From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [R-G] 3rd world to US: feel our pain AP; Reuters. 15 September 2001. Sudanese Still Bitter Towards U.S.;Saddam Hussein Warns U.S., West; Cubans Express Sorrow to U.S. People, Criticize Gov. Combined reports. KHARTOUM, BAGHDAD and HAVANA -- When President Bush talks about punishing those responsible for this week's terrorist attacks, some Sudanese say they can't help but remember with bitterness the cruise missiles the United States sent in retaliation for the 1998 embassy bombings. On Aug. 20, 1998, much of the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum was reduced to rubble by the missiles, which were fired to avenge terrorist bombings at U.S embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 13 days earlier that killed 231 people, 12 of them Americans. "They bombed this factory because they got their facts wrong. It was not right," said Amir Mohammed Nuor, one of the security guards on duty the night El Shifa was bombed. "At that time I hated America -- the government, not American people." No one died in the attack on the factory -- three of the five night guards were injured -- but the blast shocked the Sudanese and planted seeds of hatred toward the United States. Then-President Clinton alleged that El Shifa was making precursors for chemical weapons, claims that were never substantiated. It was also alleged that the factory was connected to Osama bin Laden, who has been indicted by a U.S. federal court for masterminding the embassy bombings. This also was never substantiated. To the Sudanese, the bombing of El Shifa was an unwarranted act of aggression based on misinformation. The factory simply made pharmaceutical products for people and animals, they say. "They are looking for a scapegoat, they are looking for a weak target," said Abdulrahman Ahmadsoun, news editor of a pro-government newspaper, Alwan. "They can send cruise missiles here, and we cannot stop it." Meanwhile, grief-stricken Americans should not wage a "new Crusade" against Muslims, but rather learn from the pain that Iraqis and Palestinians have been suffering at the hands of the United States and Israel, Saddam Hussein said on Saturday. "Just as your beautiful skyscrapers were destroyed and caused your grief, beautiful buildings and precious homes crumbled over their owners in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq because of American weapons used by the Zionists," Saddam said in an open letter addressed to the American people, citizens of the West and their governments. The Iraqi leader warned of a "new crusade" by the United States and its supporters against "an Islamic country." He was apparently referring to Afghanistan, ruled by the radical Taliban. The United States accuses the Taliban of harboring the prime suspect in Tuesday's terror attacks, Saudi Arabian exile Osama bin Laden. "If you rulers (from the United States and the West) respect and cherish the blood of your people, why do you find it easy to shed the blood of others including the blood of Arabs and Muslims?" said Saddam's statement, which was read by a broadcaster on Iraqi television. It was followed by footage of U.S. warplanes bombing Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian stone throwers. "Americans should feel the pain which they have inflicted on other peoples so that when they suffer they will know the best way to treat it (the pain)," Saddam's statement said. Ten years after the Gulf War, Iraq is still shackled by U.S.-supported U.N. sanctions, which Saddam claims have caused the death of 1.5 million Iraqis. Saddam questioned those countries that have rushed to condemn the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington, asking if they would respond in the same way if the attacks had been carried out against Arab or Islamic countries by forces from the West. In related news, thousands of Cubans rallied on Saturday in an eastern provincial town to condemn terrorism and express their sorrow and solidarity with the U.S. people after the devastating attacks against New York and Washington. But the state-organized act in Majibacoa, in Las Tunas province, also provided a platform for passionate condemnations of alleged American "terrorism" against Cuba and elsewhere. "Are they not terrorists those who maintain a blockade for more than 40 years, trying to kill us through hunger and disease?" state presenter Rafael Serrano asked at the start of the rally, attended by 20,000 people and broadcast live on TV. Despite hostile political ties with its giant northern neighbor, communist-run Cuba immediately condemned Tuesday's attacks and offered to open its airports to stranded planes and send medical personnel and aid to the cities affected. But the Castro government has also used the events to remind the world of violence against Cuba allegedly plotted from U.S. soil, and to suggest that Washington was in part reaping the fruits of its use own use of "terrorism" abroad. Speakers at Saturday's rally -- which was led by Castro's brother and No. 2 in the Cuban political hierarchy Raul Castro -- echoed the official line. "After the painful and unjustifiable loss of life in the terrorist attacks, we respond with limitless solidarity ... They have been victims of one of the worst curses of our time, terrorism," a doctor, Lauriano Ferrero Yeo, told the rally. "Their political myopia does not let them see that those really guilty of terrorism are the imperialist governments who promote and stimulate this practice in the world," he added, referring to past U.S.-led strikes against other nations. Speaker-after-speaker rose to denounce the embargo, assassination plots against Castro which he himself puts at more than 600 over the years, and violence like the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane or a campaign of explosions on the island in 1997. Havana blames many of the incidents on anti-Castro Cuban American groups, alleging that they act with the complicity of, or at least a blind eye from, U.S. authorities. The speakers also denounced U.S. immigration policy toward Cuba, the jailing of five Cuban agents in Miami, and racism and anti-environmental practices they said were prevalent in America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Rad-Green mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
