Proseccutor Absent, Suai Case Postponed

JSMP, June 2009 -In accordance with a schedule of hearings prepared for the Suai District Court, a case of attempted murder (14/C.ord/TDS/2008) was scheduled to be heard on 10 June 2009. However, the hearing was postponed because the prosecutor handling the case was a relative of the defendant (the defendant is the nephew of the prosecutor) which under article 51(a) of the Criminal Procedure Code renders the Prosecutor ineligible to act. Under section 39 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code, judges are disqualified from hearing any case in which they are related to a party appearing before the court. Article 51 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code states that “the provisions concerning disqualifications and suspicions in respect of judges are applicable to public prosecutors, with the necessary adaptations”.

A prosecutor based in Dili was appointed to replace the initial prosecutor, but was unable to travel to the Suai District Court due to ill health. JSMP observed that the defendant, victim and witnesses nonetheless arrived at the court to attend the hearing, but were informed by the administrative officer on duty that the trial had been postponed. JSMP spoke to a court clerk on duty and asked when the case would be heard, but the court clerk said that no schedule had yet been set, and that it would depend on the availability of judges, who are predominantly based in Dili.

JSMP notes that a limited number of court actors (prosecutors, judges and public defenders) are assigned to district courts other than Dili, and that trials are often postponed or adjourned when a court actor unexpectedly withdraws from a case before the courts. JSMP strongly recommends that a greater number of court actors must be made available to work in the district courts, so that they can readily respond to unforeseen problems that emerge.

JSMP is also concerned about a complaint made by a court clerk regarding the limited number of administrative staff available to deliver court summons to the districts of Bobonaro, Same, Ainaro and Suai, all of which fall within the jurisdiction of the Suai District Court. JSMP recommends that the Ministry of Justice immediately recruit more staff to streamline the process of case management at the Suai District Court.

For more information please contact:

Luis Olivera Sampaio

Executive Director of JSMP

Email: Luis@jsmp.minihub.org

Landline: 3323883

JSMP - Uato-Lari Case Decided

JSMP, June 2009 - The Uato-Lari case is one of a group of cases that shook Timor-Leste after the parliamentary elections 2007. The case concerns the involvement of five defendants in rioting and property damage in the district of Viqueque.

Each of the five defendants in the Uato-Lari case were charged with:

(a) committing violence against persons and property (section 170 of the Indonesian Penal Code); and

(b) conspiracy to commit violence against persons and property (section 187 of the Indonesian Penal Code)

Like in other cases, the victims and the community at large have keenly awaited the court’s decision, which was handed down in the Baucau District Court on Monday 8 June. As close friends and family of the defendants were present in court, and PNTL and UNPOL officers were on standby to deal with possible disturbances or undesirable incidents Several observers from international and national NGOs were also present. The observers arrived several hours early in anticipation of the decision being handed down. As this is regarded a serious case, a wide range of people were focused on the trial.

The four page decision was read out by presiding judge Edite Palmira in Tetum to the five defendants who were sitting in a row facing the panel of judges. The decision referred to the facts revealed during the trial, and to the testimony provided by the parties and witnesses.

The court found that within the five defendants some had been involved in rioting in Viqueque that resulted in the burning of hundreds of houses and other significant damage to property. Many people were forced to flee, because they had lost their homes.

The court also found that on 8 August 2007 the defendants were present at the scene of the crime, and incited others to burn houses and damaged the property of others.

However, the court found that it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that all five defendants damaged property and committed arson as outlined in the charges.

The court dismissed all charges relating to article 170 of the Indonesian Penal Code. The court did, however, find three of the defendants guilty of conspiracy to commit violence to persons and property under section 181 of the Indonesian Penal Code. The court sentenced the defendants LP, MG, and D to three years imprisonment. The other two defendants, HC and GD, were acquitted of all charges.

JSMP has monitored this case for some time, and notes that the court’s decision is more lenient that the recommendation of sentence made orally by the public prosecutor during the last hearing of this case on 6 May 2009. The prosecutor asked the court to sentence the defendants GD and D in accordance with the severity of their crime, and recommended a sentence of no less than five years and six months imprisonment. The prosecutor also recommended that the remaining defendants be given more lenient sentences not in excess of 5 years imprisonment.

In addition to the three year sentence, the court also ordered the three convicted defendants to pay court costs of $5. After hearing the decision the defendants left the court room, spoke with their lawyer Dr. Arlindo Sanches, and were advised to return to their respective homes.

JSMP has not yet confirmed if the convicted persons intend to lodge an appeal, or if they will accept the three year sentence. However, JSMP notes that in light of the leniency of sentence handed down, the public prosecutor may be likely to lodge an appeal against the court’s decision.

For more information please contact:

Luis de Oliveira Sampaio

Executive Director of JSMP

Email: luis@jsmp.minihub.org

Landline: 3323883

Ireland Renews Its Support for T-L Justice Sector

Dili, 24 June 2009 - The Government of Ireland announced an additional contribution of Euro 350,000 to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Timor-Leste, out of which Euro 200,000 will be earmarked for the Justice System Programme (JSP) and Euro 150,000 will be allocated to the Provedoria for Human Rights and Justice programme (PDHJ). The signing of the agreement between the Irish AID Head of Mission, Mr. Charles Lathrop, and the UNDP Resident Representative, Mr. Finn Reske-Nielsen, took place on 24 June at the office of the Resident Representative in Dili, Timor-Leste.

“We believe that a strong judicial sector and effective rule of law are essential building blocks for the protection of human rights and for peace and development. Sound democratic governance cannot take place without independent and effective justice institutions that have the capacity to uphold the law and protect human rights,” said Mr. Charles Lathrop.

This contribution from Irish AID will support the activities of both programmes throughout 2009 and will allow the JSP and PDHJ programmes to increase the level of technical and financial support provided to build capacity within these critical judicial and human rights institutions.

“UNDP is very grateful to the Government of Ireland for its valuable contribution to the promotion of justice and human rights in Timor-Leste. By providing support to national judicial and human rights bodies the international community is able to support the Government of Timor-Leste’s efforts to put in place institutions which will effectively protect the rights of people as enshrined in the Constitution,” said the UNDP Resident Representative, Mr. Finn Reske-Nielsen.

The UNDP Justice System Programme is a comprehensive capacity development programme for the justice system and its ownership lies with the Council of Coordination, the national coordination mechanism for the justice sector. It started in 2003 and it is also supported by Australia, Brazil, Portugal, Norway, Spain, Sweden and OHCHR – United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – and UNDP Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery.

The Capacity Building for the PDHJ project, which began in 2007, is a partnership between the Provedoria, UNDP, and OHCHR and since its inception significant milestones have been achieved in regard to the strengthening of this critical human rights institution. Activities implemented vary from training, mentoring, internships, workshops, development of internal systems, and the design of human rights materials.

For further information, please contact the UNDP JSP Public Information Officer on shaila.noronha@undp.org

U.N. Human Rights Watchdog Criticizes U.S. Detention Policies

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 25, 2009

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- The United Nations' top human rights advocate, Navanethem Pillay, on Wednesday appealed to the Obama administration to release Guantanamo Bay inmates or try them in a court of law, and said officials who authorized the use of "torture" must be held accountable.

In her most detailed statement on U.S. detention policy, the South African lawyer criticized President Obama's plan to hold some terrorism suspects in detention indefinitely without a trial. She also called for a probe of officials involved in the Bush administration's harsh interrogation program.

"People who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized," Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement dedicated to victims of torture.

Pillay praised the Obama administration for committing to ban many of the harshest interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration, including waterboarding, saying they "amount to torture." But she said it needs to go further by providing victims of U.S. abuses with an opportunity to rebuild their lives.

