New Evidence of Venezuelan Aid for Colombian Rebels

By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela — Despite repeated denials by President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan officials have continued to assist commanders of Colombia’s largest rebel group, helping them arrange weapons deals in Venezuela and even obtain identity cards to move with ease on Venezuelan soil, according to computer material captured from the rebels in recent months and under review by Western intelligence agencies.

The materials point to detailed collaborations between the guerrillas and high-ranking military and intelligence officials in Mr. Chávez’s government as recently as several weeks ago, countering the president’s frequent statements that his administration does not assist the rebels. “We do not protect them,” he said in late July.

The new evidence — drawn from computer material captured from the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — comes at a low point for ties between Venezuela and Colombia. Mr. Chávez froze diplomatic relations in late July, chafing at assertions by Colombia’s government that Swedish rocket launchers sold to Venezuela ended up in the hands of the FARC. Venezuela’s reaction was also fueled by Colombia’s plans to increase American troop levels there.

“Colombia’s government is trying to build a case in the media against our country that serves its own political agenda,” said Bernardo Álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, describing the latest intelligence information as “noncorroborated.”

Mr. Chávez has disputed claims of his government’s collaboration with the rebels since Colombian forces raided a FARC encampment in Ecuador last year. During the raid, Colombian commandos obtained the computers of a FARC commander with encrypted e-mail messages that described a history of close ties between Mr. Chávez’s government and the rebel group, which has long crossed over into Venezuelan territory for refuge.

The newest communications, circulated among the seven members of the FARC’s secretariat, suggest that little has changed with Venezuela’s assistance since the raid. The New York Times obtained a copy of the computer material from an intelligence agency that is analyzing it.

One message from Iván Márquez, a rebel commander thought to operate largely from Venezuelan territory, describes the FARC’s plan to buy surface-to-air missiles, sniper rifles and radios in Venezuela last year.

It is not clear whether the arms Mr. Márquez refers to ended up in FARC hands. But he wrote that the effort was facilitated by Gen. Henry Rangel Silva, the director of Venezuela’s police intelligence agency until his removal last month, and by Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former Venezuelan interior minister who served as Mr. Chávez’s official emissary to the FARC in negotiations to free hostages last year.

In the message, Mr. Márquez discusses a plan by Mr. Rodríguez Chacín to carry out the deal near the Río Negro in Amazonas State in Venezuela. Mr. Márquez goes further, explaining that General Rangel Silva gave the arms dealers documents they could use to move around freely while in Venezuela.

Intelligence of this kind has been a source of tension between Colombia and Venezuela, with the government here claiming the information is false and used to further political ends. Colombian officials, by contrast, argue that the intelligence proves that the FARC survives in part on its ability to operate from Venezuela’s frontier regions.

The latest evidence, suggesting that the FARC operates easily in Venezuela, may put the Obama administration in a tough spot. President Obama has recently tried to repair Washington’s relations with Venezuela, adopting a nonconfrontational approach to Mr. Chávez that stands in contrast to the Bush administration’s often aggressive response to his taunts and insults.

But the United States and the European Union still classify the FARC as a terrorist organization. The Treasury Department accused General Rangel Silva and Mr. Rodríguez Chacín last year of assisting the FARC’s drug trafficking activities, opening the officials to freezes on their assets, fines and prison terms of up to 30 years in the United States. Venezuela has said the men are not guilty of those charges.

“We do not comment on intelligence matters,” said Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman, in relation to the latest captured communications. A spokesman from the Colombian Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the matter.

Computer records obtained in the Colombian raid in Ecuador last year appeared to corroborate the assertion that Venezuela helped the FARC acquire the Swedish-made rocket launchers at the heart of the latest diplomatic dispute between the two countries. The launchers were purchased by the Venezuelan Army in the late 1980s but captured in Colombia in combat operations against the FARC last year.

The FARC’s use of Swedish arms has an added dimension: the rebels kidnapped a Swedish engineer in Colombia in 2007, holding him hostage for nearly two years — during which he was reported to have suffered brain damage and paralysis from a stroke — before releasing him in March.

“The issue of these weapons is extremely serious for us,” said Tommy Stromberg, the political officer at the Swedish Embassy in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, which also oversees Sweden’s affairs in Venezuela. Mr. Stromberg said Venezuela had bought Swedish arms as recently as 2006. “We have asked Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry for clarification on how this happened, but have not had a response.”

The computer records from the raid in Ecuador last year also seem to match some of the information in the new communications under review by Western intelligence officials.

For example, a message obtained in the Ecuador raid and written in September 2007 contained an earlier reference to the arms deal discussed recently by the FARC. In the earlier message, Mr. Márquez, the rebel commander, referred to dealers he described as Australian, and went into detail about the arms they were selling, including Dragunov rifles, SA-7 missiles and HF-90M radios, the same items he discusses in the more recent communications.

Another file from the Ecuador raid mentioning an offer from the FARC to instruct Venezuelan officers in guerrilla warfare matches recently obtained material from a rebel commander, Timoleón Jiménez, that says the course took place. Other communications refer to FARC efforts to secure Venezuelan identity cards in a plan overseen by General Rangel Silva, the former Venezuelan intelligence chief.

In other material captured as recently as May, Mr. Márquez, the rebel commander, said Mr. Chávez had spoken personally with Mr. Jiménez, expressing solidarity for the FARC’s struggle. Then Mr. Márquez went into more mundane matters, referring to unspecified problems the FARC had recently encountered in La Fría, an area in Venezuela near the border with Colombia.

Warnings of Violence Ignored in Nigeria, Clerics Say

By Katharine Houreld
Associated Press
Monday, August 3, 2009

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Aug. 2 -- Nigerian authorities ignored dozens of warnings about a violent Islamist sect until it attacked police stations and government buildings last week in a bloodbath that killed more than 700 people, Muslim clerics and an army official said.

More than 50 Muslim leaders repeatedly called Nigeria's police, local authorities and state security to urge them to take action against Boko Haram sect militants but their pleas were ignored, Imam Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullahi said.

He spoke Saturday to the Associated Press along with several other Muslim scholars in the battle-ravaged city of Maiduguri.

"A lot of imams tried to draw the attention of the government," Abdullahi said, drawing nods from other scholars sitting with him in a Maiduguri slum. "We used to call the government and security agents to say that these people must be stopped from what they are doing because it must bring a lot of trouble."

Government officials did not respond Sunday to repeated requests for comment.

On July 26, militants from the sect attacked a police station in Bauchi state, triggering a wave of militant violence that spread to three other northern states. Nigerian authorities retaliated five days later by storming the group's sprawling Maiduguri headquarters, killing at least 100 people in the attack, half of them inside the sect's mosque.

About 700 people were killed in days of violence last week in Maiduguri alone, according to Col. Ben Ahanotu, the military official in charge of a local anti-crime operation. A relief official said thousands fled the city.

The death toll in other northern areas from the violence was not known and authorities did not say how many suspected militants have been arrested. Rights groups have claimed that innocent civilians were being slain during the government hunt for sect members.

The imams were not the only ones to raise the alarm. Ahanotu said he recommended several times that action be taken against the group but received no orders to do so.

"I complained a lot of times," he said. "I was just waiting for orders."

The allegations of authorities dismissing the warnings raise serious questions about the West African nation's capacity to monitor and defend itself against terrorist groups.

International concern is growing over the ability of al-Qaeda affiliates to cross the porous desert borders of north African countries such as Niger, which shares a border with Nigeria.

Little Holds Nigeria Back From Food Crisis

By David Hecht
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 2, 2009 8:59 PM

KANO, Nigeria -- The nation blessed with Africa's largest oil reserves and some of its most fertile lands has a problem. It cannot feed its 140 million people, and relatively minor reductions in rainfall could set off a regional food catastrophe, experts say.

Nigeria was a major agricultural exporter before oil was discovered off its coast in the 1970s. But as it developed into the world's eighth-largest oil producing country, its big farms and plantations were neglected. Today, about 90 percent of Nigeria's agricultural output comes from inefficient small farms, according to the World Bank, and most farmers have little or no access to fertilizers, irrigation or other modern inputs. Most do not even grow enough food to feed their own families.

Nigeria has become one of the world's biggest importers of food staples, particularly rice and wheat, both of which the country could potentially grow in large enough quantities to be self-sufficient. Even with the imports, about 38 percent of Nigerians younger than 5 suffer from moderate or severe malnutrition, according to UNICEF, while 65 percent of the population -- roughly 91 million people -- are what humanitarian organizations call "food insecure." They are at risk of waking up one morning to find that they have nothing to eat.

With increased variation in weather patterns, experts envisage far worse to come.

Nigeria is "high-stakes," said William A. Masters, associate head of Purdue University's Department of Agricultural Economics and a specialist in agriculture in Africa. "Malawi's successes or Zimbabwe's failures are small compared to what happens in Nigeria," he said.

