Rice Angered by Sudan Media Scuffle

Posted on July 21, 2005

Andrea Koppell reports on the media scuffle in Sudan during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip there. Rice is visiting Sudan to help stabilize the new government, which is on shaky ground after all the years of civil war between the Islamic north and the Christian and animist south. But she didn't exactly get the reception she thought she would.

While Rice and el-Bashir were meeting, journalists were taken inside in groups to see the meeting for a photo opportunity. At first, only Sudanese journalists, not those from the United States, were allowed in. Later, U.S. journalists were allowed access in two separate groups. In the first group, authorities pulled one journalist's microphone out of her tape recorder.
Afterward, Sudanese officials came and apologized to the media. But when a journalist in the second group attempted to ask a question, she was pulled away and authorities intended to kick her out. CNN's Andrea Koppel said journalists and Rice's staff members were "pushed and pulled" in attempts to keep them out of the meeting. One of Rice's aides eventually said, "We have a free press in the U.S.," and a Sudanese official responded, "Well, we don't here," Koppel reported.

It's nice that Sudan is so free and open about their lack of a free and open press. Rice was said to be furious that American journalists were manhandled by another country's police.