"I believe we are finally starting to turn the page on this extremely unfortunate chapter of recent history, with counter-terrorism measures starting to move back in to line with international human rights standards," Pillay said. " . . . But there is still much to do before the Guantanamo chapter is truly brought to a close."

The United States responded by highlighting the steps the administration has taken on human rights. "The Obama Administration has taken aggressive action on this issue from day one, upholding our nation's fundamental values while making the American people safer," Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in a statement. "The President banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, initiated a review of all pending cases at Guantanamo, and ordered that facility closed within one year."

Pillay's remarks represented the clearest challenge by the United Nations' high commissioner to Obama's decisions to limit investigation into past abuses and to continue to hold some detainees without trial. In May, Obama said some detainees deemed too dangerous to release might have to be held indefinitely.

"There should be no half-measures, or new creative ways to treat people as criminals when they have not been found guilty of any crime," Pillay said. "Guantanamo showed that torture and unlawful forms of detention can all too easily creep back in to practice during times of stress, and there is still a long way to go before the moral high ground lost since 9/11 can be fully reclaimed."

Pillay did not address the Obama administration's decision to use reformed military commissions to try terrorism suspects. Human rights groups have criticized the commissions, expressing particular concern that suspects could be convicted and put to death on the basis of evidence obtained under harsh interrogations.

Pillay said that detainees who are not prosecuted, and who could face abuse if they are sent back to their own countries, "must be given a new home, where they can start to build a new life, in the United States or elsewhere. I welcome the fact that in recent weeks a number of countries have agreed to take in a few people in this position, and urge others to follow suit, including first and foremost the United States itself."

This month, the Obama administration for the first time flew a Guantanamo detainee, Ahmed Ghailani, to the United States to face charges for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa. But an overwhelming majority of Republican and Democratic lawmakers have fiercely resisted allowing any more of the remaining 229 detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba into the United States.

Hope Fades but Anger Is Alive as Iran's Rulers Crack Down

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 25, 2009

TEHRAN, June 24 -- Standing in Tehran's grand Vali-e Asr Street amid a sea of green, the opposition's signature color, Mehrdad was sure Iran was on the verge of a change for the better.

He pulled out his cellphone and started filming the crowd around him: the girls in green head scarves, the ladies in traditional chador with green bands around their wrists, the middle-aged couple holding hands as they marched. All were supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the man Mehrdad was certain would be the next president of Iran.

That was two weeks ago. Now everything has changed.

"I deleted those movies," said Mehrdad, a tall 31-year-old who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition that his last name not be used. "What if they find those on my cellphone? I could be arrested. Actually, I could be arrested even for wearing green."

Mehrdad is one among millions, part of a movement that has gone in a matter of days from the exultant hope of reforming Iran's government to the disappointment of facing down leaders who have labeled them terrorists and hooligans. For now, at least, the millions are largely silenced. Only small groups venture out to demonstrate, and when they do, they are suppressed violently.

But their anger remains.

In the weeks before the June 12 presidential election, they danced in the streets. After the disputed results were announced, they gathered by the hundreds of thousands in the largest spontaneous demonstrations since the Islamic revolution of 1979. They wanted the result annulled and the vote rerun. But their gatherings were crushed after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei deemed them illegal. At least 17 people have been killed, and there were reports Wednesday of more violent clashes.

Iranian leaders and state media have accused Western countries, unpopular opposition groups and foreign journalists of starting the riots that followed some of the demonstrations.

Mehrdad, a manager at an import company in Tehran, said he saw the election as an opportunity to move Iran toward a brighter future.

"We thought that with Mousavi as president, Iran would take a step toward democracy and freedom," he recalled. He had spent weeks coaxing people on the street, in supermarkets and at family gatherings to vote for the relatively unknown Mousavi, a former prime minister. "Here in Tehran, people felt we had a choice in this election. That empowered us."

With the official results -- a disputed landslide victory for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- came the blow, felt most keenly among urban dwellers, that would send Mehrdad back to the streets, this time with a stone in his hand aimed at the Basij, Iran's volunteer paramilitary force. "You could see the amazement and disappointment on people's faces," he said. "Nobody believed the results."

After election day, Mehrdad stepped out of his gym, where he had gone to work off his anger, to find the streets full of people lighting fires and throwing stones at panicking security forces. "Our streets had turned into Palestine," he said. "I'm a peaceful person, but that night I threw stones, too. They had only used us to legitimatize their election of a president who turned out to have been selected. The anger still rages through my body."

When Mousavi asked supporters to join a major rally on June 15, Mehrdad was afraid he would be shot, but he went. Reluctantly approaching the main street from an alley, he said, he was overwhelmed by the crowds. "There were over 2 million people there; they reached as far as the eye could see," he said. " 'This is it,' I said to myself. 'If this continues, the outcome of the election will be altered.' "

Wearing a black shirt and green wristbands, he joined the crowds, raising his fingers in a gesture of peace. "We were not there to change the regime or even the leader; we just wanted to change the outcome of the election," he said. "Of course, the atmosphere became much more tense after that day."

For many protesters, the crackdown meant not knowing the fate of loved ones, as authorities rounded up hundreds of opposition members. Aida, a 22-year-old classical music student, was relieved Tuesday to hear that the name of her brother, who had been arrested while walking to the bus stop from work, had appeared on a list of prisoners.

Petite and elegant, Aida wears a green head scarf, a color that is almost reason enough to be beaten by security forces.

"I wear that color to show that we are still here, that the movement is not dead," she said firmly.

Like many others, she said she thought Mousavi could ignite the process of reforming Iran's political system, possibly taking gradual steps toward a broader democracy and greater civil freedoms. "We were realistic. No one promoted change overnight," she said.

Aida had campaigned for Mousavi in the streets, handing out green ribbons and trying to persuade people to vote for him. For a time, she forgot about her cello, her favorite instrument. "The unity among the people was amazing. I never experienced anything like this in my life," she said. "In the supermarket, people would smile when we spotted one another's green wristbands. Total strangers suddenly understood each other with the wink of an eye."

The first demonstrations that followed the disputed election gave her hope. But then protesters attacked a Basij base, and the Basij opened fire. "It was clear the outcome would not be changed," she said. "I became afraid to go out."

Maysam, a tall, slim 29-year-old whose father was killed in the war with Iraq and had achieved honor as a famous martyr, said he never expected to take to the streets to demonstrate against his own government. "My father died for the Islamic republic," he said. "But if he were alive today, he would fight these people."

When Mousavi asked his supporters to demonstrate on June 15, Maysam told his wife, his mother and his friends to stay home. "I was sure that there would be shooting. So I sat at home. But I couldn't control myself," he recalled. He ran outside, hopped on a motorbike and rode to Azadi Street, the locus of the demonstrations. "I needed to be there."

Despite the reported millions who joined Maysam in that protest, hopes of overturning the election were crushed Friday when Khamenei made clear in a sermon that he would not back down. "The competition is over," he said decisively.

The next day, at least 10 people were killed on the streets, state media reported, blaming "extremists" and "foreigners." Protesters say pro-government forces opened fire. The violence has deterred further large-scale demonstrations.

"I didn't go out anymore. I was sure that people would die," Mehrdad said. "I felt bad not to go, but it was clear that there would be shooting."

Maysam has also stayed home. "We can't stand up to the security forces," he said.

"You can feel the anger," Aida said. "Some are ready to die."

With a demonstration Wednesday dispersed by security forces and lines of communication cut by the government, Mousavi's movement is at a crossroads. Nobody is sure what the next step will be, or whether there will even be a next move. Many speculate that Mousavi is under house arrest, because he has not been heard from in days.

"There is a total media blackout," Maysam said. In recent days, he has been unable to open his e-mail, and text messaging has been disrupted since the election.