The people who have suffered most from Nigeria's unreliable agricultural output are its impoverished neighbors. In 2005, when Nigeria had a bad harvest, traders imported grain from Niger, which borders Nigeria to the north. The increased demand caused food prices to spike beyond what locals in Niger could afford. Aid organizations sent in food aid, but much of it was also bought up by traders and diverted to markets in Nigeria. Nutritional surveys suggest that untold numbers of children died.

Aid organizations say that they are now better prepared for food shortages in Niger and other countries around Nigeria, but that Nigeria itself remains problematic.

"Its economy is so big and complex, we can't really get a handle on it," one senior aid official in the region said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. "The idea of a major drought or other disaster in Nigeria is almost too frightening for anyone to contemplate."

A Wake-Up Call

In theory, Nigeria could cope with a food emergency. The government is supposed to have the capacity to hold 300,000 metric tons of grain in reserve. But in practice, many of the silos for these grains have not yet been built, and those that have stand empty or are half-full.

"At best, the government's capacity is 300,000 metric tons and that capacity is only being half-utilized," said Guido Firetti, a silo contractor who recently took over the job of completing a 25,000-ton silo that has been under construction for more than 15 years.

For many in Nigeria, including some government officials, the global food crisis last year was a wake-up call. Prices of imported food soared, and the country panicked. Fearing food riots, the government announced it would spend $600 million to buy rice regardless of the price. The plan was quickly shelved when it became clear that getting the imported food to the people who needed it would take almost as long as growing the food locally.

The government then shifted gears. The money for importing food was reassigned to food self-sufficiency projects and, according to Nigeria's 2009 budget, the government's spending on agriculture is set to increase. The spike in world food prices, the worldwide recession and the slump in oil prices have spurred the government on, said Salisu Ingaw, the head of the National Food Reserve Agency. "Now we have to become more food self-sufficient," Ingaw said.

Embracing a Small Scale

Corruption is the usual explanation for why this ostensibly "rich" nation remains so underdeveloped. "But corruption is just the tip of the iceberg," said Masters, the Purdue specialist.

Even the most corrupt Nigerian governments invested in some infrastructure projects because they had so much oil wealth, Masters suggested. The problem is that so little of what they invested in ended up working, he said.

One widely held misconception that Nigerian governments fell for, Masters said, is that big farm ventures were inherently more productive than small ones. "Unless they are to be a link in a larger industrial process, the chances are high they will fail," he said "In most cases, large industrial farms don't have the necessary flexibility one finds in smaller family-style farms."

Nigerian development economist Shuaibu Idris said governments have traditionally seen small-scale farmers as backward, "but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a peasant one-man proprietor farm as long as the farmer can learn to adapt to new realities." Small-scale farmers may need to form cooperatives to share the cost of farm machinery and to buy inputs at bulk prices, he said.

That is also the conclusion recently embraced by the World Bank. In January, it approved a new $150 million Commercial Agriculture Development Project in Nigeria designed to support small- and medium-scale farmers.

The World Bank's new project, which is in the form of a loan to the government, will improve rural roads for farmers to reduce high transport costs and provide them with better storage facilities.

The good news is that Nigeria has boundless agricultural potential. Of the 3.14 million irrigable hectares of land in the country, the World Bank says only 7 percent is currently being utilized. And though large tracts of farmland have been lost to desertification, more than half the country's estimated 98 million hectares of arable land currently lie fallow.

"The opportunities for our farmers are enormous if only they were to get the right institutional support," said Sabo Nanono, the head of Kano state's commercial farmers association. "We could feed the entire West African region; we could produce enough rice in just two or three [of Nigeria's 36] states to feed the nation and even to export."

Somehow, the supply chain that feeds 140 million people keeps cranking along. The country has not seen a major famine for nearly four decades, since the Biafran civil war. But Nanono warned that it wouldn't take much to send this vulnerable country -- and region -- over the edge.

"The reality is that if the rains are bad throughout the region or the price of inputs became unaffordable, there could be massive food shortages, and neither the government nor any other institution stands ready to help," he said. "Then only God could save us."

David Hecht's report from Nigeria is part of the Food Insecurity project, a joint initiative of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and The Project for Under-Told Stories. View Hecht's audio slideshow on the project here. A companion story airs on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" by Special Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro. The Food Insecurity Web site is an interactive portal that features additional articles on food issues that have appeared in The Post and other news outlets. The Web site also gives users the opportunity to engage with journalists directly and to post their own responses, in video and in print.

Iranian Targeted by Onetime Associates

By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 3, 2009

In the early days of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saeed Hajjarian advised the hostage-takers at the U.S. Embassy. During the Iran-Iraq war, he helped establish the much-feared Ministry of Intelligence. Then he turned in a democratic direction, running reformist newspapers and serving as a political adviser to President Mohammad Khatami. In 2000 a gunman aligned with a hard-line government faction shot him in the face, leaving him partially paralyzed and dependent on medication.

And for the past six weeks, Hajjarian, 55, has languished in prison, a key target of the apparatus he helped create.

"He is a great symbol of what the Islamic republic does to its own," said Farideh Farhi, an Iran specialist at the University of Hawaii who first met Hajjarian in the 1990s. "Obviously, today, some in the Intelligence Ministry think he was the brain behind [opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein] Mousavi's campaign." Hajjarian's arrest, she added, "suggests his continued significance as a reflection of what the hard-liners most fear."

Hajjarian was arrested three days after the disputed June 12 presidential election, along with thousands of other people. Family members said his medications for problems such as seizures and motor control have been administered erratically, which could lead to brain damage or death. After a visit last week, his wife, a doctor, described him as depressed and tearful, and said he has been interrogated in direct sunlight in temperatures of more than 100 degrees and doused with ice water, affecting his heart rate dangerously.

On Thursday, two days after a Human Rights Watch report described his "deteriorating" condition, officials said Hajjarian had been moved to a "state-owned house" with "suitable" medical facilities. His wife, in an interview, said she had not seen the house or been told anything about it.

Iran on Saturday put 100 political activists and others on trial for conspiring to topple the government, and added 10 defendants on Sunday. The opposition's Mousavi alleged that the government had used "medieval torture" to force confessions from the accused.

Hajjarian, who has not yet been tried, had not been particularly active in the lead-up to the election, though he supported Mousavi. But recent articles in the press aligned with the government have listed him as leading a push for democratic reform.

"In the viewpoint of the Iranian government, transition to democracy is a crime, and democracy is equal to evil, and it is a Western term," said Mohsen Kadivar, a reformist cleric who worked with Hajjarian in Iran and is now a visiting professor at Duke University. "So all those figures that try to democratize their country, they have committed a big crime."

Hajjarian, who grew up in a poor section of Tehran, is described by friends as having a dour face but a sharp sense of humor. Like the revolution itself, he seemed to mature from strident youthful ideology into a middle-aged complexity and thoughtfulness. His transformation echoes that of many revolutionaries who coalesced around Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1980s but later moved toward reform.

The end of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war came as a shock to many who had believed in Khomeini's vows to bring down Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at any cost, said Ahmad Sadri, chair of Islamic world studies at Lake Forest College, who first met Hajjarian in 1992.

"The mentality of the revolutionaries was that this was the dawn of a new age, that this revolution . . . is steadfast, it is non-compromising," he said. When the war ended with no clear victory for either side, "a light went off in their minds and they realized they had been wrong all along about a lot of things, including mixing religion and politics, and that the world of politics is a world of compromise."

After Khomeini's death, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ascended to power as Iran's supreme leader, leftists such as Hajjarian and Mohammad Khatami were sidelined. That, analysts said, gave them time to lick their wounds and turn to studying, many moving in more secular directions.

They formed intellectual circles. They started journals. Hajjarian, working on a PhD in political science at Tehran University, pursued the idea of a transition to democracy and advocated pressuring the government from below while striking bargains at the top.

"He's a thinker," said Bill Berkeley, a former New York Times editorial writer who has interviewed Hajjarian for an upcoming book about the hostage-takers. "He had the feeling the revolution had lost its way and gone off the track. He told me war was a bad way to build democratic institutions; he attributes the authoritarian direction that the revolution ended up taking to the Iran-Iraq war."

Hajjarian espoused a democratic interpretation of Islam, said Kadivar, who during Khatami's tenure was Islamic deputy of the Center for Strategic Studies, an Iranian think tank, while Hajjarian was its political deputy. "I remember he said the leader and president is like the employee of the citizen, and the citizen is like the owner of the land. And they rent out to the president or the supreme leader as their workers, so the workers should do as they tell them."

