Dear cj,
I was, meaning no disrespect, amused by the responses to cj#825 re: "WAR IS
IMMINENT". (See below).
There I was, checking email after midnight on a Sunday, and in came this
message about DEFCON alerts. The contributor often sends alarmist warnings
and I usually just file them away. On the other hand, it could be an early
bulletin on something we'd hear more about, you never can tell. Certainly
we seemed to be entering a semi-war scenario, and the US said this would be
"global war on terrorism", so who knows? If a need for ground troops
arises in the region, German units would presumably be tapped.
So I decided to share it with you, with the warning "judge for yourself".
That means JUST what it says: _You judge, I'm not offering an opinion.
With Parveez, I offered an opinion, and I usually offer opinions, but this
time I didn't. It is totally beyond me how our first reader, below, could
construe this to mean "a certain decree of authenticity or reliability to
both the post and the suggested reference". No way!
In fact the US is always on a war footing. Presumably whatever units fired
the missiles were on "full active warfare status", with whatever DEFCON
rating goes with that. I find it amusing that people don't see the missile
attacks as acts of war. Imagine your response if a missile from a Russian
sub took out a pharmaceutical plant in New Jersey. Here's a comment I got
from MER "Mid-EasT RealitieS <•••@••.•••>":
IT IS "U.S. TERRORISM"
"The two attacks staged by the US against Afghanistan
and Sudan are unacceptable. The US, so concerned with
fighting terrorism, could have responded in a way
worthy of a democratic country: with actions motivated
by a sense of responsibility and inspired by standards
of legitimacy. The US is no different from any terrorist
group, violating international law and applying the
law of the jungle instead."
Naguib Mahfouz
Egyptian Nobel Prize winner in Literature (8/27)
Robert Mangus (second message below) took the trouble on our behalf to
check with his son in Germany, and learned that they _have in fact
"upgraded our security measures because of the threat of terrorism". In
other words, there _is some substance to the report. Exaggerations may
have been added, but it _was an early report of an actual event, and one I
haven't seen elsewhere. Again, it is beyond me, to understand Robert's
response -- why I should be accused of "hysteria" in these circumstances.
Frank Scott asks, in the third message below: Are we an x-files list? Once
in a while perhaps we are. In fact I'd like to comment on the x-files, but
that's got low priority. You will find variety on cj.
At the bottom I'm including a bulletin from the "Free Arab Voice" regarding
the Sudan pharmaceutical plant. I can't vouch for everything FAV puts out,
but I _do believe _this piece has "certain degree of authenticity".
It is absolutely clear that US policy in the mideast has been to encourge
fundamentalist, polarized regimes, including in Israel, and thereby to
maintain a constant state of tension. Thus they can maintain overall
control, sell lots of arms, have excuses for intervention, and play the
noble role of "arbitrator". Most important, the world's oil supply can be
kept under control, especially the price can be kept up by reducing Iraqi
and Libyan oil exports (or whoever is the demon-of-the-month).
None of this is new. What is new is the consolidation of this scenario
under the rubric of an ongoing war against terrorism, and the
generalization from oil-producing states to the Muslim world generally.
I've talked about Samuel P. Huntington before, but here you have it in the
words of Martin Walker, writing last Spring in the Guardian Weekly:
"The Clash of Civilisations, the book by Harvard professor Sam
Huntington, may not have hit the bestseller lists, but its dire
warning of a 21st century rivalry between the liberal white folk
and the Yellow Peril-sorry, the Confucian cultures-is underpinning
the formation of a new political environment.
"To adapt one of Mao's subtler metaphors, Huntington's Kultur-kampf
is becoming, with stunning speed, the conceptual sea in which
Washington's policy-making fish now swim."
Notice the sequence? _First the book is written, _then Washington policy
makers start thinking that way, _then events are engineered and
media-interpreted so as to fulfill the prophecy. Walker is focusing on how
China fits into this scheme, and events will get around to that soon
enough, but Huntington's kultur-kampf "is underpinning the formation of a
new political environment" in the Muslim world as well.
What is required from the Muslim world is that they launch a jihad against
the West, or at least be _perceived to have launched a jihad -- then the
kultur-kampf scenario clicks nicely into place. Random, pointless, missile
attacks are the best possible way to generate hatred for the West in the
Muslim world. The less related to any sensible objective the reprisals
are, the more successful they are in their mission of stirring up cultural
warfare.
