Caroline Cox

Recently I had the opportunity to hear Baroness Caroline Cox speak at a local gathering about her work with Christian Solidarity Worldwide (an interview with her on ABC's Religion Report can be found here).

I spoke with her briefly after the event, mentioning that I had looked her up on the internet before coming, to which she responded that there were a number of unfavorable things said about her by the Sudanese Government. I re-read these for myself, and after hearing her speak for myself and meeting her personally (albeit briefly), she didn't really strike me as the kind of person described in AboutSudan.com - she is put in the same boat as the CIA! About Sudan.com is affliliated with some paranoid totalitarian mob called "Executive Intelligence Review" and boast that all monies collected beyond operating costs goes to "charities" (and after September 11, we all know what that means, don't we?).

A quote from their site gives it all up:

But, just as the Lady is, indeed, no lady, so the CSI is anything but
Christian. Beneath the veneer of humanitarian concern for the oppressed, is one
of the most important tools of British Intelligence. Its actual function, as the
documented record shows, is to implement a policy dubbed the "Clash of
Civilizations" by another operative of British Intelligence, Bernard Lewis, and
popularized by yet another of their stripe, Samuel Huntington. Through political
operations, which often include intelligence and military activities, CSI has
been in the forefront of efforts to foment conflict between Christians and
non-Christians, most specifically, Muslims. The war in Sudan is a case in point,
and perhaps a showcase of CSI methods.

No punches are pulled here. Obviously, some Sudanese sympathisers don't like anything Bristish very much, as they were the former colonial power in the region. I suppose they might feel the same about Australia. Old Aussie had its say in that way back in the late 1800's when we sent a contingent to the Sudan, and we struck a medal and awarded it to veterans to commemorate it (along with our other pre-Federation forays to South Africa to put a stop to those damn Boers and to China to quell the Boxer Rebellion on behalf of Queen and Empire).

Who or what is driving this diatribe? Read more deeply into About Sudan.com, and come up with three countries with regularity - Iraq, Iran and - surprise surprise - Saudi Arabia, including the oil and construction firm of the Bin Laden's. What a nice place. And Caroline Cox is planning to go back, even though the Khartoum government had given her a "5-year sentence in absentia". She is hardly a spy - she is one brave woman. And if the current Sudanese government have anything to do with it, she is more like a potential martyr to the cause of human rights.

BTW I wrote to the government of Sudan to have a whinge about their human rights record using a letter supplied by Amnesty international (yes, AI think there's something rotten in Khartoum too). But the Sudanese Government aren't really up with the times, and don't really have great access to the WWW yet. The e-mail bounced (I sent it to the Canadian Embassy, as there is no Sudanese representation in Australia) but I have found what looks like a more reliable address and I will try again.