Such ideas, in a system where the word of the supreme leader is considered divine, can be deadly. Analysts say Hajjarian may have been targeted for assassination because he used his insider knowledge to accuse the Intelligence Ministry of a string of killings of intellectuals in the late 1990s.

After recovering from a coma, Hajjarian was physically disabled, but his mental capacities were unharmed. Analysts said the government has targeted him now not for any particular activity but because of his symbolic importance. They said some in the government hope to force a confession of conspiring against the state, an accusation also leveled against other arrested reformists.

"I think it's kind of a terror tactic, to scare people, by showing that even a guy like Hajjarian could be forced to confess," Berkeley said. "If he died [in prison], it would be a debacle for the regime. But if he survives and confesses, that might be something that would be considered an asset."

It could also backfire.

"They have overused this tactic," Farhi said. "Now people will just say that he was forced to do it and further turn their anger against the government."

Special correspondent Kay Armin Serjoie contributed to this report.

Spasm of Religious Violence Leaves a Pakistani Minority in Mourning, Frustration

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 3, 2009

GOJRA, Pakistan, Aug. 2 -- They do not want to bury the Christians. They want the nation to see them.

By nightfall Sunday, hundreds of residents of the Christian enclave here stood in defiant vigil around seven particleboard coffins neatly aligned on the train tracks that run through town. They had demands: Until the government investigates the killings and finds those responsible, they will not remove the bodies.

Police waited warily in the street. A man on a loudspeaker bellowed the villagers' sentiments, which included anger at provincial authorities for not stopping the killings.

"Death to the Punjab government!"

A spasm of religious violence came to this rural town in the shape of an angry Muslim mob Saturday morning. The Muslims marched to avenge what they believed was the desecration of a Koran one week earlier. When it was over, dozens of houses were torched and Faith Bible Pentecostal Church lay in ruins. Two villagers were shot dead, residents said. Five others, including two children, burned alive.

Killing has become commonplace in Pakistan. But this attack startled the country both for its ferocity and for its stark message to religious minorities. Many saw the violence as further evidence of the growing power of the Taliban and allied Islamist militant groups in Punjab province, home to about half of Pakistan's population.

"They have made up their minds to crush Christianity. They always call us dogs of America, agents of America," said Romar Sardar, an English teacher from the area. "There has been no protection by the police. Nothing."

The conflict apparently began with a wedding. On the evening of July 25, a wedding procession for a Christian couple passed through the nearby village of Korian, according to a police report. Revelers danced and threw money in the air, as is local custom. In the morning, a resident told police he had picked up scraps of paper on the ground and found Arabic writing. "We examined them, and it was the pages from the holy Koran," the man said in the report.

Four days later, the accused, a member of the wedding party named Talib Masih, faced a meeting of local elders, who demanded that he be punished. Instead of repenting, the report said, he denied the desecration, and as a result, "the whole Muslim population was enraged." The house burning began that night and then quieted down until Saturday morning.

That day, Riaz Masih, 68, a retired teacher, grew increasingly worried as a crowd gathered, chanting anti-Christian slogans and cursing Americans. He locked his house and rushed with his wife and children to the home of a Muslim friend nearby. The crowd, some wearing black veils and carrying guns, turned down Masih's narrow brick alley near the train tracks and into the Christian Colony, according to several witnesses. Residents and marchers threw rocks at each other, and gunfire broke out. Using what residents described as gasoline and other flammable chemicals, the mob torched Masih's house.

"We have nothing left," he said, standing in the charred remains of his living room, his daughter's empty jewelry box at his feet. "We are trying to face this in the name of Jesus Christ. The Bible says you cannot take revenge."

On Sunday, the scenes of wreckage and dismay played out in house after house. Residents tossed burned blankets and clothing, broken televisions, and charred beds into heaps on the street. Fruit seller Iqbal Masih, 49, stepped over his mangled carts on his patio and tried to assess what was left of his daughter's dowry. The armoire, a refrigerator, the bedding were burned; the $675 for furniture had disappeared.

"I am out of my mind. I can't look," he said. "They have subjected us to severe cruelties. May God show them the right path."

At least four of the dead came from a single house. As the mob approached, a bullet struck Hamid Masih, a builder, in the head as he stood in his doorway, said his son, Min Has. Has heaved his father onto a motorcycle and drove him to a hospital, while the rest of the family members crowded in a back bedroom. The house began burning, and smoked billowed into the rooms. At least three other relatives, including 5- and 8-year-old siblings, died in the flames, according to residents. "There was fire everywhere, and it was impossible for them to get out," Has said.

"I know one thing. They want to destroy Christians," said Atiq Masih, 22, a janitor who was shot in the right knee. "They were attacking everything."

Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the Punjab population, have been targeted in other recent cases. In June, a mob attacked Christian homes in the Kasur district of Punjab for allegedly dishonoring the prophet Mohammed. In Pakistan, which has strict laws against blasphemy, people can be imprisoned for life or put to death for insulting Islam.

Residents in Gojra said that this was the first incident of its kind in the town and that Christians and Muslims have long lived alongside one another without serious problems. They blamed Muslim clerics for inciting anger over the Koran incident in mosque sermons and accused the Taliban and the militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba of involvement in the attack.

"The provincial government is not accepting that a large part of Punjab is suffering from religious intolerance due to the Taliban and religious outfits," said Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, which issues an annual report on religious minorities in Pakistan. "They have been very negligent. This conflict was brewing for three days, and they were not receptive. They were not taking it seriously."

Pakistan's president and prime minister have called for investigations into the violence. By Sunday, police and paramilitary troops had taken up positions in the town. Provincial authorities said they have already made arrests and registered cases against 800 people. Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti denied that any Koran had been desecrated.

Police in Gojra said the violence Saturday was beyond their control.

"It happened all of a sudden. The police that were here were too few in number to stop it," said policeman Kashif Sadiq. "It's not fair to assume they let this happen intentionally."

Special correspondents Shaiq Hussain and Aoun Sahi contributed to this report.

New Detainee Facility in U.S. Being Considered for Guantanamo Prisoners

By Peter Finn and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 3, 2009

The administration is considering whether to transfer some detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a facility in the United States that would contain courtrooms to hold federal criminal trials and military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects, administration officials said Sunday.

The maximum-security facility would be jointly run by the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, with each assuming responsibility for different sets of inmates. Officials said such a facility could also house prisoners held in indefinite detention and those cleared for release but who have no country willing to accept them. Those convicted in federal court or military commissions could serve their terms there.

Officials said administration planners looking for one site for the facility have focused on the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and a state maximum-security prison in Standish, Mich., that is scheduled to be closed.

An administration official confirmed that the ideas, which were first reported by the Associated Press on Sunday, have been debated by an interagency task force examining detention policy, but stressed that they have not moved beyond that stage.

"This is one of the ideas that's been floated and come under discussion," the official said, adding that the task force has not decided whether to recommend such a proposal to department heads or, eventually, to President Obama. The official and others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

In one of his first acts in the White House, Obama signed an executive order that committed his administration to closing Guantanamo Bay within one year. But those plans have run into fierce political opposition, including from some Democrats, and have prolonged internal debates about how to formulate detention policy.

Administration officials said the transfer plan would mitigate the challenge of scattering detainees across numerous jurisdictions, a move that would require a detailed security plan for each and upgrades for many facilities. A single prison would also localize political opposition and, in the case of Michigan, might draw political backing.

"If state and local officials are supportive, the senator believes the idea should be considered," said Tara Andringa, a spokeswoman for Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

Some members of the Michigan congressional delegation initially suggested renovating the prison for Guantanamo Bay detainees as a way to help stimulate the economy through public-works jobs in the state's Upper Peninsula, according to administration and congressional sources. But there has also been bipartisan opposition in the state to closing the prison in Cuba.

The U.S. senators from Kansas, Republicans Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, have been vocal in their opposition to using Fort Leavenworth to house Guantanamo Bay detainees, arguing that the facility in Cuba should be kept open. They also said that any transfer of detainees to Kansas would undermine the ability of the base's Command and General Staff College to attract foreign military personnel who would be reluctant to attend programs at Fort Leavenworth if former Guantanamo Bay detainees were held there.

"It makes no sense to spend millions and millions of dollars to build what we already have at Guantanamo," Brownback said in a statement Sunday. "Fort Leavenworth is a medium security facility with one maximum security wing that can house only 30 prisoners. That wing could not handle all that is required for detainees, support staff, and court facilities. . . . This is a bad idea chasing after another bad idea on a hurry up timeline."

Congress has blocked the administration from using money to transfer to the United States any of the 229 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay. And politicians in both parties have said they want to see a detailed plan from the administration before they would support the arrival of prisoners such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The administration has transferred one Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States for trial in federal court. Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in June to multiple charges in connection with the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

An administration official said the creation of a prison-detention-courthouse facility would not preclude the possibility that a select group of detainees might be tried in New York or Virginia, where the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. Mohammed and four other detainees were facing a capital trial before a military commission until the Obama administration suspended proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.