Any target in the Sudan would have worked as well as any other, as long as
it was unrelated to terrorism. So our illustrious planners had a "free
choice", they could choose the target on some other basis, some secondary
objective.
Wiping out Sudan's domestic pharmaceutical production accomplishes two
obvious objectives for the global capitalist system. (1) it creates a
market for pharmaceutical exports to the Sudan, (2) it acts as a `sanction
punishment' against the Sudanese, who are in dire need of medical supplies.
It's a micro version of the Iraqi sanctions.
The biggest act of state terrorism going on the world today are the Iraqi
sanctions.
all the best,
rkm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998
To: •••@••.••• (Richard K. Moore)
From: <name withheld>
Subject: Personal query
>We have warned you to prepare for war in the Middle East for the
> last two weeks. We were informed well in advance that the strikes
> against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan would occur on or about
> August 20, 1998. ...
Richard:
Would you please be kind enough to reply to the following: Since you did
bring this post forward for the list serve, with the comment, "Judge for
yourself," I presume that you ascribe a certain decree of authenticity or
reliability to both the post and the suggested reference above. I ask you
therefore, to what extent do you go along with a) the announcement that war
is imminent and b) the stuff about Illuminati, Socialist COnspiracy, secret
societies, Knights Templar Communists in Hollywood, all senior officials
of NASA are Marxists or Communists...
----------
Dear x,
You've got to be kidding.
rkm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Mangus <•••@••.•••>
To: "'Richard K. Moore'" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: FW: cj#825> this just in... "WAR IS IMMINENT"
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998
FYI Richard ... From my son, STATIONED IN KAISERSLAUTERN, GERMANY...
Please restrain your hysteria? Bob Mangus
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Kincaid [SMTP:•••@••.•••]
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 1998 23:10
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: RE: cj#825> this just in... "WAR IS IMMINENT"
This is just another example of the crap that can be found on the net.
Yes we've upgraded our security measures because of the threat of
terrorism, but everything else is a gross exaggeration.
SGT Kincaid
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 13:05:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Frank Scott <•••@••.•••>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: cj#825> this just in... "WAR IS IMMINENT"
Did I miss something while I was on a coffe break? Are we under alien
control already? Is this the X-Files List?
frank scott
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Free Arab Voice" <•••@••.•••>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Exclusive FAV Interview w/ Builder of Sudanese Factory
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 18:19:58 PDT
September 2, 1998
The *FREE ARAB VOICE* (http://www.mindspring.com/~fav)
(Your Voice in a World where Racism, Steel, and Fire have Turned
Justice Mute)
In this issue of the Free Arab Voice (FAV):
1) An Exclusive FAV Interview with Ahmad Salem, the Builder and
Manager of the Shifa Sudanese Pharmaceutical Factory.
2) Rythms of the Storm: A New FAV Section Dedicated to Palestinian
and Arab Poems in English/ An Invitation.
1) An Exclusive FAV Interview with Ahmad Salem, the Builder of the
Shifa Sudanese Pharmaceutical Factory
This issue of the Free Arab Voice is dedicated to revealing the truth
about the Shifa pharmaceutical factory that was destroyed by U.S.
warplanes in Khartoum, Sudan. Below you'll find the full text of an
interview with Ahmad Salem who was the production manager of the Shifa
factory from the day the factory was conceived on paper until the day it
perished . Objective and specific, Ahmad Salem was open but not
emotional in his responses and descriptions, yet between the lines you
will find the gigantic melancholy of a nation in this man, and third
worlds of savage truth.
[This interview was conducted for the Free Arab Voice (FAV) by Ibrahim
Alloush].
WHO FINANCED THE SHIFA FACTORY? BIN LADEN?
Introduction:
FAV: Ahmed Salem, can you at first introduce us to yourself,
specifically to your exact relationship with the Shifa pharmaceutical
factory that was hit recently by U.S. warplanes in Sudan?
Salem: My relationship to the factory is one that began at the onset
with the first designs, and one which continued until the very end with
the destruction of the factory. My role was to superintend all factory
requirements, for example, the buildings, the procurement of the
machines, their assembly, the preparation of pharmaceutical formulas,
the production lines, and so forth. I was a consultant for the owners.
And so they hired me as the general superintendent.
FAV: You mean on financial as well as technical matters?
Salem: Yes on both financial and technical matters. Of course I hired
engineers, pharmacists, and pharmaceutical experts, but final
supervision was my personal responsibility.
FAV: You made decisions then that related to the factory as an overall
economic unit?
Salem: Before production began, I was officially the Project Manager.