Mehrdad was surprised by the reaction of Iran's leaders to the protests. "We were there participating in one of the pillars of the political system, the election. Nobody shouted slogans against the leader. But now people say extreme things," he said. "If there is any upside to this dark period, it is the self-confidence and unity of normal people."

But it is a confidence tinged with deep sadness.

"There is lots of crying going on in Tehran," Aida said.

At night, Mousavi supporters go to their balconies and shout "Allahu akbar," or "God is great," in support of their candidate. But even as they shout, the protesters wonder whether it does any good.

"Our only hope is Mousavi," Maysam said. "But what can he do? Our future is dark. It hurts us to think of it. I'm in pain. I don't know where this will end."

U.S. Sends Weapons to Help Somali Government Repel Rebels Tied to Al-Qaeda

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 25, 2009

The United States has sent a shipment of weapons and ammunition to the government of Somalia, according to a U.S. official who said the move signals the Obama administration's desire to thwart a takeover of the Horn of Africa nation by Islamist rebels with alleged ties to al-Qaeda.

The shipment arrived in the capital, Mogadishu, this month, according to the official, who is helping craft a new U.S. policy on Somalia and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

"A decision was made at the highest level to ensure the government does not fall and that everything is done to strengthen government security forces to counter the rebels," the official said.

Still, the situation in the volatile nation continues to deteriorate. Somalia's government issued an urgent plea last weekend for foreign troops as the heaviest fighting in months has engulfed the capital and other regions, killing more than 200 people, including the minister for internal security and the police chief. Fighting since early May has displaced more than 120,000 people, with scores of legislators also fleeing the country, paralyzing parliament.

"We ask for and welcome any troops that can save this country from international terrorists," said Nur Ali Adan, the government's minister of religious affairs, echoing an appeal from the parliament speaker for Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Yemen to send troops.

The government has also tried to rally other foreign support, especially from the United States, which has long worried that Somalia could become a base for al-Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks such as the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

U.S. and Somali officials say that possibly hundreds of fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations are fighting alongside the Islamist rebel group known as al-Shabab, which the United States has designated a terrorist group. U.S. officials have accused Eritrea of sending weapons to the rebels, who have taken over much of Mogadishu and southern Somalia.

Besides sending weapons, the United States recently committed $10 million to help revive the Somali army and the police, who in the 1970s were one of the best-trained forces on the continent but collapsed when the last central government fell in 1991. The United States has been sharing intelligence with the government, according to the U.S. official, and a group of Somali political leaders from various regions of the country have been invited to Washington to develop a strategy for fighting the rebels.

"U.S. support is very, very firm," said the Somali foreign minister, Mohamed Omaar, speaking by telephone during a recent visit to Washington. "They are very clear that they are in support of this government politically, financially, diplomatically."

The Obama administration's approach is different in many respects from that of the Bush administration, which focused almost exclusively on targeting several suspects in the embassy bombings and other rebel leaders with alleged al-Qaeda ties.

The Bush administration paid a group of notorious Somali warlords to hunt terrorism suspects. But the policy backfired, giving rise to a diverse Islamist movement, including al-Shabab, which gained popularity by defeating the hated warlords. The Bush administration then tried backing an Ethiopian invasion in 2006 to overthrow the Islamists and install a transitional government, a move that triggered the al-Shabab rebellion that continues today. The Bush administration conducted airstrikes targeting al-Qaeda suspects, but only one of those targeted was ever confirmed killed.

Meanwhile, the rebels continued to advance across southern Somalia and eventually helped force the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops this year.

To cut off the rebels' weapons and supplies, the United States has stepped up pressure on Eritrea, and foreign warships patrolling Somali waters to combat piracy have begun blocking cargo ships heading to the rebel-held port of Kismaayo in southern Somalia.

African diplomats have also proposed a no-fly zone over Somalia to prevent weapons from being flown in from Eritrea to the rebels, but it is unclear whether that idea will gather necessary support at the United Nations.

A special correspondent in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

Bomb Blast Kills at Least 75 at Market in Baghdad's Sadr City Neighborhood

By Ernesto Londoño and Zaid Sabah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 25, 2009

BAGHDAD, June 24 -- A powerful bomb killed more than 75 people Wednesday night at a market in Sadr City, Baghdad's main Shiite neighborhood, casting doubt on the readiness of Iraq's security forces to keep a latent insurgency in check as U.S. troops pull out of the capital and other cities.

The blast, the second in Iraq in less than a week to kill more than 70 people, happened six days before the June 30 deadline for U.S. troops to retreat from urban outposts, the first of three withdrawal deadlines mandated under a security agreement.

The blast at the Mredi bird market occurred shortly after sundown, when the area was crowded with residents out shopping after the summer day's scorching heat had subsided.

The explosives were concealed under vegetables in the carriage of a three-wheeled motorcycle parked at the edge of the market, which is off-limits to vehicles, officials and witnesses said.

"I saw a big ball of fire," said Abu Ahmed, 50, who had been shopping. "We all dashed into the alleys, expecting another one to explode."

As the smoke began to clear, residents returned to the site to look for wounded people, who were loaded into vehicles and wooden carts. About 20 minutes later, Iraqi soldiers arrived and began shooting into the air to disperse the crowd, witnesses said. Residents hurled insults, stones and shoes at the troops.

"People were very mad because they were very late," Abu Ahmed said of the soldiers. "They only sit on their chairs and watch people and play with cellphones."

Hospital officials at Imam Ali and Sadr hospitals, the area's two main medical centers, said in telephone interviews late Wednesday that they had received at least 75 bodies. More than 100 people were wounded, hospital officials said.

The attack, the deadliest in Sadr City in more than a year, came just days after the U.S. military closed its small outposts in the area at the Iraqi government's insistence.

"This is one of the biggest mistakes the U.S. has made," said Kadhum Irboee al-Quraishi, a local leader in Sadr City who has worked closely with the Americans. "Assassinations will start again, and the terrorists are going to show that Iraqi forces are not capable of receiving responsibility."

Sadr City is the stronghold of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Militias loyal to Sadr controlled the area until the Iraqi army was deployed there in the spring of 2008 as part of a delicate negotiation between Sadrist leaders and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Maliki and U.S. commanders have said they expect the June 30 deadline to trigger an uptick in violence. Extremists, they say, are motivated by a desire to undermine the Iraqi government and to leave the impression that U.S. forces are retreating even as security deteriorates.

The bombing Wednesday, like scores of similar attacks this year, targeted a mostly Shiite area. But unlike similar attacks in 2006 and 2007, the latest wave of bombings has not provoked retaliation by Shiite militias, a cycle that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war in 2007.

"This is no longer a sectarian war," Quraishi said. "This is now a political war. They are trying to topple Maliki's government."

Maliki, who is widely believed to be seeking reelection, has tied his political future to restoring security and weaning the country from its dependence on the U.S. military.

Zainab Karim, a lawmaker from Sadr's parliamentary bloc, said the recent attacks are intended to widen political divisions ahead of national elections set for January.

"The message they want to deliver is that Iraqis are not capable of handling security in Sadr City," she said. "They're trying to pit the Sadr movement against the Iraqi government."

Earlier in the day, Brig. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the overall level of attacks remains low compared with other periods of the six-year war.

"There will be some challenges as we move out of the cities," he told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Lanza said some U.S. combat soldiers will remain in urban facilities past the June 30 deadline, although they would be engaged in "stability" rather than "combat" operations. He declined to say how many soldiers would remain.

Maliki's government has hailed the U.S. withdrawal plan as a "victory" and has shown little flexibility when U.S. commanders have hinted that they would like to keep combat troops in certain restive urban areas. It is planning festivities Monday to mark the urban withdrawal and has declared June 30 a national holiday.