Administration officials insist they are determined to work with Congress, and any new detention policy, as well as a hybrid facility, would almost certainly need legislative backing. Issues such as how jury pools would be formed for federal trials at such a prison have not been resolved.

The administration has said it has cleared more than 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners for release, and the State Department is negotiating with governments in Europe and elsewhere to find homes for them. If the administration does not transfer some detainees by January, a new stateside facility could include a lower-security unit like the one at the Cuban facility for detainees who have been cleared for release.

The administration has signaled that some Guantanamo Bay detainees will be tried in federal court and some in military commissions. It also said that there may be a third category of prisoners who are deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried because of a lack of evidence or the need to protect intelligence material.

Administration officials said any system of indefinite detention will include legal safeguards such as periodic reviews by judges and congressional oversight. But human rights and civil liberties groups such as Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose detention without trial.

BP: Iraq Oil Deal is Start of Something Big

By Stanley Reed

The June 30 auction in Baghdad for development rights to oil and gas fields in Iraq has been portrayed as a dud. That's understandable. After all, the Iraqis managed to award only one of the eight fields up for bid.

But the .125 batting average is somewhat deceptive. The field the Iraqis did award, Rumaila, is a monster, producing 960,000 barrels per day now—nearly half of Iraq's current output. The winners, BP (BP) and China's CNPC, plan to bring the field to plateau production of 2.85 million barrels per day within six years. That would make it one of the most prolific fields in the world. However, the companies may have deliberately made high estimates so as to try to win the contracts.

While the fiscal terms are demanding, BP is enthusiastic. In an interview, the company's exploration and production chief, Andy Inglis, said the deal gives BP "a presence in the Middle East working on the biggest" Iraqi field.

BP Has a Plan

BP thinks the Rumaila deal, which is not yet signed, will give it first-mover advantage that can be parlayed into other Iraqi projects. BP also thinks it understands Rumaila well, having originally discovered the field in the 1950s and having worked on it with the Iraqis during the past five years. BP also thinks Rumaila closely resembles the giant Samatlor field in western Siberia, which it has successfully managed through its TNK-BP Russia subsidiary. Finally, through CNPC the partners will have access to a Chinese supply chain to bring in the low-cost equipment needed, including onshore drilling rigs. An Iraqi state company will have a 25% stake, while BP and CNPC will share a 75-25 split of the rest.

Inglis said BP already has a plan for Rumaila. It will include modernizing, such as drilling new wells, renovating old ones, adjusting the level of pumps, and investing in and optimizing the massive water injection programs needed to maintain pressure and boost production.

A lot could go wrong. Rumaila will stretch the companies' resources and capabilities. And there are huge risks that come with working in Iraq, including security and political hazards. Many Iraqis, among them oil-field workers and some officials, don't want foreign oil companies working in their fields. BP and CNPC will have to soothe such concerns if they are to succeed.

Tough Terms for BP

Considering the risks, the financial rewards will not be all that great. BP will be working under a service contract that in simple terms provides for payment of $2 per barrel for the oil BP produces above an agreed baseline—believed to be current production, adjusted by a 5% yearly decline rate for output. BP and CNPC initially bid for a $3.99-per-barrel payment, but the Iraqis persuaded them to reduce that. A consortium of ExxonMobil (XOM) and Malaysia's Petronas (PETR.KL) offered the Iraqis a higher target—3.1 million barrels per day—but walked away from Iraq's tough terms. BP will be penalized if it does not hit its 2.85 million-barrel target.

In an indication of how stiff the terms are, Edinburgh consultants Wood Mackenzie estimate that the BP consortium will receive fees amounting to only 1% of the estimated $1.2 trillion total revenues from the project. An additional 4% or so will go to recovering the $10 billion to $20 billion investment and costs required over the 20-year life of the contract. Wood Mackenzie figures the value of the project to the consortium is just $3 billion. "This is quite modest for a field which should produce 16 billion barrels at least," Wood Mackenzie says.

BP points out that the terms are not so different from those on offer for some other projects in the region. In Abu Dhabi, for instance, BP is paid $1 per barrel. Inglis says the deal, which has not been finalized, will give BP a stable supply of what he calls "long, flat barrels" over a substantial period of time.

In the Same League as the Saudis

From the Iraqi point of view, getting Rumaila under way comes close to making the bid round a success. Rumaila is Iraq's flagship field. If BP hits its targets, it will nearly double Iraq's production, to the 4 million barrel-per-day range, over the next seven years. That would likely make Baghdad a major player in OPEC and the organization's No. 2 producer after Saudi Arabia.

One other aspect of the bid round was encouraging for the Iraqis. The top production targets bid by the international oil community on the six oil fields on offer add up to 8.2 million barrels per day. If achieved, that level of output would put Iraq in a rarefied league with Saudi Arabia as a major oil exporter.

Potential is one thing, of course, and actual production is another. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has had close to zero success in raising its production, meaning it has missed out on oceans of cash it could have gained from recent high oil prices. On several of the fields in the bid round a huge gap emerged between the remuneration the companies were willing to accept and what the Iraqis wanted to pay. Both sides, but perhaps especially the Iraqis, have some serious thinking to do if Iraq's oil and gas program is to move forward.

Reed is London bureau chief for BusinessWeek.

#FreeMediaVe: Venezuelans Using Twitter to Protest Media Crackdown

by Ben Parr

Over the last few days, Venezuela has been closing down radio and media stations that are denouncing the government and its actions. This is not going down quietly, though, as protesters are fighting back against what critics consider the infringement of free speech.

However, with stations being “recovered” by the government, citizens and protesters alike have turned to a new communication platform to concentrate their efforts: Twitter (). Venezuelans are coordinating their tweets of opposition with the hashtag #FreeMediaVe, which started to pick up steam late Friday.

President Hugo Chavez, the controversial socialist leader, ordered that about 240 radio stations be closed down earlier this July, but now the media lockdown is being implemented in full force. This is where Twitter has come into play – as radio stations have fallen, opponents of the socialist leader have taken to Twitter, dominating nearly 1% of tweets at times.

In fact, there has been so much activity on Twitter that it has prompted a government response, where they said the social network was being used just by extremists.

Twitter’s power to challenge repressive governments and galvanize worldwide support was seen in full action during the dramatic events of the #IranElection crisis. It proved to be a major means of communications for Iranians as the government closed down other channels (Twitter’s role was even big enough to concern the U.S. government).

We may very well be seeing the “Twitter effect” in action again. How big it gets, how long it lasts, and how effective Twitter will be in fighting back remains to be seen. We will be watching the #FreeMediaVe movement closely.

Bolivian Indians in historic step

The Bolivian government has begun implementing provisions outlined in the new constitution that give indigenous people the chance to govern themselves.

President Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous leader, enacted a decree setting out the conditions for Indian communities to hold votes on autonomy.

These referendums will take place in December, alongside presidential and parliamentary elections.

The new charter was bitterly opposed by Bolivia's traditional elite.

On Sunday, the provisions allowing for votes on indigenous autonomy were presented in a special event in the eastern region of Santa Cruz.

Mr Morales said it was "a historic day for the peasant and indigenous movement".

CONSTITUTION: KEY REFORMS

Re-election: Allows Mr Morales to stand for re-election in Dec 2009

Indigenous rights: Stresses importance of ethnicity in Bolivia's make-up. A whole chapter devoted to indigenous rights

Autonomy: Power decentralised, four levels of autonomy - departmental, regional, municipal and indigenous

Resources: Sets out state control over key economic sectors, state sovereignty over vast natural gas fields

Judiciary: Indigenous systems of justice same status as official existing system. Judges will be elected, and no longer appointed by Congress.

Land: New limit on ownership 5,000 hectares (12,355). But measure not retroactive.

"Your president, your companion, your brother Evo Morales might make mistakes but will never betray the fight started by our ancestors and the fight of the Bolivian people," he said.

Mr Morales has championed Bolivia's indigenous people, who for centuries were banished to the margins of society and did not enjoy full voting rights until 1952.

But many opposed to Mr Morales and the new constitution believe he is polarising the country by dividing it along along racial lines.

Many Bolivians of European or mixed-race descent in the fertile eastern lowlands, which hold rich gas deposits and are home to extensive farms, rejected the constitution.

The new charter came into force in February after being approved by 61% of the electorate.

It enshrines state control over key economic sectors, and grants greater autonomy not only for the nine departments but also for indigenous communities.

But the clauses regarding layers of autonomy could lead to a raft of competing claims, correspondents say.

