Bizarre Confrontation with President Omar Bashir

In her memoir, No Higher Honor, she recalls a surreal meeting with President Omar Bashir, the president of Sudan. Bashir was responsible for the genocide in Darfur and was later indicted by the International Criminal Court for three counts of genocide, five crimes against humanity, and two counts of murder. During her preparation for the meeting, she had been warned by Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, that Bashir, who spoke English, would switch back to Arabic to make things difficult for her. The goal of diplomacy is the facilitation, not the obstruction of peaceful means of resolving conflicts.

Rice entered his office assuming that her delegation, which included the Ambassador, was still with her. She then noticed that her entire delegation, besides her personal assistant and security detail, had been barred from joining. What followed was surreal. She insisted that the rest of her delegation must be allowed in before the meeting. In the meantime, they just sat there staring at each other. Rice felt nothing but contempt for him. He could sense it.

Finally, Bashir’s security men burst through the doors, shoving her aides in front of them. She then spoke to him and wrote that he looked like he was on drugs, ‘speaking slowly and moving his head back and forth and from side to side.’ A ‘bizarre scene.’ When she got on the plane, she was informed that the American press corps had been mishandled while trying to interview Bashir. She called the US Ambassador and sent him to demand an apology from Bashir. He was to be told that he would never see the Secretary of State again or any other US diplomat if he didn’t apologize. By the time Rice landed, the Sudanese foreign minister had apologized.

African journeys can be particularly emotionally drenching for African Americans due to their historical links to the continent. When Rice visited Goree Island in Senegal, the port from which enslaved people had been shipped to the Americas, she described it as ‘a deeply emotional experience for me as I walked through the archway that had led the enslaved people to the transit ship.’ She wrote that she ‘couldn’t help but think of Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” And ‘couldn’t help but wonder if any of my ancestors had crossed over from here into the tragic life ahead of them.’