"The national holiday is really about them celebrating their sovereignty," Lanza said. "This is a tremendous, tremendous event for the Iraqi people."

Iraq's Maliki Issues Clear Message on January Vote: Cooperate or Risk His Wrath

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 25, 2009

BAQUBAH, Iraq -- At 11 a.m. one day in May, eight Iraqi army Humvees barreled into government headquarters of fractious Diyala province, clouds of dust billowing behind them. They had orders to arrest a council member who belonged to a party that had run afoul of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's increasingly assertive prime minister.

Shouts rang out as the man's colleagues heckled the captain who served the warrant. The council chairman frantically called lawmakers in Baghdad and pleaded with the provincial security chief to intervene. Desperate, he then ran after the captain as he led the council member, Abdel-Jabbar Ibrahim, to the waiting Humvee.

The captain promised to return Ibrahim in an hour, no more than two. Chosen in the January elections to represent the province, he has remained in custody since May 18.

"This is a message," said Amr al-Taqi, a colleague of Ibrahim's on the council.

Although Iraq's parliamentary elections are not until January, the campaign has begun, and Maliki has shown a determination to fight with a tenacity and ruthlessness borrowed from the handbook of Iraq's last strongman, Saddam Hussein. From Diyala, where men under Maliki's command have arrested and threatened to detain a host of his rivals, to Basra, where security forces have swept up scores of his opponents since January, the message is: cooperate or risk his wrath.

Although Iraq's sectarian war has largely ended, and the Sunnis feel they lost, another struggle for power, perhaps no less perilous, has begun in earnest. Maliki has resorted to a more traditional notion of politics in which violence is simply another form of leverage. His goal is simple -- to ensure he emerges as prime minister again after the vote.

To allies, he is what Iraq needs, a proponent of law in a state still without order.

"Is Maliki a strongman, personally and through the constitution? Or is he a dictator?" asked Sami al-Askari, an aide to the prime minister. The former, he answered. "Maliki has a strong personality. The constitution gives him great powers, but if he was not a strongman, he would not have done what the constitution allows him to do."

Opponents, some of whom decry the arrests as "a systematic campaign," warned that the strife unleashed by the jockeying could soon spiral beyond control.

"These political tensions are undermining the security of the country, and I'm worried about it," said Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister and a Kurdish leader.

The Instruments of Power

Maliki's ascent has become a familiar narrative in Iraq. In 2006, a reputation for weakness helped secure him the post. Opponents deemed him malleable. Since then, buoyed in part by his success in the provincial elections, he has concentrated power in the hands of what critics call "the impenetrable circle" and taken command of military units that delivered him and his Dawa party what they had lacked since 2003: men with guns.

But the narrative still tells only part of the story of how complicated Iraq is these days. Everyone seems to be looking for an angle, in pursuit of the coalition they think can triumph in the January elections. Everyone has a grievance, no less pronounced.

Maliki's Shiite rivals -- followers of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq -- have fought for primacy in the southern province of Qadisiyah. Another group, known as Sahwa or Awakening, filled by former Sunni fighters and long backed by the U.S. military, is hopelessly divided. Maliki has cracked down on some of its leaders, especially in Baghdad.

Others in Anbar, Salahuddin and even Diyala provinces profess loyalty to Maliki, wagering he will eventually come out on top. Another Shiite faction outmaneuvered Maliki's party in Diyala in negotiations over leadership positions there. But there remains a sense that Maliki wields the initiative, now more than ever, as he tries to hone a mix of patronage and coercion, a proven combination here.

"Whoever controls the instruments of power can keep himself in power," said Jawad al-Hasnawi, a leader of the Sadr movement in the sacred Shiite city of Karbala.

Diyala, a fertile land of citrus and dates, watered by the Diyala River and stretching to the Iranian border, remains a battleground, with its Sunni majority and Kurdish and Shiite minorities. In the elections in January, Sunni candidates allied with the Iraqi Islamic Party, a foe of Maliki, took the greatest number of seats in a province where Sunnis had been disenfranchised after largely boycotting the vote in 2005.

An Iraqi official said Maliki had ordered the arrests of at least six of the party's candidates a week before the January elections. The official said he was stopped only after Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, personally intervened. American and Iraqi officials said warrants were again issued after the vote, in which the Islamic Party won nearly a third of the seats, prompting another intervention by U.S. officials.

A spokesman for Odierno declined to comment on the report. "It would be categorically inappropriate to discuss private conversations between Gen. Odierno and the Prime Minister," Col. James Hutton said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Ibrahim's arrest was not the first. In November, Hussein al-Zubaidi, a former council member from the same party, was arrested. He is still in custody.

Provincial officials said Ibrahim was detained by the Baghdad Brigade, which, along with the Counter-Terrorism Task Force, reported directly to Maliki. (After an outcry in parliament, the Baghdad Brigade has at least formally returned under the purview of the Defense Ministry.)

"Why the Baghdad Brigade? This is my question," said Taqi, the council member.

Officials with Maliki's Dawa party in Baqubah and Baghdad defended the arrest as legitimate. Indeed, some of them describe the Islamic Party as only a step removed from the insurgency. Askari, Maliki's aide, said Ibrahim's name had surfaced during interrogations of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the reputed leader of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq whom officials said they arrested in April. Baghdadi's arrest has been met with skepticism, as has his true identity.

The Islamic Party seems an implacable foe of Maliki, leading a campaign against government corruption that may prove Maliki's greatest vulnerability in the election. The position of the Sadr movement, though, is more ambiguous. It helped secure Maliki's election as prime minister but was a victim of a crackdown he launched in Baghdad and Basra, and now complains he is trying to browbeat it into a new alliance on his terms.

Sadr officials say scores of their followers have been arrested in southern provinces as a way to pressure them.

"Maliki has given them the green light to do it," said Salah al-Obaidi, a Sadr spokesman in Najaf, another sacred Shiite city. "He has always wanted to use our movement for his benefit and the benefit of his government."

'A New Equation'

Basra, once beholden to militias, is a compelling illustration of the shifting struggle in Iraq. Iraqi forces, with the decisive assistance of U.S. troops, restored a semblance of order last year. In the provincial elections, Maliki's party won a majority of seats. Since then, Sadr's followers complain, they have endured a wave of arrests they deem political.

Naseer al-Musawi, the head of the Sadr office there, put the number of arrests at 70. Others who were released have complained of torture.

Aqeel al-Musawi, a security adviser to the governor in Basra, denied there was any crackdown. "Outlaws," he called those arrested. The rest, he said, were remnants of the militias. But as the Sadr official noted, "You can arrest anyone and call them a militiaman."

The creation of the coalitions that will stand in the election is still thought to be months away. Even now, though, virtually every party, faction and personality is involved in some level of negotiation, and officials with Maliki's party speak with confidence, deemed arrogance by their opponents, about their ability to forge the most inclusive one.

They believe they can reconstitute the Shiite alliance that competed in the 2005 elections, but draw in elements of Sahwa and other Sunni factions in northern Iraq as well. Notable is whom they omit: the Iraqi Islamic Party and the leading Kurdish parties.

"There's a new equation of power," said Fayad al-Shamari, the head of the provincial council in Najaf who was elected as part of Maliki's list.

Others put it more bluntly. "I will not be surprised at all if there is a lot of brinkmanship to bring people back into the tent," an Iraqi official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to cross the prime minister. "Politics is getting rough."

Correspondent Nada Bakri and special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report.