Political Party Affiliation: 30 States Blue, 4 Red in 2009 So Far

by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ -- An analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from the first six months of 2009 finds Massachusetts to be the most Democratic state in the nation, along with the District of Columbia. Utah and Wyoming are the most Republican states, as they were in 2008. Only four states show a sizeable Republican advantage in party identification, the same number as in 2008. That compares to 29 states plus the District of Columbia with sizeable Democratic advantages, also unchanged from last year.

These results are based on interviews with over 160,000 U.S. adults conducted between January and June 2009, including a minimum of 400 interviews for each state (305 in the District of Columbia). Each state's data is weighted to demographic characteristics for that state to ensure it is representative of the state's adult population.

Because the proportion of independents in each state varies considerably (from a low of 25% in Pennsylvania to a high of 50% in Rhode Island and New Hampshire), it is easiest to compare relative party strength using "leaned" party identification. Thus, the Democratic total represents the percentage of state residents who identify as Democratic, or who identify as independent but when asked a follow-up question say they lean to the Democratic Party. Likewise, the Republican total is the percentage of Republican identifiers and Republican-leaning independents in a state.

The accompanying map shows each state's relative party strength (the full data for each state appears at the end of the article) in the first half of 2009, which primarily covers the time since Barack Obama took office as president. States in which one of the parties enjoys a 10 or more percentage point advantage in leaned identification are considered solid supporters of that party. States with between a five- and nine-point advantage are considered leaning toward that party, and states with less than a five-point advantage for one of the parties are considered competitive.

As was the case in Gallup's analysis of 2008 yearly data, most states are currently Democratic in their party orientation, with the greatest number (30, including the District of Columbia) classified as solidly Democratic, with an additional 8 states leaning Democratic.

Meanwhile, only four states can be considered solidly Republican -- Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska, with Alabama falling into the leaning Republican category.

That leaves a total of eight states that are competitive in terms of party identification, with none showing a party advantage of greater than two points. These include Mississippi (+1 Republican), North Dakota and Nebraska (even), and Kansas, Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, and Montana (all +2 Democratic).

It is important to note that these categories only apply to a state population's party leanings and are not necessarily indicative of a party's electoral strength in that state. Election outcomes are decided on party support (which, as shown here, typically shows a Democratic advantage) but also turnout among party supporters (which typically works in the Republicans' favor).

The party strength totals for the first half of 2009 are similar to what Gallup reported earlier this year based on 2008 data. Compared to that report, there has been a net gain of two leaning Democratic states and a net loss of two competitive states, but no net change in the number of solidly Democratic, solidly Republican or leaning Republican states.

However, despite the lack of net change, a total of nine states did shift from one category to another when comparing their classification based on 2008 data to their classification based on early 2009 data. Most of the movement was into or out of the competitive category, though two states (Colorado and Nevada) moved from a solid Democratic to leaning Democratic positioning.

Bottom Line

Since Obama was inaugurated, not much has changed in the political party landscape at the state level -- the Democratic Party continues to hold a solid advantage in party identification in most states and in the nation as a whole. While the size of the Democratic advantage at the national level shrunk in recent months, this has been due to an increase in independent identification rather than an increase in Republican support. That finding is echoed here given that the total number of solid and leaning Republican states remains unchanged from last year. While the Republican Party is still able to compete in elections if they enjoy greater turnout from their supporters or greater support for its candidates from independent voters, the deck is clearly stacked in the Democratic Party's favor for now.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 160,236 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan. 2 - June 30, 2009, as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.

The margin of sampling error for most states is ±3 percentage points, but is as high as ±7 percentage points for the District of Columbia, and ±6 percentage points for Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware and Hawaii.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Run Aground on the Shores of Freedom

By Alex Kotlowitz
Sunday, August 2, 2009

THE SNAKEHEAD

An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

By Patrick

Radden Keefe

Doubleday.

414 pp. $27.50

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1993, a small, weathered freighter, the Golden Venture, ran aground along the shoreline of New York's Rockaway Beach. It was carrying 300 people from China's Fujian province. Most were men, though there was also a handful of women and children aboard. It was in many ways an age-old journey: immigrants risking their lives for a better life. But this was different. Each had paid $35,000 to smugglers (the going rate is now upward of $70,000), and when the ship beached (purposefully, it turns out) those on board, who were already weakened by the 120-day voyage, were ordered by the smugglers to jump into the rough surf and swim ashore. The sea was so turbulent that it flipped a 22-foot Boston Whaler sent out to rescue the swimmers. Ten of the Chinese men died. The rest lay exhausted in the sand, tended to by medics, given food and water, and then arrested.

"For much of its history," Patrick Radden Keefe writes, "the United States has suffered from a kind of bipolarity when it comes to matters of immigration." And so it was that the men and women on the Golden Venture were not embraced but instead imprisoned, most of them in a jail in York, Pa., where they remained for three years while the government tried to figure out how it viewed them: as illegal immigrants or refugees -- or something in between. Indeed, the Golden Venture, which Keefe points out brought "the single largest arrival of illegal aliens in modern American history," came to symbolize the tightly wound tension that has long characterized this nation's stance on immigration: the instinct to take in the tired and the poor versus the oft-expressed inclination to return new arrivals to their home countries. "The Snakehead" evocatively captures our yin and yang over immigration policy. Even if you know where you stand, you'll get tossed about enough in this compelling narrative that you won't necessarily end up where you began.

"The Snakehead," thankfully, is not a polemic. It's a rich, beautifully told story, so suspenseful and with so many unexpected twists that in places it reads like a John le Carré novel. Keefe, a masterful storyteller with the keen eye of a seasoned reporter, paints a discomforting picture of a worldwide smuggling network so lucrative that an INS agent renowned for his pluck and persistence is himself eventually drawn to the allure and the enormous profits of the trade. The numbers astound. During a two-year period when many Chinese were smuggled from Canada through a Mohawk reservation in the United States (a story captured in the extraordinary movie "The Frozen River"), the Native American smugglers made an estimated $170 million.

The spine of "The Snakehead" is the account of Cheng Chui Ping, known to most as Sister Ping, an aloof if not eccentric woman who helped finance the Golden Venture. An immigrant herself from Fujian province, Sister Ping built and headed a global smuggling empire, an underground network that extended from Asia to Africa and Latin America, all stops along the way to the ultimate destination: the United States. Sister Ping made a small fortune trading in humans, which it becomes abundantly clear is a cutthroat, often brazenly violent business, measured not only by street shootouts between rival smugglers but also by the brutal nature of the travel itself, including the claustrophobic and odorous voyage in the small hold of the Golden Venture, which Keefe recounts in haunting detail. Food and water were so scarce that fights would break out. One of the smuggled Fujianese became so unhinged that he mindlessly pressed buttons on a handheld video game long after the batteries had died. Another passenger told Keefe, "I think it changed many people, being on that ship."

The ship also changed others, as well. When many of the Chinese were detained in a prison in the working-class town of York, some of the locals befriended the new captives and then took up their cause, arguing -- convincingly -- that they should be permitted to stay in this country. But beginning with the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and then reinforced by post-9/11 hysteria, our nation has become less welcoming to those seeking refuge. We now detain roughly 300,000 people, most of them accused of entering this country illegally, most of them awaiting deportation.

Yet, as Keefe suggests, it's ingrained in the history of this country that "many an immigration story begins with some transgression, large or small." Indeed, Sister Ping, who is now serving time in prison, has become a folk hero in her Chinatown neighborhood, or as Keefe observes, "a latter-day Harriet Tubman who risked imprisonment to shepherd her countrymen to freedom." This is one of the freshest accounts of modern-day migration I've read, one filled with moral ambiguity, one that doesn't pretend to have the answers, one that in these times feels like essential reading.

Alex Kotlowitz is the author of three books, including, most recently, "Never a City So Real." He teaches writing at Northwestern University.

Conflict Casts Long, Lethal Shadow in Eastern Congo

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 2, 2009

WALIKALE, Congo -- Death came quietly for Bahanuzi Mihigo.

Unconscious from a soaring fever, his body full of infection, the 36-year-old farmer lay under a white hospital tent in this tiny village, a place that floats like an island in a vast sea of roadless jungle.

It was a cool evening, and the fighting that had chased Mihigo from his home was far away now. Still, its aftermath surrounded him in the tent, where ants crawled up the wooden posts of beds occupied by others weak or dying from their own jungle odysseys: three babies listless with malaria; a woman wheezing from tuberculosis; another with a raging infection ballooning her left arm.

Justin Balaluka, Mihigo's friend, sat with him into the night, noticing how he had changed. He looked old, exhausted. Just before 11 p.m., Mihigo trembled slightly and, as Balaluka put it, "lost the spirit."

Though doctors listed the cause of death as suspected typhoid fever, Balaluka, 26, who fled through the jungle for weeks with Mihigo, named another.

