Jailed "Geographic" Reporter to Get High-Profile Help in Sudan

Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News

September 7, 2006

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is heading to Sudan to meet with
the African country's president on behalf of imprisoned journalist
Paul Salopek.

National Geographic magazine Editor in Chief Chris Johns; Salopek's wife, Linda Lynch; and several others are also traveling today to the capital, Khartoum, to appeal for Salopek's release (map of the region).

The Chicago Tribune correspondent, a New Mexico resident and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was reporting freelance for National Geographic magazine when he was arrested last month after crossing from Chad into Sudan's Darfur Province.

(National Geographic News and National Geographic magazine are parts of the National Geographic Society.)

Often when journalists encounter such problems, they are deported. Salopek, however, was charged with espionage, passing information illegally, and disseminating "false news."

None of these charges are true, says National Geographic's Johns.

"Ensuring Paul Salopek's safety and obtaining his release has been National Geographic's and my highest priority for over a month," Johns said yesterday in a statement.

Washington Meeting

Considered a potential Democratic presidential nominee for 2008, Richardson was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary during the Clinton Administration.

Last weekend Richardson met in Washington, D.C., with Sudan's Ambassador to the U.S., Khidir Haroun Ahmed. Afterward, the governor told reporters that he was "positive and hopeful" of achieving Salopek's release.

That dinner meeting led to an invitation to travel to Sudan to meet with President Omar Al-Bashir. In addition to urging the release of Salopek on humanitarian grounds, Richardson will also be seeking the freedom of Salopek's two Chadian colleagues, who were arrested with him.

"Paul Salopek is clearly not a spy," Richardson said in a statement.

"I will encourage President Al-Bashir to recognize the essential role of journalists and a free press and release Paul and his colleagues on humanitarian grounds."

Richardson was invited to meet Al-Bashir in part because, ten years ago, when Richardson was a New Mexico congressman, he, Al-Bashir, and Ambassador Ahmed worked together to secure the release of an Albuquerque-based pilot and two Red Cross workers who had been held hostage for 38 days by Sudanese rebels.

International affairs experts are cautiously optimistic.

"Personal interventions like this by important people can often be successful," said Daniel Chirot, a professor of international studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of the University of Washington in Seattle, "particularly if it is in the interest of the responsible government to give the impression that it can be accommodating."

On the other hand, Chirot says, there are no guarantees, especially given that the U.S. is unpopular in the Muslim world.

"I have no way of knowing which outcome will occur, but Richardson is right to think that there is a good chance he will succeed."

Salopek's trial is scheduled to resume on Sunday.

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