
"The U.S. administration has given sympathy and words, but Khartoum
obviously
does not give a damn," Eiffe said.
Sudan insists that it has never intentionally targeted civilians, arguing
that the rebels
use women and children as "human shields" around their bases.
But Ken Isaacs, a senior official with Samaritan's Purse, a relief
organization based
in North Carolina that runs the hospital in Lui, said the
location of the medical facility
was well known since government troops
captured by the rebels had been treated
there.