Protesters in Tehran Met With Force Near Iran's Parliament

By Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 25, 2009

TEHRAN, June 24 -- Riot police and pro-government militiamen used clubs and tear gas to break up an opposition demonstration in front of the Iranian parliament Wednesday after the nation's supreme leader denounced what he described as pressure tactics aimed at overturning the recent disputed presidential election and warned that "lawlessness" would not be tolerated.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's ultimate political and religious authority, told a group of lawmakers that "neither the system nor the people will submit to bullying" over the election. In televised remarks, he called for the "restoration of order," adding that breaking the law would lead to "dictatorship."

"Everyone should respect the law. Once lawlessness becomes a norm, things will be complicated and the interests of people will be undermined," Khamenei said. "We will not step an inch beyond the law: our law, our country's law, the Islamic Republic's law."

Hours later, large numbers of security personnel, some riding motorcycles, used baton charges, beatings, tear gas and arrests to disperse several thousand people attempting to protest the proclaimed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, witnesses said. The demonstrators were trying to gather in front of the parliament building to show support for opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says fraud in the June 12 election cheated him of victory.

Security forces -- including regular police from across Tehran, helmeted riot police and members of a force dubbed the Robocops for their full body armor and special equipment -- converged on Baharestan Square, blocked streets and beat people to head off a planned demonstration. They were supported by members of the pro-government Basij militia and plainclothes agents who infiltrated the protesters, witnesses said.

As a helicopter circled overhead, Robocops riding motorcycles fired large handguns into the air while charging up and down Republic Street and other nearby avenues, one witness said. He said it was unclear whether they were firing bullets or blanks. Some of the police officers carried paintball guns, which have been used in recent demonstrations to mark protesters for arrest.

"When people started to gather, [security forces] chased them into alleys and arrested anybody they could," the witness said. In one alley, police caught up with three men and started beating them, then attacked bystanders who tried to intervene, he said.

In one confrontation between protesters and Basij members, a middle-aged woman wearing a light-blue headscarf and a black coat angrily refused orders to leave. "I'm going to stay here and see how many people you kill today," she defiantly told the Basij. A plainclothes agent emerged from the crowd, cursed the woman and took out a pair of handcuffs to arrest her. Other people tried to stop the agent, but Basij members rushed them and beat them with clubs, the witness said.

In an unusual exchange, he said, a child walked up to a regular police colonel and, gesturing toward truckloads of riot police, asked him, "Who are those guys?" The colonel replied with apparent disdain, "They're cows."

Bystanders and protesters alike were caught up in the violence.

Near a corner of Republic Street known for its printing shops, a young engaged couple fled into an alley to escape a charge by club-wielding security forces. "Why are they attacking me?" the woman cried. "I only came here to print my wedding cards!"

The situation appeared to grow more violent as dusk fell, witnesses said.

In Twitter feeds, people who said they witnessed the crackdown described protesters with broken limbs and cracked heads, saying there was "blood everywhere" from the beatings. One said many people had been arrested. Another said people were being beaten "like animals."

Speaking on state television, Khamenei said he insisted on "implementation of the law." He vowed that Iran would not give in to pressure "at any price." He also appealed to lawmakers to temper criticism of Ahmadinejad, saying that the Majlis, or parliament, "should help the government in such a rough journey and must not be too hard on the administration."

On one of Mousavi's Web sites, the opposition leader's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a former university dean who played an active role in her husband's presidential campaign, said that people have a constitutional right to protest and that the government should not treat them "as if martial law has been imposed in the streets." Saying it was her duty "to continue legal protests to preserve Iranian rights," she called for the immediate release of people detained since the election, including the editor and more than two dozen employees of her husband's banned newspaper.

Rahnavard later denied reports that she and her husband had been arrested. Mousavi has not been heard from in recent days, fueling rumors that he had been placed under house arrest.

"I am still active in my academic pursuits and . . . I continue to object to recent events," Rahnavard wrote. "The system should respect people's right to protest and refrain from violent clampdowns." She said she wished she could have been "executed" if it meant that no one else would be hurt.

Amid the turmoil, the outlines of a political coalition against Ahmadinejad appeared to be taking shape. The influential head of Iran's parliament, former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, joined other political figures in refusing to attend a dinner organized by Ahmadinejad, the opposition newspaper Etemaad-e Melli reported. Larijani has criticized the government's vilification of Mousavi and is encouraging state television to give him airtime to explain his views.

Another influential politician, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, also spoke out against official denunciations of opposition supporters as "anti-revolutionaries," a loaded term in Iran used for enemies of the state. Iranians who took to the streets June 15 "were part of the people, part of the voters, and they had doubts on the election," the Mehr News Agency quoted Ghalibaf as saying. "All of their slogans were in support of the system and the revolution, even though wrongful accusations were made about this. Everything must be explained to the people; you can't solve anything with force and violence."

Top government officials, however, continued to take a hard line on the protests. On Wednesday, Iran's interior minister, Sadegh Mahsouli, accused the CIA, Britain, Israel and an Iranian guerrilla group in exile, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, of helping to fund "rioters." Mahsouli told the semiofficial Fars News Agency, "Britain, America and the Zionist regime were behind the recent unrest in Tehran."

Iran's intelligence minister, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, warned in a statement, "Whoever, under any name or title, collects information in Iran will be arrested, and so far a foreign journalist has been arrested." He did not identify the journalist. A Greek freelance reporter, Iason Athanasiadis, was picked up last week, and a Canadian Iranian filmmaker and journalist, Maziar Bahari, was arrested Sunday morning.

Mohseni-Ejei, a Shiite Muslim cleric, charged that one of those arrested was "disguised as a journalist, and he was collecting information needed by the enemies." He also asserted that "some people with British passports were involved in recent riots."

The governor of greater Tehran, Morteza Tamadon, a staunch Ahmadinejad ally, claimed Wednesday that 800 artists and academics who had visited the United States in recent years were trained to protest the election outcome.

Pro-government media even suggested that Neda Agha Soltan, a young woman whose violent death on a Tehran street on Saturday shocked the world after it was captured on cellphone cameras, was shot from behind by an unspecified terrorist. Bystanders said she was shot in the chest by a Basij sniper.

Branigin reported from Washington. Special correspondent Kay Armin Serjoie in Tehran contributed to this report.

Theocracy and Its Discontents

Fareed Zakaria

NEWSWEEK

Published Jun 20, 2009 | Updated: 11:02 p.m. ET Jun 20, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Jun 29, 2009

We are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy in Iran. I don't mean by this that the Iranian regime is about to collapse. It may—I certainly hope it will—but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. We are watching the failure of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian government. The regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists were presumed to have divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality, but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea, velayat-e faqih, rule by the Supreme Jurist, was at its heart. Last week that ideology suffered a fatal blow.

When the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "divine assessment," he was using the key weapon of velayat-e faqih, divine sanction. Millions of Iranians didn't buy it, convinced that their votes—one of the key secular rights allowed them under Iran's religious system—had been stolen. Soon Khamenei was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran's supreme constitutional body, promised to investigate, meet with the candidates and recount some votes. Khamenei has realized that the regime's existence is at stake and has now hardened his position, but that cannot put things back together. It has become clear that in Iran today, legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular will. For three decades, the Iranian regime has wielded its power through its religious standing, effectively excommunicating those who defied it. This no longer works—and the mullahs know it. For millions, perhaps the majority of Iranians, the regime has lost its legitimacy.

Why is this happening? There have been protests in Iran before, but they always placed the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president Mohammad Khatami was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street after student riots broke out in 1999 and 2003, but in the end he stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again—the difference this time is that the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly backed the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri. Even Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, not a cleric himself but a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy, has expressed doubts about the election. Behind the scenes, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani—the head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body—is reportedly waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even possibly the Supreme Leader. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it would represent a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would be as though a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.