"I blame the war," he said.

By some estimates, at least 5 million Congolese have died in more than a decade of conflict touched off by the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, which sent a flood of militiamen across the border into mineral-rich eastern Congo. Although the conflict has surged, receded and changed over time -- at some points involving eight countries and at others breaking into smaller conflicts among a mess of armed groups -- the cumulative death toll in eastern Congo is the largest since World War II.

For the most part, though, people in eastern Congo have not died in a blaze of bullets or in large-scale massacres. More often, the conflict has set off a chain reaction of less spectacular consequences that begins with fleeing through an unforgiving jungle and ends with a death such as Mihigo's. In eastern Congo, people die from malaria and diarrhea, from untreated infections and measles, from falling off rickety bridges and slipping down slopes, from hunger and from drinking dirty water in the hope of surviving one more day.

Arguably, people die because of the wider social impact of the conflict. Entire villages have been scattered across hundreds of miles, atomizing extended family networks that people depend upon in difficult times. The conflict has overwhelmed already-dysfunctional government hospitals and left roads rutted and overgrown, isolating people in villages like Walikale from help.

At the moment, the conflict in eastern Congo is surging once again. Since January, at least half a million people have fled a U.N.-backed Congolese army operation targeting Rwandan rebels, which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to discuss in a visit to Congo this month. The rebels are retaliating against villagers with whom they have lived for years.

In early May, one of those attacks ravaged the village of Busurungi, where Mihigo lived with his wife and three children, about 75 miles from here. In many ways, the story of his death -- pieced together from interviews with neighbors, doctors and nurses who treated him -- begins there.

Despite the occasional menace of rebels who lived in the village, Mihigo led a relatively healthy life. He ate decently, drank from spring water taps and could go to a local health clinic for basic medicine. He was known as one who shared what he had, and as a mentor to young men tempted to take up the AK-47.

"He would tell us we'd have a better life farming," said Amisi Tumusifu, 22, a neighbor. "He was a good man."

When the military operation began this year, soldiers chased the rebels from Busurungi but soon abandoned the village. U.N. peacekeepers mandated to protect civilians did not fill the void, and the rebels returned in a fury, burning hundreds of houses and shooting people as they fled. Mihigo saw his wife and children killed, but he managed to escape with about 20 others, including Tumusifu and Balaluka. He ran off only with the clothes he was wearing: a pair of jeans, a plaid button-down shirt and flip-flops.

The group spent days walking along muddy, rocky footpaths or clearing new ones through tangles of green, at times silently, afraid the rebels might hear. They crossed rivers and eased down slopes, scraping bare arms and ankles. At night, they often slept on leaves.

"We got bitten by so many mosquitoes," Tumusifu said. "When it was raining, we got wet and cold. We were eating like pigs."

If they were lucky, they ate roots and cassava leaves and drank river water. They came upon tiny villages where people would help with a meal, and some in the group would stay behind. After a while, the group dwindled to three -- Tumusifu, Balaluka and Mihigo. They were all getting thinner, especially Mihigo.

"He looked so tired," Tumusifu said. "He was talking about so many things: the war, his children, his wife. To lose your wife and children, it's not simple. I think that created pains in his heart."

Mihigo began complaining of headaches and fatigue, but the three pressed on, finally reaching the village of Ndjingala, about 25 miles from Walikale, in mid-June. A family offered them an 8-by-8-foot room, where they rested a few days. But with no money or family for support, Mihigo, who could not even afford aspirin, decided they had to find work quickly.

"We had no soap, no clothes -- nothing," Balaluka said. "We were tired, but we had no choice."

In this area, one of the few readily available jobs is hauling 100-pound loads of sugar, beer and other supplies on a two-day trek to a huge mining pit, and hauling out loads of the mineral cassiterite, used in cellphones, the illicit profits from which have fueled Congo's conflict for years. And so, for a few dollars per trip, the three exhausted men returned to the jungle as porters.

Mihigo managed for a week or so but was soon too sick to walk. His headaches worsened. He complained of pains in his chest and abdomen. His fever soared until he finally fell unconscious.

Tumusifu and Balaluka carried him to a local health center, which treated him for malaria. But his condition worsened, and nurses transferred him to the government hospital in Walikale. His friends pooled money for transportation and, around noon one recent Monday, carried his frail body into the tent annexed to the hospital: a one-story, whitewashed building shaded by palms and relatively unchanged from when it was built in 1977.

Since February, the hospital has been overwhelmed with thousands of displaced people pouring into Walikale from surrounding villages. They have been treated for free, but by the time Mihigo arrived, the hospital was nearly out of supplies.

The hospital director has been pleading for more medicine, but the government has not yet provided any, and the resupply route is daunting. The most direct route between Walikale and the provincial capital of Goma is one deep, muddy trench after another, often crawling with rebels; though the distance is only 250 miles or so, the journey can take as long as a month. Instead, trucks travel a 2,500 mile, four-day horseshoe route.

Last month, the hospital's doctors -- most of whom scrape by on charity, having never been paid by the government during their employment there -- began telling patients to buy their own medicine.

Salumu Luhembwe, the doctor who examined Mihigo, quickly suspected advanced typhoid fever, probably acquired from drinking water contaminated with feces. His intestines had holes and his abdomen was full of puss. "We needed to operate on him," said Luhembwe, 35. "But we didn't have all the materials."

If Mihigo's friends could find it, they needed to buy fuel for a generator, anesthesia, antibiotics, rehydration fluid, blood and a long list of other items whose cost totaled more than $200.

"For displaced people, it's impossible," said Luhembwe, who has bought medicine for patients but could not manage this time. "Usually in these cases, family would collect money to help. He had no family. Really, it was very sad."

And so three days passed, Mihigo got worse, and Balaluka could only watch when his friend trembled and faded away, becoming part of an increasingly staggering statistic.

"He died from an association of so many things -- because he left his farm, because he got sick in the jungle, because he reached an area without any means," Luhembwe said. "Even if he died from typhoid fever, the genesis was fleeing."

There was no money for a funeral, so a hospital worker dug a grave amid the tall grass and palms behind the hospital, where there were many other freshly dug mounds. In the early morning, Balaluka and Tumusifu offered a prayer before Mihigo's unmarked grave, some words, Tumusifu recalled, about "finishing the trip peacefully."

Their friend was buried in the same clothes in which he had fled two months before.

Nigerian Police Find Sect Women

Police in northern Nigeria say they have found another group of women and children abducted by the Boko Haram sect, locked in a house in Maiduguri.

The group were in a deplorable condition, officials said, suffering from pneumonia, fever and rashes.

The military now says 700 people were killed in Maiduguri alone during violent clashes between police and the Islamic sect.

An earlier tally of victims of the unrest put the figure at 400.

Col Ben Ahanotu, head of security in Maiduguri, said that mass burials had begun there.

The Boko Haram compound, he said, was being used as one of the burial sites because bodies were decomposing in the heat.

More than 200 women and children have now been found over the last week, locked in buildings in Maiduguri.

The most recent group of 140 is being housed at the local police headquarters, and have been visited by the Red Cross and the National Emergency Authority.

A Red Cross official told the BBC in Maiduguri that the women had been abducted by Boko Haram from six different states across northern Nigeria.

Last week, the police rescued about a 100 young women and children from a house on the edge of the city. Many said they were the wives of sect members, and had been forced to travel to Maiduguri from Bauchi state.

The BBC reporter in Maiduguri says the Boko Haram sect believed that their families should accompany them to the battlefield.

The compound used by the Boko Haram sect was destroyed by government troops and is now smouldering rubble.

More members of the sect have been arrested in house-to-house searches across northern Nigeria and the military said most would be prosecuted.

Life in the affected areas is now beginning to return to normal with banks and markets reopening.

Maiduguri is the capital of Borno state but the fighting spread to cities across the north of the country and the total number of dead is unknown.

A military spokesman said two of those killed were soldiers and 13 were police officers.

The number of injured, meanwhile, is still being counted. The Red Cross had earlier said about 3,500 people fled the fighting.

The violence ended on Thursday when the sect's leader, Mohamed Yusuf, was killed by police.

The controversy surrounding his death continues. The police say he was killed in a shoot-out while he was being detained. But Col Ahanotu says he captured him and handed him over alive.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8180257.stm

Published: 2009/08/02 10:38:14 GMT

Torture Claim against Iran Trial

Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says opposition detainees put on trial have been subjected to "medieval torture".

He denounced the trials, which started on Saturday, as fraudulent and said the prisoners had been forced to confess.

Earlier ex-President Mohammad Khatami criticised the hearings as "show trials" that would damage confidence in Iran's Islamic establishment.

More than 100 people have been put on trial on charges including conspiracy.

Ten more people were brought before the court on Sunday, reports said.

