As if the grandiose claims and threats of ‘Baghdad Bob’ ( Mohammad Saeed al Sahaf of Iraq) weren’t enough, we now have a new candidate for the grand prize of propagandery : ‘Khartoum Karl'(Link to WaPo article via Rawstory):
"… John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to
Washington — held a news conference at the National Press Club
yesterday to respond to President Bush’s new sanctions against his
regime. In his hour-long presentation, he described a situation in his
land that bore no relation to reality.Genocide in the Darfur
region? "The United States is the only country saying that what is
happening in Darfur is a genocide," Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly
and perspiring from his bald crown. "I think this is a pretext."Ah. So what about the more than 400,000 dead? "See how many people are dying in Darfur: None," he said.
And the 2 million displaced? "I am not a statistician."
What’s his major threat to the US, should sanctions be brought against Sudan over Darfur?
"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft
drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80
percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising
a bottle of Coca-Cola…."I
can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum
Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don’t want to go
that way."
Be very afraid of mighty Khartoum Karl and his country – the world has everything to lose when it loses its soft drink supply!
Accidental Blogger 
2 responses to “Move over for ‘Khartoum Karl’, Baghdad Bob (Sujatha)”
I watched Ukec on C-Span yesterday. He is a piece of work, alright! I had turned the mute button on for a while. With the sound off, his gesticulation, finger wagging and profuse sweating made Ukec look like a mime playing a sincere man in distress, appealing to the good senses of his listeners. But when the sound came on, his bald faced lies and ridiculous threats turned Ukec’s wild eyed act into a cruel farce made all the more tragic because he continued to deny and dismiss Darfur.
The Sudanese government has long been manned by thugs. But the whole world shares the blame for Darfur. And even now Sudan has powerful friends who are happy to help avert attention from Darfur as long as they can have access to Sudanese oil.
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Ruchira,you raise an interesting point about the Sudanese oil. I wonder now if it’s the scent of oil luring the sharks, rather than that of gum arabic. It wouldn’t be surprising at all, considering one of the main reasons why US went into Iraq.
Meanwhile, the atrocities continue, no matter what the efforts to bring it to an end (‘Save Darfur’ and other Hollywoodian prominences), just as the republic of Congo decimates its population over the ‘Coltan wars.
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