The Islamic Republic might endure but would be devoid of legitimacy. The regime could certainly prevail in this struggle; in fact, that would have to be the most likely outcome. But it will do so by using drastic means—banning all protests, arresting students, punishing senior leaders and shutting down civil society. No matter how things turn out—crackdown, co-optation—it is clear that millions in Iran no longer believe in the regime's governing ideology. If it holds on to power, it will do so like the Soviet Union in the late Brezhnev era, surviving only through military intimidation. "Iran will turn into Egypt," says the Iranian-born intellectual Reza Aslan, meaning a regime in which guns, rather than ideas, hold things together behind a façade of politics.

The Islamic Republic has been watching its legitimacy dwindle over the past decade. First came Khatami, the reformist, who won landslide victories and began some reforms before he was stymied by the Guardian Council. That experience made the mullahs decide they had to reverse course on the only element of democracy they'd permitted in Iran—reasonably open elections. The regime's method of control used to be to select permissible candidates, favor one or two, but allow genuine, secret balloting. In the parliamentary elections of 2004, however, the Guardian Council decided that normal methods would not achieve acceptable results. So it summarily banned 3,000 candidates, including many sitting parliamentarians. Because public support was even less certain this time, the regime went further, announcing the election results in two hours and giving Ahmadinejad victory by such a wide margin that it would preclude any dispute. Khamenei revealed the strategy in his sermon last Friday. "A difference of 11 million votes—how can there be vote rigging?" he asked.

How should the United States deal with the situation in Iran? First, it is worth pointing out that Washington is dealing with it. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Barack Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that it is battling an aggressive America, bent on attacking Iran. A few years ago, this was a perfectly plausible claim. George W. Bush had repeatedly declared that the Iranian regime was a mortal enemy, that Iran was part of the Axis of Evil and that a military assault on the country was something he was considering. Obama has done the opposite, making clear that he views the Iranian people with warmth and would negotiate with whichever leaders they chose to represent them. In his Inaugural Address, his Persian New Year greetings and his Cairo speech, he has made a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily throughout most of his response to the New Year message. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. (Of course, ever the ruthless pragmatist, he also carefully left open the door to negotiations with the United States.)

In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel and especially Britain were behind the street protests that have roiled Tehran, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to many Iranians. But not all: suspicion of meddling by outside powers is deeply ingrained among even the most Westernized citizens in Iran. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag.

Neoconservatives are already denouncing Obama for his caution. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary under Donald Rumsfeld, has compared the White House reaction to Ronald Reagan's reticence when Ferdinand Marcos's regime was challenged on the streets of the Philippines. But the analogy makes no sense. Marcos was an American client—he was in power courtesy of the United States. The protesters were asking Reagan to withdraw that support and let events take their course. Iran, on the other hand, is an independent, fiercely nationalistic country with a history of British and U.S. interference in its politics and economy. Britain essentially took over Iran's oil industry in 1901; the United States engineered a coup in 1953. The chief criticism of the Shah of Iran was that he was an American puppet. As in many such countries—India is another example—this anti-imperial sentiment is quite powerful. Iranians know this is their fight, and they want it to be.

The appropriate analogy is actually to George H.W. Bush's cautious response to the cracks that started to appear in the Soviet empire in 1989. Then, as now with Obama, many neoconservatives were livid with Bush for not loudly supporting those trying to topple the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. But Bush's concern was that the situation was fragile. Those regimes could easily crack down on the protesters, and the Soviet Union could send in its own tanks. Handing the communists reasons to react forcefully would help no one, least of all the protesters. Bush's basic approach was correct and has been vindicated by history.

But there is one statement that I wish Obama had not made. Discussing the events taking place in Iran, he said that there was no important difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, since they would both defend the Islamic Republic's key foreign-policy choices, from its nuclear ambitions to its support for organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah. That viewpoint has actually been voiced by some in the neoconservative camp who have openly preferred Ahmadinejad: a more threatening foe would more clearly highlight the dangers of the regime to the rest of the world. But even if this were true before the election, it is no longer true. Mousavi has become a symbol of change, anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment and even anti-regime aspirations. He is clearly aware of this and is embracing the support. A victory for him would mean a different Iran.

Even during the campaign, what did Mousavi say that resonated most with voters? That he would do a better job on the economy? That corruption had gotten out of hand? Perhaps, but every challenger says that, and Mousavi didn't really have many new ideas or an impressive recent record to make these claims credible. The theme that Mousavi constantly hit was that Ahmadinejad had isolated the country, engaged in an aggressive foreign policy and needlessly turned Iran into a pariah state. For many of his supporters, this was the key issue: they craved more engagement with the world, not less. Ahmadinejad's willful rejection of the West and constant references to America's supposed decline were insults to their ambition to be included again in the world community.

President Obama could look at these events and simply say, "Iran has a proud and long history of being actively involved with the world, not being isolated from it. The world has long wanted to extend the hand of engagement with the Iranian people. Watching the elections and the remarkable, peaceful demonstrations that are ongoing, it is clear that the Iranian people also want engagement with the world. We hear your voices and wish you well." That way, in a careful fashion, Obama could turn Iranian nationalism on the regime itself.

But the real issue here is not a few words from Obama, but events on the ground in Iran. The faltering of the Islamic Republic will have repercussions all over the Muslim world. Although Iran is Shia and most of the Islamic world is Sunni, Khomeini's rise to power was a shock to every Muslim country, a sign that Islamic fundamentalism was a force to be reckoned with. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, tried to co-opt that force. Others, like Egypt, repressed it brutally. But everywhere, Iran was the symbol of the rise of political Islam. If it now fails, a 30-year-old tide will have turned.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/202979

Internet Resources, June 25, 2009

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Today's Readings

GetDocs

CitizenTube

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Wayback Machine

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Minority Groups, June 25, 2009

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Today's Readings

University of Maryland Minorities at Risk Project

Refworld

New American Media

Biracial and Multiracial Groups

Racial Slurs


Wiki Resources

Minority Language

Ethnic Group

Race

Global Problems, June 25, 2009

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War Crimes TV

Yale Genocide Studies Program

University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies

Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

International Association of Genocide Scholars

Wiki Resources

Genocide

Genocide Category Pages

American Studies, June 25, 2009

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Today's Readings

First Lady Is Creating Role Which Reflects Her Passions

Cuba Dissidents Win Award But Not Obama Audience

YouTube White House Channel

YouTube US Government Channel

YouTube allforgood Channel


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YouTube

Federal Government of the United States

Muslim World, June 25, 2009

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Ambassador to Syria Will Face Negative Views of US

Muslim Population Worldwide

Muslims Internet Directory

Gallup Center for Muslim Studies

Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy


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History of Shia Islam

Shia-Sunni Relations

Southeast Asia, June 25, 2009

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Today's Readings

Over 700,000 Indonesian Workers Sent Abroad in 2008

Documentation Center of Cambodia - Tribunal Related Materials

Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force (English)

Cambodia Tribunal Monitor

Webcasts of Trial Proceedings


Today's Wiki Resources

Cambodia

Cambodia Portal

Cambodian Genocide Pages

Internet Resources, June 24, 2009

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Today's Readings

Mozy, an online backup service. Try at least one of them.
http://mozy.com/
Here's an article on some of the best ones.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp

PC World, one of leading US computing and net magazines.
I read this one.
http://www.pcworld.com/
Here's a nice list of others.
http://www.netvalley.com/top100mag.html

Meuzer, new free music startup. Draws mainly on YouTube and Imeem.
Very easy to navigate.
http://www.meuzer.com/
Know about Google Music Search?
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-use-google-music-search.html

Internet in Iran
http://opennet.net/research/profiles/iran

OpenNet Initiative's Reports on Internet in Asian Countries
http://opennet.net/regions/asia


