A Step Down
So now all of a sudden Khartoum has become Palermo? An American USAID rep and his driver were shot on his way back from a new year's eve party. This news is quite shocking for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the shift that it indicates. For all the problems in the Sudan, Khartoum is a relatively safe place. No muggings, armed robbery is a rarity, and larcent of any kind tends to take the form of stealing something when the owner is not around and/or asleep. So how, all of a sudden, did this happen?
The Sudanese government initially claimed that it was due to a 'road rage' incident. Come again? This isn't LA, it's Khartoum! Where no one owns a gun, let alone an automatic weapon.
And how is it that anyone would kill a USAID officer? They are relatively harmless and more importantly, they're a manifestation of the good that can be done by a superpower. We're not even talking about "inconvenient" observers in Darfur, he's a functionary in the embassy in the capital. So where does all this come from?