27 August, 1998

The UK newspaper ‘The Sunday Times’ claims that there is substantial information to prove that the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical factory outside Khartoum, Sudan which was hit by six US Tomohawk missiles last week, is as it says a pharmaceutical factory.

The US claims the factory was manufacturing chemical weapons for over two years. The paper quotes Tom Carnaffin, the British engineer who worked for four years there as technical manager. “Unless there have been some radical changes in the past few months, it just isn’t equipped to cope with the demands of chemical weapons manufacturing. You need thing like airlocks, but this factory just has doors leading out onto the street.

The newspaper also cites Neil Patrick, head of the Middle East programme at the Royal United Services Institute, as saying that there was “grave doubt” over the US claims.

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release

21 August 1998

JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTIONER
American justice or American terror?

IHRC notes that this type of action is not new. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, US Presidents were keen to vilify communist movements in South East Asia, justifying the mass murders and destruction inflicted by US forces in the region, as in the defence of ‘freedom.’ Later the new enemy became the dictators of Central America: Noriega, Doc Duvalier and their like, who were until their downfall, trained by and assisted at every level by the CIA. Now Islam and Muslims has become the latest distraction.

Iraq saw the death of a quarter of a million civilians. Operation Desert Storm, although supposedly a UN action, famously began whilst the UN Security Council were still debating whether to authorise the attack. Operation Restore Hope conducted during the Bush re-election campaign, saw the killing of 7,000 – 10,000 Somalis by US Marines.

In his address to the nation last night, President Clinton stated that there are no expendable US targets. Only civilan Muslims, at the receiving end of the US self-appointed mandate to ‘combat terrorism,’ are expendable fodder, or ‘collateral damage’ as the Pentagon calls them. When US Secretary of State Albright was aked whether the death of half a million Iraqi children as a result of sanctions was justified, she famously answered in the affirmative.

IHRC strongly condemns the US’s latest abuse of international law. Whilst we all condemn the bombing of the two US embassies in East Africa last week,the US’s actions have shown, once more that their brand of justice, is little more than the terror they claim to be avenging. The only question that remains unanswered is how much ‘collateral damage’ did this latest strike cause?

For more information, please call the Press Office on 0181 931 1919, mobile 0958 522 196 or 0958 60 74 75, e-mail: ihrc@dial.pipex.com