Today's Wiki Resource

Hotspot (Wi-Fi)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotspot_(Wi-Fi)

Minority Groups, June 24, 2009

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Today's Readings

From Burma to Brisbane: A Tale of Rohingya Resilience
http://saverohingya.com/from-burma-to-brisbane-a-tale-of-rohingya-resilience-sujau.html

The South: Consult the Locals First
http://www.bangkokpost.com/blogs/index.php/2009/06/18/the-south-consult-the-locals-first?blog=64

Minorities in Kosovo
http://www.minorityrights.org/2458/kosovo/kosovo-overview.html

Tamils
http://www.minorityrights.org/4002/sri-lanka/tamils.html

After Minneapolis, FBI Eyes Atlanta's Somalis
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0c35ffa6e64aac24f1d332f6b32e7d29

Switzerland's Non-EU Immigrants
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=731

Today's Wiki Resources

Minority Rights Group International
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Rights_Group_International

Global Problens, June 24, 2009

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Today's Readings

Cocaine, Opiate Markets Shrink
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8116806.stm
Here's the relevant video
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/multimedia.html
and the UNODC's World Drug Report 2009 page
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2009.html

Today's Wiki Resource

Illegal Drug Trade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_trafficking

American Studies, June 24, 2009

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Stuff - Great site for jobs, internships, volunteers at
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Today's Readings

Americans' Confidence in Military Up, Banks Down
http://www.gallup.com/poll/121214/Americans-Confidence-Military-Banks-Down.aspx?CSTS=alert

In Texas, There's No Business Like 'Going Out of Business'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124579907861644365.html#mod=todays_us_page_one

Facts and Findings about Foreclosures, Families, and Communities
http://www.urban.org/publications/901264.html

Cuban Migration to the United States
http://opencrs.com/document/R40566

Philanthropic Giving by and for Women on the Rise
http://foundationcenter.org/media/news/20090623.html/


Today's Wiki Resource

Geography of the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_United_States

Muslim World, June 24, 2009

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Today's Readings

Preliminary Analysis of Voting Figures in Iran
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/14234_iranelection0609.pdf

Spate of Attacks Tests Iraqi City and US Pullout
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24falluja.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

In Reversal, Kyrgystan Won't Close A US Base
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/asia/24base.html?ref=todayspaper

North American Shia Muslims Communities Organization
http://www.nasimco.org/resources.asp

Balkan Insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/

Today's Wiki Resource

Ethnic Groups in Indonesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Indonesia

Southeast Asia, June 24, 2009

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Today's Readings

Only "objective" and "factual" political films please, we're Singaporeans
http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/2009/06/police-investigates-filmmaker-over.html
Also check out the links to kindred Singapore opposition blogs cited in this link.

Fundasaun Mahein Hahu, new Tetun and English blog devoted to security sector.
http://fundasaunmahein.wordpress.com/

The Brazilian Story, blog entry by intrepid freelancer living in T-L.
http://whatismatt.com/the-brazilian-story/

Griffith Asia Institute publishes report advocating Asia-literate Australia,
including Indonesian as one of top priority languages.
http://www.griffith.edu.au/australian-strategy-asian-language-proficiency/report

Documentation on University of Sydney's Greater Angkor Project.
http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/angkor/gap/

Several Senior Military Burmese Officials Have Been Dismissed
http://democracyforburma.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/several-senior-military-burmese-officials-have-been-dismissed-in-recent-weeks-following-the-recent-publication-of-photographs-of-secret-tunnels-built-by-north-korean-experts-between-2003-2006-inside-b/

DAP's Tony Pua Suspended from Parliament, entry today by one of Malaysia's
leading bloggers.
http://www.thenutgraph.com/daps-tony-pua-suspended-from-parliament
Another daily affront in Barisan Nasional's efforts to weaken opposition parties.
Here is Tony Pua's personal blog.
http://www.tonypua.blogspot.com/
Also find the summary daily entry in the public beritamalaysia list. Last one is at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beritamalaysia/message/109064

Today's Wiki Resources

Democratic Action Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Action_Party#Leadership_of_the_DAP
Tony Pua
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Pua

Asia's Budget Airline Carriers Ride Out Troubled Economic Times

Source - VOA

Asia's Budget Airline Carriers Ride Out Troubled Economic Times
By Ron Corben
Bangkok
22 June 2009

Asia's budget airlines have grown rapidly in recent years. And while some are faring well, the sector faces a bumpy ride as economic turbulence hits both domestic and international travel.

Asia's low-cost airlines, which took off in good economic times, are facing the stiff headwinds of the global economic downturn.

The International Air Transport Association warns that Asia's aviation industry is in "survival mode," with airlines forecast to lose over $3 billion this year.

Some air carriers focus on domestic market to prevent losses
But some low-cost carriers are doing a bit better than average as more travelers seek to cut costs.

"That's pretty much what we're seeing in the airline business. We've seen premium traffic down - we're seeing the value-based airlines up and succeeding and doing well," says Bruce Buchanan, the chief executive officer of the Australian low-cost carrier Jetstar.

But he says budget carriers in Asia face several obstacles, especially tough regulations and government control over airports and fees.

Still, he says, budget airlines are adapting to the challenges, and working with governments to create opportunities. Jetstar, for one, plans to expand its Singapore operations, creating a strategic hub.

In May, Singapore allowed more flights to the Philippines, especially for low-cost flights, targeting smaller markets such as Cebu and Davao. Traffic between the two countries grew 12 percent last year.

And relaxed regulations have led to more budget flights connecting Singapore and Malaysia.

New policies help financial recovery of some low-cost airlines
Malaysia's Air Asia has been a success story in turbulent times. First-quarter net profit rose by more than 25 percent this year, buoyed by a jump in passenger numbers.

John Koldowski, a spokesman for the Pacific Asia tourism Association, says Air Asia's gain must mean pain for some higher-cost competitors.

"One would assume in a climate where the pie is not growing that rapidly - if at all - that for them to still be improving their numbers, then they're taking market share from someone else," he said.

But not all budget carriers are doing as well. In Thailand, most airlines struggle because of the global economic slump, domestic political tensions and the threat of swine flu.

Nok Air, Thailand's state-owned low-cost carrier, has had to refocus on the domestic market, overhaul routes, cut overseas services, reduce its fleet and shed staff. From a loss of $16 million last year, it recently reported a six-month profit of over $4 million.



Sehapan Chumsai, a Nok Air executive vice president, says the airline's attention will be on the domestic market for the foreseeable future.

"At the moment we have already passed the financial crisis from the fuel crisis last year - at the moment we are back into a good balance sheet," said Sehapan Chumsai.

Budget airlines in India also face tough times.

"India is most certainly going through a difficult stage of repair after a surge in growth, which hit a ceiling of a combination of infrastructure, too many airlines in too short a time," said Peter Harbison, the executive chairman at the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation in Sydney.

Because of high fuel prices, hefty taxes, and the economic downturn, India's Kingfisher Airlines lost over $200 million in the nine months that ended in December.

Low ticket prices, tough economy cause fierce competition among all airlines
Despite problem areas, the growth of budget carriers across Asia has forced full-service airlines to compete hard.

"The legacy [full-service] carriers are fighting back to regain market share they'd lost previously to the low cost, by offering extremely good deals," said Brian Sinclair-Thompson, general manager in Thailand for Swiss International Air. "The fares we've got on Swiss, the prices are the lowest - I've been here 10 years - we've never had lower fares than we've got today. So I think we're meeting the low-cost challenge."

He says the comfort and service of the big airlines will keep customers coming back.

Still, low-cost airlines have established a special place in Asia's travel industry. But having grown rapidly during the boom years, many budget carriers find the tough economy forces them to rethink expansion plans.