FAV: So as project manager, your relationship to the factory began with
the initial construction in 1992?
Salem: Rather when the idea was conceived in 1989Öthe execution began in
1992, like the drawings for the buildings and factory floors.
FAV: Very good brother Ahmad, you say that the idea was conceived in
1989, but that the execution began later in 1992, what were the
obstacles that delayed the execution for three years?
Salem: Because these were just ideas that we exchanged until feasibility
studies were conducted and all concerned were convinced in going ahead,
it took a whileÖ
FAV: So the delay wasn't caused by the lack of financing for the project
for example?
Salem: No, financial problems emerged later after the construction of
factory buildings was well under wayÖ
FAV: What kind of financial problems ?
Salem: It turned out we had set a budget for the project that was much
less than necessary for a factory this large. When the execution began,
financing problems emerged thus, which forced us to wait sometimes for a
short and other times for a long while to obtain more funding before we
could proceed.
FAV: The crucial question to be posed here is whether these financial
problems forced you at any point in time at all to go to Bin Laden to
obtain funding?
Salem: Look, I know where every penny came from. Bin Laden, I never saw
him in my life! I only learned about him from the media. Bashir Hassan
Bashir, the major partner, also never knew or met Bin Laden either.
Furthermore, Bin Laden never saw or been to the factory in his whole
life.
FAV: Who is Bashir Hassan Bashir? Can you please tell us about him?
Salem: Bashir Hassan Bashir is a big Sudanese businessman who has many
companies in Sudan. He owns several pharmaceuticals and other
companies, and is the largest importer of pharmaceuticals into Sudan.
He is the sole agent of many British, Italian, Indian, and Jordanian
firms that manufacture human and veterinarian medications.
FAV: And you sir? Can you tell us a little about you and how you met
Bashir Hassan Bashir?
Salem: I'm Jordanian. I used to work for a pharmaceutical in Jordan as
an employee in the public relations office then kept getting promoted
until I became the General Manager of that company. This allowed me to
develop good expertise in this area and to meet Bashir Hassan Bashir who
was the agent of our company in Sudan.
FAV: Can I ask what the name of that Jordanian pharmaceutical is?
Salem: I'll tell you but off the record because the owners prefer
anonymity. [ He does].
FAV: Okay you say that you never saw Bin Laden in your life and that the
major financier of the project was Bashir Hassan Bashir, the Sudanese
businessman, were there any other financiers?
Salem: Yes there were. When he ran low on liquidity, Bashir became
partners with Ba3boud Maritime Agency.
FAV: Who or what is Ba3boud?
Salem: This is a company headquartered in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. They
have large ships and maritime agencies.
FAV: Are they Saudi?
Salem: No, some of them are Saudi and some are Sudanese. They became
partners with Bashir. They owned forty percent and he kept sixty.
FAV: Were there any other parties besides Ba3boud and Bashir Hassan
Bashir connected in any shape or form to the financing process?
Salem: After the factory was finished we were stripped for cash, so we
took a loan from an African bank located in Nairobi, Kenya, which
operates as an investment bank for the ten East African states that have
a preferential trade agreement between them. Thus that bank is called
the PTA Bank (for Preferential Trade Agreement). We took from that bank
$5.750 million.
FAV: What year was this? The factory began production in December 1996?
Salem: The official opening was on July 12, 1997.
FAV: So you must have taken the loan only a few months before you began
production?
Salem: Yes, to finance the purchase of raw materials and materials for
filling and encapsulating. Of course, to obtain the loan, the manager
and the investment crew of PTA visited the factory several
times..several times.
FAV: What we have so far is that the financiers were Bashir Hassan
Bashir 60%, Ba3boud 40%, plus a loan for $5.750 million from PTA Bank in
Nairobi, Kenya in 1996. Is there any body else?
Salem: That is allÖ
FAV: But there are newspaper reports saying that the factory is owned in
fact by Salah Idris.
Salem: Of course as recently as March 1998, the factory was sold
completely to a big Sudanese businessman called Salah-Eddin Ahmad Idris.
FAV: And since then he's been the sole owner of the factory?
Salem: The sole owner, yes.
FAV: So the main loss was his, in addition to the Sudanese, Arab,
African, and Islamic peoples!!
Salem: Yes, in fact., that's right.
FAV: Would you like to add anything on the issue of how the factory was
financed?
Salem: No, that's it. The financing of the factory is clear and
transparent, and hence I challenge anyone to provide evidence of
financing from outside the aforementioned three sources above.