The detainees, all held in the wake of the disputed elections on 12 June, include several leading reformers. Some are accused of rioting and vandalism, as well as the more serious conspiracy charges.

They were among thousands of Iranians who rejected the official declaration that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election.

Mr Khatami, in comments on his website, expressed hope that Saturday's trial would not "lead to ignorance of the real crimes", the Associated Press reports.

The AFP news agency quotes Mr Khatami, who was president from 1997 to 2005, as making more outspoken criticism of the trial.

"What was done yesterday is against the constitution, regular laws and rights of the citizens," his office quoted him as saying.

KEY DEFENDANTS

Mohammad Ali Abtahi (left): former vice-president, member of the Assembly of Combatant Clerics

Mohsen Mirdamadi (centre): leader of the biggest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front

Behzad Nabavi (right): member of the central council of the Organisation of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Revolution, former industry minister and former vice speaker of parliament

Mohsen Aminzadeh : former deputy foreign minister, served under reformist president Mohammad Khatami, member of Islamic Iran Participation Front

Mr Mousavi's comments went even further, accusing the authorities of forcing the detainees to confess to the crimes.

"The teeth of the torturers and confession-extorters have reached to the bones of the people," he said.

"Witnessing such trumped-up trials, the only judgment that the conscience of humanity can make is the moral collapse and discredit of its directors."

Mohsen Rezai, the only conservative to have challenged Mr Ahmadinejad in the election, also criticised the trial, saying people who had attacked the protesters should also be put on trial.

Earlier Fars news agency reported that a group of Iranian MPs had filed a complaint against Mr Mousavi several weeks ago, calling for him to be put on trial for "directing recent riots".

Hardliner Mohammad Taghi Rahba said Mr Mousavi and Mr Khatami were the main culprits behind the unrest.

Key defendants

At Saturday's trial, defendants in prison uniforms were seated flanked by guards.

IRAN UNREST

12 June Presidential election saw incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected with 63% of vote

Main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi called for result to be annulled, alleging poll fraud

Mass street protests saw at least 30 people killed and foreign media restricted

They included supporters of opposition leaders Mr Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and aides of Mr Khatami.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported that former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh, former government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, former senior lawmaker Mohsen Mirdamadi and former Industry Minister Behzad Nabavi were among those on trial.

The BBC's Kasra Naji says the timing and scale of the trial came as a surprise and suggests Iran's leadership wants to send a message to stop any more protests.

Foreign media, including the BBC, have been restricted in their coverage of Iran since the election protests turned into confrontations with the authorities in which at least 30 people were killed.

Opposition groups alleged widespread vote-rigging. Post-election protests saw the largest mass demonstrations in Iran since the 1979 revolution, which brought about the current Islamic system of government.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8180180.stm

Published: 2009/08/02 16:49:29 GMT

China to Try Suspects Held After Riots

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — China will begin trials in the next few weeks for suspects it accuses of playing a role in the deadly riots that shook the capital of the Xinjiang region in early July, state media outlets reported Friday.

The English-language China Daily newspaper said officials were organizing special tribunals to weigh the fate of “a small number” of the 1,400 people who have been detained, most of them Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority whom security forces have blamed for much of the killing.

Earlier this week, the authorities arrested an additional 253 suspects, many through tips provided by residents of Urumqi, the regional capital where the violence took place. On Thursday, the authorities published the photographs of an additional 15 people, all but one of them Uighur, who they say had a hand in the unrest. Those who provide information leading to an arrest can collect as much as $7,350 in reward money.

“The police urged the suspects to turn themselves in,” China Daily wrote, quoting an unidentified law enforcement official. “Those who do so within 10 days will be dealt with leniently, while others will be punished severely.”

In the days after the riots, the head of the Communist Party in Xinjiang was blunt about what awaits those convicted of the most serious offenses. “To those who have committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them,” said the official, Li Zhi.

The riots, the worst outbreak of ethnic strife in China’s recent history, began July 5 after protests over the deaths of Uighur factory workers in another part of China turned into a murderous rampage. The violence, which lasted three days, claimed 197 lives, most of them Han Chinese beaten to death on the streets, according to the government. The Han are the dominant ethnic group in China.

Uighur advocates overseas, however, insist that the official death toll undercounts the number of Uighurs killed by the paramilitary police and during revenge attacks by the Han that followed the initial rioting.

China has accused outsiders of instigating the unrest, heaping most of the blame on Rebiya Kadeer, the 62-year-old leader of the World Uighur Congress, which advocates self-determination for China’s Uighurs. They say Ms. Kadeer, a businesswoman who spent years in a Chinese jail before going into exile, organized the killings from her home in Washington.

In recent weeks Ms. Kadeer has been on an aggressive campaign to convince the world that her people are the primary victims of the rioting. During a visit to Japan on Wednesday, she told reporters that 10,000 people had disappeared overnight in the days following the unrest. “Where did they go?” she asked. “Were they all killed or sent somewhere? The Chinese government should disclose what happened to them.”

Her claims have infuriated China, with one official in Xinjiang describing her remarks as “completely fabricated.” Ms. Kadeer says she cannot reveal the source of her information because to do so would endanger those who provided it.

If the trials that followed the 2008 riots in Tibet are any guide, the court hearings in Xinjiang will be swift. According to China Daily, the accused will be appointed lawyers who have “received special training,” as have the judges who will preside over the cases. Each trial will be heard by a panel of three or seven judges, and the majority opinion will prevail.

Human rights groups, however, say they have little confidence the tribunals will be fair. They expect the proceedings to be closed to the public, as are most trials in China, and they note that the defendants will not have lawyers of their own choosing.

“Without independent legal counsel, you don’t have any clue as to what evidence has been collected and through what means,” said Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which is based in Hong Kong. “Were they tortured or coerced to confess? Trials can be speedy, but it doesn’t mean they will be fair.”

Corazon Aquino Dies; Ex-President of Philippines Led 'People Power' Revolution

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 1, 2009

Corazon Aquino, the unassuming widow whose "people power" revolution toppled a dictator, restored Philippine democracy and inspired millions of people around the world, died Saturday after a battle with colon cancer, her family announced. She was 76. Widely known as "Cory," the slight, bespectacled daughter of a wealthy land-owning family served as president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992, the first woman to hold that position.

She was widowed in 1983 when her husband, political opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., was assassinated upon his return from exile to lead a pro-democracy movement against authoritarian president Ferdinand E. Marcos. It was a popular revolt against Marcos after a disputed election that later enabled Corazon Aquino to assume power.

In her six tumultuous years in office in the fractious, strife-torn, disaster-prone archipelago, Aquino resisted seven coup attempts or military revolts, battled a persistent communist insurgency and grappled with the effects of typhoons, floods, droughts, a major earthquake and a devastating volcanic eruption. Her tribulations earned her the nickname "Calamity Cory."

As she dealt with those challenges, she took pride in restoring democratic institutions that had been gutted under Marcos's 20-year rule. And she presided over a series of relatively free elections, the dismantling of monopolies and an initial spurt of economic growth.

Her administration failed to make much headway in alleviating poverty, stamping out corruption or delivering basic services. It bequeathed her successor an economic slump marked by protracted, costly power failures that reflected inattention to the country's energy needs.

Despite the turmoil that dogged her presidency, Aquino oversaw the first peaceful transfer of power in the Philippines in 26 years. She returned to private life with relief, although she remained politically active.

She played a role in popular protests that led to the ouster of President Joseph Estrada in January 2001. She initially supported his successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, but increasingly turned against her in recent years, siding with opponents who accused Arroyo of vote-rigging and corruption.

Aquino's transition from housewife to president to respected elder stateswoman and democracy advocate represented a phenomenal metamorphosis for a self-effacing mother of five who, before being drafted to take on Marcos in 1986, had never before run for public office.

Born Jan. 25, 1933, in Tarlac Province, Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco grew up as the sixth of eight children in a family of wealthy landowners in the province about 70 miles north of the capital. After attending exclusive grade schools, she went to the United States in 1946 to continue her secondary education at Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia, Notre Dame convent school in New York and the College of Mount St. Vincent in New York.

There, in 1953, she earned a degree in French and mathematics. She returned to Manila to study law and met Benigno S. Aquino Jr., an aspiring politician whom she married in 1954. Survivors include their five children, Sen. Benigno S. Aquino III, Maria Elena A. Cruz, Aurora Corazon A. Abellada, Victoria Eliza A. Dee and Kristina Bernadette A. Yap; two brothers; three sisters; and a number of grandchildren.

For years she stayed in the background as the quiet, reserved, devoutly Catholic wife of the gregarious and ambitious Benigno Aquino, who was a governor and senator and seemed destined to become the Philippines' president until he was arrested in 1972 just hours after Marcos declared martial law.

