KHARTOUM, Sudan — Umar Mohammed Ahmed traveled with his terrible memories as he sprawled on the top of an overloaded truck rumbling over the corrugated road from Darfur to Khartoum. He escaped fear but not anger.
During that weeklong trip, Ahmed, 38, thought often about his wife and five children left behind, his slain aunt and a 10-year-old girl named Kaltuna who was raped by militia members on her way to fetch water. He thought about people shot down and the taste of smoke from his burning village, Deleij, in remote West Darfur.
Once safe in the capital, Khartoum, he had only to listen to government-controlled radio or watch television to reignite his rage against a government that had betrayed him.
"What I heard on TV is not the reality. I heard on TV that the situation in Darfur is all right, but it's not," he said. "I feel angry when I see the government saying things that aren't true. Most people have got no idea that's going on. They just believe what they hear on the TV."
U.S. pressure on the government of Sudan to act in Darfur has triggered a flurry of anti-American rhetoric from hard-liners in Khartoum, and those feelings have found ready believers in a Muslim society unhappy with the United States because of the Iraq war and fears that it covets Sudan's oil. Western diplomats and human rights groups believe that some of the most strident government officials are responsible for unleashing the Arab militias that have carried out atrocities in Darfur, the nation's vast western region.
The rhetoric hardened after the U.S. Congress described attacks against black tribes in Darfur as genocide and the United Nations Security Council called in July for Sudan to protect people there or face international action.
Students at Khartoum University are some of the most politically active and polarized of Sudanese. The sight of a Western journalist with a notebook conjured an instant crowd of angry students, each with his own opinion on the Darfur situation.
"Really, there's no problem in Darfur," said law student Mohammed Gilal, 27. "If there's any problem, America is behind it," he added, expounding on one current conspiracy theory that America armed the rebels who rose up in Darfur last year, aiming to gain control of Sudan and its oil.
Mohammed Salih, 23, a computer science graduate, said the West should stay out of Darfur.