DID THE SHIFA FACTORY PRODUCE CHEMICAL WEAPONS?
FAV: The other issue that is of concern, the other alleged basis for
striking the Shifa factory was the accusation that it produced chemical
weapons. Can you give us a specific idea of what the factory's product
lines are?
Salem: Look, the machines in the factory are not good for producing
anything besides medication for human and animal consumption. Let me
tell you about the product lines, the factory, and what it's composed
of: The Shifa factory is actually made up of three different plants.
The first is the general plant, because it produces general medicinal
products according to GMP requirements (for Good Manufacture Practice).
Some of this plant's products for example are Paracetamol, and
treatments for blood pressure, diabetes, and ulcers. The general plant
is made up of two lines: 1) the tablets line, and 2) the syrups line.
The second plant is for penicillins. It has two lines also: 1)
capsules, and 2) dry suspensions (powders).
The third plant is for veterinarian products. It is made up of four
lines, one syrups line, two dry suspension lines, and one poulas line.
These were the three separate plants of al-Shifa factory and they had
different workers, machines, and ventilation systems.
FAV: Are the sources from which you bought your machines a secret?
Salem: No, not at all. We're willing to tell you where we bought every
single machine from. And I mean not just the country we bought it from,
but the company we bought it from as well. We got machines from the
U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, India, and ThailandÖ
FAV: Can you show documentation for all that?
Salem: Yes, we got sales receipts, bills, and the shipping companies
that carried these machines to us in broad daylight. The machines that
make tablets or fill capsules, can't do anything else besides pressing
tablets and filling capsules, not to mention chemical weapons!!
FAV: How do you respond then to the statement made by a senior American
official, a few hours after the strike, claiming that al-Shifa wasn't a
normal pharmaceutical factory, but was manufacturing Empta, which is
supposedly used to produce the nerve gas VX, Iraqi-style. This claim
spawns from the story that the CIA allegedly took a soil sample a few
yards away from the factory and that lab tests revealed the presence of
Empta therein. Of course some experts outside the U.S. government
point out that this lone sample if not preserved carefully and tested
promptly could mislead since Empta has a similar chemical structure to
several commercially available pesticides and herbicides like Round-Up.
Still the U.S. government having launched the strike on the basis of
this lone sample, insists that the sample at hand indicates the presence
of Empta when re-tested. How do you respond to that?
Salem: I do not know what the heck Empta is!! I never heard about it
before. However, The rubble of the factory and the soil around it are
still right there. Hence, the Sudanese government, to the best of my
knowledge, welcomed all those whom this may concern to COME AND TAKE
ANOTHER SAMPLE to test and analyze. The Sudanese have requested of the
United Nations to send a neutral commission to collect any amount of
samples they wish from anywhere in and around the factory they like.
Moreover, there's no proof that the U.S. took any samples in the first
place, unless they took them in secret, in which case we don't know
where they took that sample from, and from which geographical spot in
the world. This time I invite them, instead of taking a sample a few
yards away from the factory, to come take it from right inside the
factory itself. How about it?
FAV: Suppose I tell you I don't believe a word you are saying. What
documentation or proof can you provide to show that this was a civilian
not a military facility?
Salem: The proof you can get from a neutral source if a European
commission for example was established to come over and test the soil,
and the machines. The factory is still right there, and I understood
that the Sudanese government will leave it as is for a long period to
come. Nothing will be moved. So come over and experiment for yourself.
FAV: Are there floor plans and factory designs that we can look at?
Salem: The building designs are available and so are the work schemes.
FAV: Can we obtain some of these, or do we have to go to the Sudanese
government to get them?
Salem: The Sudanese government doesn't have these designs, and they have
never seen them either. The designs are the property of the company
that owns the factory. Some of them are still available which were kept
outside the factory, and the rest was destroyed in the strike. We can
make them available to any neutral commission when necessary. All they
have to do is ask.
PERSONAL FEELINGS:
FAV: I understand that you were in charge of the factory throughout all
the stages of its lengthy construction and its short operation, and thus
your testimony itself stands as evidence that the Shifa factory was a
civilian pharmaceutical facility, not connected to Bin Laden, until
somebody can prove otherwise. Thus, THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THE U.S
GOVERNMENT. What were your personal feelings regarding this crime?
