Turns Out "Guantanamo" Translates
Near the top of the list of things not to do if you value living: popping into
Darfur as a foreign journalist without a visa. That's just what the Chicago
Tribune's Paul
Salopek did in early August, as a sort of impromptu "side trip." He was promptly
snatched
up
by
rebels
loyal
to
Minni Minnawi. Minnawi, you'll remember, is head of the SLA, the rebel group
who signed the Abuja peace agreement back in March. Minnawi's men traded Salopek
and some colleagues to the government army for a large box of uniforms, beginning
several weeks of confinement in a Sudanese jail (and a lifetime of low self-esteem for Salopek). At one point, Salopek
got clever and decided that if his guards wouldn't release him, he wouldn't eat.
You could say that the guards were less than impressed by this display of conviction:
(From the official Trib bios, interesting tidbit that I'm sure is completely non-UFO related: "Salopek began his journalism career in 1985 when his motorcycle broke down in Roswell, N.M., and he took a police-reporting job at the local newspaper to earn repair money.")
The bored duty officers simply shrugged, mentioning Guantanamo, the U.S. military base in Cuba, where several Sudanese are being held as terror suspects. Disheartened, I resumed eating on the eighth day.After 34 days of captivity, Salopek and the others were pardoned by President Bashir thanks to the intervention of Bill Richardson. Salopek lives in the southern park of New Mexico, where Richardson is of course the Gov.
(From the official Trib bios, interesting tidbit that I'm sure is completely non-UFO related: "Salopek began his journalism career in 1985 when his motorcycle broke down in Roswell, N.M., and he took a police-reporting job at the local newspaper to earn repair money.")
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