U.S. diplomat expelled from Sudan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. diplomat in Sudan has been ordered to leave the country, according to the State Department.

Glenn Warren, a career diplomat, was declared "persona non-grata" for meeting with members of the opposition Democratic National Alliance (NDA), State Department spokesman Phil Reeker said.

Warren was given 72 hours to leave the country, but is doing so tonight.

Reeker said the United States "utterly rejects" the idea that Warren did something wrong by meeting with members of the opposition. Reeker characterized the meeting as involving discussions of Sudan's general political situation, and said the Sudanese government never told U.S. officials they could not meet with the group.

A senior State Department official said security officers entered the residence where Warren was meeting with the NDA members, searched the building, then confiscated their notebooks and cell phones.

The United States and Sudan enjoy only partial diplomatic relations. The Sudanese embassy in Washington does not keep an ambassador, and the U.S. embassy in Khartoum is staffed by Sudanese nationals. There is no U.S. ambassador to Sudan, only a charge d'affaires.

President Clinton's special envoy for Sudan, former Florida Congressman Harry Johnston, told CNN he thinks the removal of the diplomat was designed to "pick at Susan Rice," the assistant secretary of state for African affairs.

Rice traveled to southern Sudan last month, where she made a public condemnation of the human rights situation. Johnston said that after the incident, the Sudanese government made a formal complaint to the U.S. government, and has since denied entry to U.S. Charge d'Affaires Raymond Brown.

"They are just sucking their thumbs," said Johnston, who visited Khartoum months earlier with no problem. "They are just trying to get back at the State Department."

Johnston said the National Democratic Alliance is a legitimate political opposition party, and termed as "ridiculous" the idea that the United States was working with the NDA to plot a popular uprising.

CNN Producers Marty Kramer and Elise Labott and State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel contributed to this report.

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Sudan Ministry of External Relations
U.S. State Department
  •  U.S. Dept. of State, 1999 Human Rights Report on Sudan
  •  South Sudan Special Project
Amnesty International, 2000 Report on Sudan
Library of Congress, Country Study on Sudan
Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan
Foreign Policy In Focus
  • Sudan: Recasting U.S. Policy
South Sudanese Friends International

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