U.S. Sends AWACS to Egypt In Wake of
Attack on Sudan
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Libya Denies Omdurman Bombing
Ethiopia Cancels Talks
Libya Denies Omdurman Bombing
The U.S. March 18 sent two Airborne Warning and Control System surveillance planes
to Egypt in response to the bombing March 16 of the Sudanese city of Omdurman. U.S.
Defense Department officials said President Reagan had authorized the AWACS
deployment upon receiving a joint request from Egypt and the Sudan, which had a mutual
defense treaty.
Sudanese President Mohammed Gaafar el-Nimeiry March 16 accused Libya of
responsibility for the bombing attack, which was apparently aimed at the main Sudanese
radio station. The raid reportedly was carried out by a Soviet-built TU-22 bomber, which
dropped five bombs without encountering any resistance from Sudanese forces. The
bombs missed the radio station and transmitter but hit neighboring buildings, killing five
people. U.S. and Sudanese officials said the bomber was based at an airfield in Kufra,
Libya.
Nimeiry said the bombing confirmed the complicity of Libya's leader, Col. Muammer elQaddafi, in efforts by Ethiopian-backed Sudanese separatists to overthrow the Nimeiry
government. The insurgent movement, which originated in the Sudan's impoverished
Christian and animist south, was seeking to end the traditional dominance of the country's
Moslem north. Regional tensions had intensified, according to diplomatic sources, since
Nimeiry's imposition of Islamic law in September 1983. [See 1983 World News Briefs:
Sudan, 1983 Sudan: Army Mutiny Put Down]
Libya March 18 denied responsibility for the air attack, according to the official news
agency, JANA. Ambassadors to Tripoli from African countries had been told that the
Sudan had fabricated the charge in an attempt to persuade the U.S. to provide military
support against the southern rebels, JANA reported.
The U.S. March 19 warned Libya against interfering with the AWACS. "We told the
Libyans that we are deploying our own military aircraft in the region and any action
against them could have serious consequences," according to State Department
spokesman Alan Romberg. He said the warning had been conveyed through Belgium, as
the U.S. and Libya did not have diplomatic relations.
Romberg provided the first official explanation of the AWACS mission. "AWACS will
be part of combined air defense operations being carried out by Egypt and the Sudan," he
said. "The purpose of these operations is to deter sustained attacks by demonstrating that
the three countries can rapidly put in place the assets necessary to deal with such
aggression."
(The U.S. had sent AWACS to Egypt in February 1983, reportedly to counter Libyan
attempts to destabilize the Sudan. In August 1983, the U.S. had deployed AWACS in
Egypt and the Sudan in response to Libyan military activity in Chad. [See 1983 Chadian
Forces Flee Key Town Under Libyan Assault; French Intervention Urged, 1983 U.S.
Increases Aid to Chad, Charges Libyan Air Attacks; Reagan Sees Zairean President, 1983
U.S. Sends AWACS to Egypt; Libyan Threat to Sudan Seen])
Libya March 20 responded to the U.S. warning by threatening to take action against the
AWACS if they assisted in a retaliatory attack on Libya. "If these planes have returned to
facilitate, prepare, cover or protect any form of aggression against Libya," JANA said,
"we warn that the Libyan Arab air force is capable of intervening in the skies where these
aircraft operate and are also capable of reaching and destroying them."
U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, in a news conference March 20, said "it is a fact"
that Libya had carried out the bombing raid on Omdurman, which he called "unprovoked
aggressive behavior." Shultz said the attack was part of "a pattern of behavior on the part
of Libya that is outside the pale of internationally acceptable behavior."
Ethiopia Cancels Talks
Ethiopia March 11 said it would not attend talks with the Sudan, which had been planned
in an effort to ease tensions between the two countries. The talks had been scheduled to
begin March 12 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Lt. Col. Goshu Wolde, Ethiopia's foreign minister, accused the U.S. of a huge arms airlift
to the Sudan and charged that the U.S. and the Sudan were in "collusion and conspiracy"
against Ethiopia. "There is ample evidence that four to five planes a day are airlifting
weapons from the U.S. to Khartoum, which is clearly in excess of its defense needs," he
said.
Ethiopia's announcement followed a series of discussions between the U.S. and the Sudan
concerning a long-standing Sudanese request for U.S. military supplies. Maj. Gen. Umar
Muhammad al-Tayyib, Sudan's first vice president and minister of state security, visited
Washington Feb. 29-March 3 for meetings with top U.S. officials, including Vice
President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger.
Tayyib March 5 said the U.S. had agreed to supply the military equipment requested by
the Sudan. "The U.S. administration," Tayyib said, "has taken a political decision of
supporting Sudan against this major conspiracy aimed at destabilizing Sudan's security
and has decided to begin in the next few days airlifting weapons and defensive equipment
directly from the United States to Khartoum to help the Sudanese armed forces defend
Sudan's territory."
The U.S. State Department the same day denied that it had agreed to an arms airlift and
said it was still considering the Sudanese appeal. "No specific decisions have been made
yet on either weapons systems or modes of delivery," State Department spokesman John
Hughes told reporters. He said "the clear emphasis of our total aid program is on
economic assistance, and we continue to believe that Sudan's problems can most
effectively be addressed through economic means."
U.S. ambassador-at-large Vernon Walters March 6 arrived in Khartoum for meetings
with Sudanese President Nimeiry. Walters reportedly conveyed a message from President
Reagan that the U.S. knew of "external support being given dissident elements and
consider[ed] it unacceptable interference in Sudanese affairs."
According to diplomatic observers, the U.S. was stressing Ethiopian and Libyan
involvement in the Sudanese insurgency in an effort to avoid the appearance of American
involvement in an internal Sudanese conflict.
In related developments:
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Sudanese insurgents Feb. 2 attacked the U.S.-operated Chevron Oil Co. complex
at Bentiu in the southern Sudan, killing three foreign workers and wounding
seven. Chevron, which had suspended operations in the southern Sudan following
the raid, March 8 announced plans to resume exploration in the Mugled area and
possibly at several other sites.
Guerrillas March 12 released West German Ursula Morson and her 18-month-old
son, who had been held hostage for a month along with four foreign employees of
the CCI construction company, a subsidiary of Grands Travaux de Marseille
(GTM), a French construction firm. International organizations had appealed to
the insurgents to free Morson, who was eight months pregnant. GTM, the secondlargest international company working in the Sudan, evacuated its personnel after
the rebel attack on an irrigation project on the Jonglei canal Feb. 11 in which
Morson and the others were captured.
Sudanese guerrillas Feb. 13 staged a bazooka attack on a Nile River passenger
steamer. Conflicting reports emerged following the attack, with the insurgents
claiming they had sunk the steamer and were holding 222 soldiers captured on
board. The official Sudanese press agency Feb. 15 said a fire had broken out on a
barge trailing the steamer, which was carrying 300 passengers. On Feb. 18, the
agency reported that 800 people had been aboard the steamer, and that all but 14
passengers and two crew members had been accounted for. The news agency the
same day said government troops had killed 30 rebels who participated in the
attack.