He remained in prison until 1980, when Marcos allowed him to seek heart treatment in the United States. Corazon Aquino often described the next three years, when her husband was a fellow at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her family lived together in a Boston suburb, as the happiest in her life.

After Benigno Aquino returned to Manila in August 1983 and was assassinated by military men while being taken into custody at the airport -- a killing that Corazon Aquino maintained was ordered by Marcos -- the 50-year-old widow reluctantly became a public figure as she sought to keep her husband's ideals and memory alive. She gradually emerged as a unifying force for the splintered opposition, even as she repeatedly ruled herself out as a presidential candidate.

But when Marcos called a "snap election" for Feb. 7, 1986, in hopes of capitalizing on his foes' divisions and winning a new mandate, Aquino reluctantly agreed to run against him, acceding to the wishes of supporters who had gathered a million signatures on a petition for her candidacy.

In formally registering to run, she listed her occupation as "housewife." Indeed, her preparation for the post was probably best summarized by her comment to reporters several months earlier: "What do I know about being president?"

Clad in her trademark yellow -- evoking the yellow ribbons that had proliferated around Manila to mark her husband's return from exile -- Aquino proved to be a formidable, and fearless, campaigner. She vowed to "dismantle the dictatorial edifice" built by Marcos in his two decades in power, "eliminate the social cancer of graft and corruption" under his rule and hold him accountable for the murder of her husband.

In one hard-hitting speech shortly before the election, she warned Marcos, "Don't you dare frustrate the will of the Filipino people, because you will have an angry people on your hands."

Days before the vote, she told The Washington Post in an interview that many Filipinos were risking their fortunes and their lives to back her. "It's really a do-or-die situation now," she said. "So many have realized that this is our moment of truth, and they just have to give their all now or that chance may never come again."

Aquino fully expected Marcos to resort to election fraud if the vote did not go his way, but she relied on the axiom that, as one Marcos campaign official put it in a moment of candor, "mathematically, you can only cheat so much." And she vowed to lead massive demonstrations if the election was stolen from her.

Indeed, a rubber-stamp legislature officially proclaimed the reelection of Marcos to a new six-year term on Feb. 16, 1986, after a protracted vote-counting process marked by widespread fraud and violence. Aquino then launched a civil disobedience campaign to protest the result.

Six days later, a military mutiny led by followers of Marcos's defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, broke out in Manila. It was quickly joined by Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, a distant cousin of Marcos then serving as acting armed forces chief of staff. The mutineers declared support for Aquino, and the country's Roman Catholic primate, Cardinal Jaime Sin, called the faithful into the streets to block any attack on them by Marcos's forces. Millions of Filipinos responded, giving birth to "people power."

Three days after the revolt began, Marcos was forced to flee the Malacañang presidential palace, where he had lived since taking office in December 1965. He eventually landed in Hawaii, where he died in 1989. Aquino took over as president, declaring that "the long agony is over."

One of her first acts was to have Malacañang fumigated. But even then Aquino refused to live or work there, preferring to hold office in a nearby guest house and opting to live in a modest home a block away. Initially, she even insisted that her motorcades stop at red lights -- until her security guards put an end to that egalitarian gesture.

The ouster of a dictatorship through nonviolent popular demonstrations became the model for democracy movements all over the world, and Aquino was named Time magazine's "Woman of the Year" for 1986. She was also the toast of Washington when she visited in September of that year.

When she addressed a joint session of Congress, her path into the chamber was strewn with yellow roses, and lawmakers were smitten by her commitment to democracy as she delivered an emotional appeal for aid.

"You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it," Aquino told the standing-room-only audience. "And here you have a people who won it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it." Within hours, the House responded by unexpectedly bypassing normal procedures and voting to approve a $200 million emergency aid package for the Philippines.

When then-Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) told her after the speech, "You hit a home run," Aquino replied without hesitation, "I hope the bases were loaded."

But the honeymoon soon began to sour, and Aquino was beset at home by increasing unrest, including a series of military coup attempts. After one of them, in August 1987, she displayed her combative streak by filing an unprecedented libel suit against a Manila newspaper columnist who wrote that she "hid under her bed" during the abortive revolt. She even took a reporter into her bedroom to show that it would have been impossible to hide under the bed, which sat on a platform.

"I don't want the soldiers of the republic to ever doubt for an instant that their commander-in-chef is a woman of courage that they look upon and respect," she said in explaining the lawsuit.

When her presidential term came to an end on June 30, 1992, it was with unmistakable relief that she turned over the reins to her elected successor, Ramos, her former defense secretary. In a last bit of symbolism to show she was returning to private life as an ordinary citizen, she drove away from Ramos's inauguration in a white Toyota she had purchased, shunning the government Mercedes available to her.

In a speech at the U.S. State Department in October 1996 to accept the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, Aquino explained her role and motives with characteristic modesty.

"I am not a hero like [Nelson] Mandela," she said, referring to the South African leader who spent 27 years as a political prisoner before becoming president. "The best description for me might, after all, be that of my critics who said: 'She is just a plain housewife.' Indeed, as a housewife, I stood by my husband and never questioned his decision to stand alone in defense of a dead democracy against an arrogant dictatorship enjoying the support of the United States."

She said she ruled out sharing power with the Philippine military because she wanted to "rebuild democracy" and "there was just no room for a junta" in her country.

"Perhaps the military were also envious that in the first year of my term, I ruled by decree," Aquino said in her speech. "This was necessary to abolish the rubber-stamp parliament, sequester stolen wealth, annul the Marcos Constitution, pare down the powers of the president and sweep the judiciary clean. Each law I promulgated diminished my powers until, with the last decree, I stripped myself of the power to legislate. Could I have trusted the military to share so much power with me?"

Her departure from office as "one of the proudest moments of my life," Aquino recalled. "I was stepping down and handing the presidency to my duly elected successor. This was what my husband had died for; he had returned precisely to forestall an illegal political succession. This moment is democracy's glory: the peaceful transfer of power without bloodshed, in strict accordance with law."

Former Pakistani President's 2007 Emergency Rule Declared Unconstitutional

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 1, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 31 -- Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled Friday that former president Pervez Musharraf violated the constitution by declaring emergency rule in 2007, a verdict widely viewed as a rebuke to the retired general's military regime.

The ruling, which prompted jubilant chants by the crowd in the packed courtroom, raises the possibility that the federal government could bring treason charges against Musharraf and further volatility to this unstable nation. The decision also invalidated judicial appointments made by Musharraf under a provisional constitution during the six weeks of emergency rule.

"I think this is a decision that has established independence for the judiciary in Pakistan," said Hamid Khan, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, who represented the group that filed a petition against the emergency order. "It will certainly be a boost for our democracy and will block the way for any future military adventurer."

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, an opponent of Musharraf, described the verdict in a statement as "most welcome" and "a triumph of the democratic principles, a stinging negation of dictatorship."

The verdict was delivered by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who was sacked for the second time in November 2007, along with dozens of other judges, when Musharraf declared emergency rule, suspended the constitution, shut down television stations and imprisoned opponents. At the time, Musharraf justified his actions by citing growing extremism in the country, but many saw the actions as an attempt to ensure his political survival, given that court was deliberating whether to disqualify him from proceeding with a second five-year term.

Musharraf's moves fueled a protest movement of lawyers and civil society advocates that swept the country and brought about the reinstatement of the chief justice and other judges in March.

"After these two years of the movement, there's a change in the mindset of Pakistan. They do not want any military intervention. They want matters to be moving according to the constitution," said Athar Minallah, a leader of the lawyers' movement. "This will have far-reaching consequences," he added, referring to the decision.

Chaudhry delivered the verdict Friday evening in a 45-minute speech that the assembled crowd strained to hear over the rain that hammered down on the Supreme Court building's vaulted roof. But the words "illegal" and "unconstitutional" were heard frequently enough that the result was clear, and the crowd celebrated with chants of "long live the Supreme Court!" Television news footage showed people reveling in the streets in Pakistani cities.

The court did not invalidate the decisions made by the judges Musharraf appointed, but said their jobs no longer exist. It also said that Parliament should decide which laws passed under emergency rule would stand.

Musharraf, who now lives in London, stepped down in August 2008 after nearly nine years in power, facing the threat of impeachment. The Supreme Court summoned him to discuss the case this week, but neither he nor an attorney attended.

The federal government could now prosecute Musharraf, according to lawyers at the courthouse. Nazir Ahmed, a member of Britain's House of Lords who was present for Friday's verdict, said that evidence was being gathered in London on possible breaches of international law "relating to abductions, torture and war crimes committed by the former dictator."

Minallah, the activist lawyer, said, "If the people of this country want the prosecution of Musharraf, the entire pressure will shift to the Parliament and the federal government. So that will be the first impact of this decision."

Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report.