While hoping for an economic recovery, many of them are focusing on domestic markets and short-haul flights to secure a future in the region's skies.

Taliban Chief Extends Control Over Insurgency

Source - Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2009

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG in Peshawar, Pakistan, and YOCHI J. DREAZEN and SIOBHAN GORMAN in Washington

Mullah Omar, supreme leader of the Taliban, is reasserting direct control over the militant group's loose-knit insurgency in Afghanistan, ordering attacks and shuffling field commanders in preparation for the arrival of thousands of additional U.S. troops, according to U.S. officials and insurgents in Afghanistan.

Until recently, the ground-level conduct of the Taliban's war against the U.S.-led coalition has been left to local commanders acting on their own. Mr. Omar, who heads a Taliban leadership council called the Quetta "shura" -- named after the city in southeast Pakistan where it is believed to be based -- has typically focused on choosing Taliban leaders and funneling money, religious guidance and strategic advice to fighters.

But since the start of the year, through his direct lieutenants, Mr. Omar has ordered a spate of suicide bombings and assassinations in southern and eastern Afghanistan that presage a bloody phase to come in the Afghan war, according to U.S. officials and Afghan insurgents.

Mullah Omar, supreme leader of the Taliban, is reasserting direct control over the militant group's loose-knit insurgency in Afghanistan, ordering attacks and shuffling field commanders in preparation for the arrival of thousands of additional U.S. troops, according to U.S. officials and insurgents in Afghanistan.

Until recently, the ground-level conduct of the Taliban's war against the U.S.-led coalition has been left to local commanders acting on their own. Mr. Omar, who heads a Taliban leadership council called the Quetta "shura" -- named after the city in southeast Pakistan where it is believed to be based -- has typically focused on choosing Taliban leaders and funneling money, religious guidance and strategic advice to fighters.

But since the start of the year, through his direct lieutenants, Mr. Omar has ordered a spate of suicide bombings and assassinations in southern and eastern Afghanistan that presage a bloody phase to come in the Afghan war, according to U.S. officials and Afghan insurgents.

Associated Press

U.S. Marines, searching for Taliban fighters, entered a mud compound near Now Zad in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Saturday. The U.S. is sending thousands of additional troops to the country.

One target was Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who survived a gun and rocket attack on his motorcade in eastern Afghanistan on May 18. Qari Sayed Ahmad, a moderate cleric, was gunned down outside his home in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in April. The Taliban took credit for the attack, and a midlevel Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan said in a telephone interview that the assassination was carried out on orders from one of Mr. Omar's lieutenants.

In another unusual attack in mid-May, nearly a dozen suicide bombers struck targets in the provincial capital of Khost in eastern Afghanistan, leaving at least 12 dead, not including the bombers. U.S. officials say the attack was ordered by the Quetta shura.

On Sunday, a rocket attack on the U.S.'s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan killed two soldiers and wounded six other Americans, including two civilians, the military said. No one claimed credit for the attack.

"This is Quetta's answer to Obama's surge," said a senior member of a militant network led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an independent Afghan warlord who fights alongside the Taliban. He was referring to plans by the administration of President Barack Obama to send an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next few months. The Quetta "are not ready to lay down their weapons," he said in an interview in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Before 2001, the Taliban in Afghanistan was highly centralized, but it quickly fragmented when coalition forces invaded and has run as a series of affiliated but largely independent factions since then, fighting piecemeal against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and Pakistani troops in northwestern Pakistan. Estimates of the number of Taliban vary, but there are believed to be tens of thousands.

Mullah Omar

Getty Images

• About 60 years old
• Fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s
• Founded the Taliban in 1994
• By 1996, Taliban controlled large sections of Afghanistan, including Kabul, the capital

The new effort by Mr. Omar and his leadership council to re-establish direct control over these forces marks a significant new stage in the eight-year war in Afghanistan, at a time when the Taliban has had the upper hand but faces a major push on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in coming months.

In addition to the new U.S. troops, Pakistan's army says it is planning a major offensive against the Taliban's stronghold in South Waziristan near the Afghan border; on Sunday, fighter jets and artillery pounded suspected militant positions there, killing at least 27 insurgents, according to the Associated Press.

Mr. Omar's push to centralize command has irked some rank-and-file Taliban, insurgents say, potentially leaving them more amenable to U.S. and Afghan outreach efforts. Drawing on a tactic first used in Iraq, the U.S. has been reaching out to moderate Taliban fighters in the hopes of reconciling them into Afghanistan's political process.

However, Mr. Omar's re-emergence could also lead to a more centralized and coordinated -- and violent -- insurgency that would pose an even greater threat, U.S. officials and insurgents say.

"The Taliban have always been very adaptable; we haven't given them enough credit for that," said Henry A. Crumpton, a former State Department counterterrorism chief who led the Central Intelligence Agency's Afghanistan campaign in 2001 and 2002 and is now president of Crumpton Group, which advises companies investing in emerging markets.

The reclusive Mr. Omar, believed to be about 60 years old, lost an eye fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 1994, he led a small band of armed students from Islamic seminaries -- "Taliban" means "students" in Afghanistan's Pashto language -- to fight the violence and corruption that had overwhelmed the country.

Within two years, Mr. Omar's group had taken control of Kabul, the capital, and most of the country. Under his rule, girls were banned from going to school and almost all forms of modern entertainment -- music, movies, dancing -- were forbidden. The Taliban sheltered Osama bin Laden, and Mr. Omar fled to Pakistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan; he carries a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Pakistani officials refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Quetta shura. They continue to balk at U.S. demands for action against it, American officials say, despite Washington's sharing of communications intercepts and other sensitive intelligence information with their Pakistani counterparts. Pakistani intelligence and military officials say the U.S. intelligence isn't conclusive.

Until recently, the shura had taken a hands-off role, sending money to Taliban field commanders for salaries and weapons and taking donations from foreign charitable foundations and individuals, which remain a key source of Taliban funding, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

The council has been so successful in raising money from wealthy Arab supporters in the Persian Gulf that it has drawn funding that would otherwise go to al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence officials said. That has left al Qaeda scrambling to raise money, while its leadership is in disarray because dozens of leaders have been killed by U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Large elements of the Taliban insurgency remain independent of the Quetta shura. Most of the Pakistan Taliban, an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, have no operational links to Mr. Omar; the powerful Afghan insurgent network of Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin pledges loyalty to Mr. Omar but operates on its own; Mr. Hekmatyar, who fought the Taliban in the 1990s, is only a loose ally.

But the Quetta shura is issuing direct combat orders to those it can directly control, according to Afghan insurgents and U.S. military officials with direct access to intelligence garnered from communication intercepts and the interrogations of captured Taliban members.

"It's to the point where they're saying, 'use a suicide bomber to blow up target X on Y day of the month,'" said one U.S. official.

The shura also is depositing caches of weapons across eastern and southern Afghanistan, hiring additional fighters and appointing local commanders responsible for the militants in individual Afghan towns, valleys and districts, a U.S. defense official said.

It has replaced a number of senior field commanders and so-called "shadow governors" who are Taliban senior leaders in Afghan provinces, say officials and insurgents.

The Taliban's efforts appear to be led by two senior figures. The first, Mullah Berader, is a longtime senior Taliban leader who sits on the Quetta shura, which is believed to have about 20 members. "We've been trying to kill him for a long time. He has 20 lives," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.

The other is Mullah Zakir, who is running the Taliban's military operations in the south and east, say U.S. and Pakistani officials and Afghan insurgents. Mr. Zakir, whose real name is Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, was captured by U.S. forces in northern Afghanistan in 2001. He was held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until being transferred to Afghan custody in 2007. He was released by Afghan authorities soon after for reasons that remain unclear.

authorities soon after for reasons that remain unclear.