Salem: Yes, I supervised the factory and its output, and I bought the
formulas. I helped bring the Shifa factory into being, and I tended it
until it became what it became. It was like a child to me. I helped
bring it into this world. I helped raise it through its infancy. I
helped make something out of it. Then the strike happened like somebody
came from the West to shot it dead in cold blood. When I saw the rubble
of the factory a few days ago, I could barely fight the tears. I lived
the story of where, when, and how every brick and machine was laid in
this factory. Many times we had to travel to several sources to get a
piece of equipment that was needed. Now all that effort is goneÖThe
Shifa WAS my personal project for many years...
THE PURPOSE OF THE STRIKE:
FAV: Given all that you said about the factory, indicating that it was
neither financed by Bin Laden, nor producing chemical weapons, the
puzzle becomes why the Shifa factory was chosen for this strike by the
U.S. governmentÖ Why would the U.S. government target a civilian factory
like that? What did they want with this factory in particular?
Salem: This question I think should be forwarded to the U.S.
government: why did you hit a civilian pharmaceutical factory? Worse
still, if they really thought that this was a chemical and biological
weapons factory, then their crime would be worse. BECAUSE IF IT HAD
BEEN WHAT THEY SAY IT WAS, THE STRIKE WOULD HAVE KILLED HALF OF
KHARTOUMÖEither way it's a crime. At any rate, the factory is not a
military target. It is not even owned by the government, not a single
share. It is owned by the private sector. Therefore we can safely say
the decision to hit it was political not military.
FAV: In fact brother Ahmad, when I asked you about the real purpose
behind hitting the factory, I was wondering about the role that the
factory played. I read that the Shifa factory provided 50% of the human
pharmaceutical needs of Sudan and 100% of the veterinarian
pharmaceutical needs of Africa. Could the purpose be to destroy the
infrastructure of the Sudanese economy? Especially that Sudan is in a
state of war, wouldn't creating such a shortage of medicine constitute
an act of attempted murder for many Sudanese who won't find it
otherwise, or who might not have the means to pay the higher cost of
imported medicines (given that there's a U.S. embargo anyway)?
Salem: I believe that if the factory was able to operate at full
capacity, it would have self-satisfied the needs of Sudan and a large
part of Africa in human as well as veterinarian medicines. There are
two factories like that in Egypt, but for the rest of Africa, the Shifa
would have been unique. Its products were also exported to Chad, Yemen,
and it was under contract with Iraq, with U.N., approval. In short, the
factory served Sudanese, African, and Arab needsÖHowever, the
destruction of the factory will reflect very negatively on the Sudanese
people, especially with respect to reversing the drastic decreases in
local pharmaceutical prices after production began. For example,
Rephampicin, which is used to fight tumors and TB, which usually hit the
poor, and which usually has to be used for an average of six months per
patient, was being sold for only 20% the market price before production
in the Shifa factory began.
FAV: Would you like to add anything we didn't ask you about?
Salem: I want to add that the rumor that the factory was inaccessible
and under strict police protection is not true. In fact, there weren't
many physicians and pharmacists left in Sudan who didn't pay us a visit
to view our different production lines. Many other medical envoys
visiting Sudan were also taken on a tour inside the factory. For
example, delegates from the Jordanian Medical and the Jordanian
Veterinarians Associations visited the factory. Important official
guests were also taken to the factory to showcase this grand economic
Sudanese landmark. Among those international visitors were the British
Ambassador, who visited the factory twice once before and once after the
inauguration, the German Ambassador, etcÖ
FAV: What could our readers do to help in this crisis inflicted on the
Sudanese people?
Salem: I think it's the moral obligation of all readers who believe in
what I was trying to convey to SPREAD THE WORD as widely as possible to
let the truth be known, to alert public opinion to the injustices being
inflicted , and to stand for what is right.
FAV: Thank you for your time. We'll definitely deliver the message.
We hereby suggest to our readers to DISTRIBUTE THIS INTERVIEW AS
WIDELY AS POSSIBLE.
---<snip>---
The Free Arab Voice welcomes your comments and accepts submissions at
the email addresses below and above. We can help you publicize your
events and activities (on the house) if you support Arab and Palestinian
causes.
You can also use those same email addresses if you wish us to quit
sending our messages to you.
Also email us if interested in receiving back issues of the Free Arab
Voice, such as the Special Issue on Iraq, the Special Issue on Syria,
the Issue on the Jerusalem Bombing, or the Declaration of Principles
(DOP)...
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Co-editor: Nabila Martino •••@••.•••
Webmaster: Tawfic Abdul-Fattah •••@••.•••
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