Robin Sax: Human Trafficking: A Problem of Language?

Former Deputy District Attorney, Legal Commentator, Author

Posted: August 21, 2009 01:59 PM

Why is that human trafficking is so pervasive and yet so misunderstood? Why do we assume that it's really an "overseas" issue? Why do most people think of Cambodia or Thailand when the words "human trafficking" are uttered?

It's not because it does not exist here in the United States--we know it does. As a matter of fact, the numbers are astounding: the sex trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide. UNICEF estimates that approximately 1 million children around the world unwillingly become sex slaves every year. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that there are 200,000 U.S. citizens yearly, mainly children and young women, who are at high risk of being trafficked throughout the U.S for sexual purposes.

The perception of human trafficking as an "overseas" issue has persisted even though the U.S. passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in October, 2000 to criminalize the issue domestically. It was the first law specifically intended to prevent victimization, to protect victims, and to prosecute perpetrators of human trafficking here in the States.

Added to society's lack of understanding the truly epidemic proportions of human trafficking is a similar lack from law enforcement and prosecutors. Even though we have federal human trafficking laws, many states do not have a version of these laws. Even worse, some prosecutors don't even know these laws exist!

The effect of this lack of awareness is that many prosecutors will file charges only on the "sex act" aspect of this crime. They may omit the crime of human trafficking from the rap sheets, charging documents, and ultimately, from the view of our society.

I am not alone in believing that much of our ignorance of human trafficking and the subsequent lack of prosecutions are because the terminology is vague and confusing. The very phrase, "human trafficking," is a poor description of what really happens.

Human trafficking is not synonymous with moving people overseas. Instead, the U.S. Federal Act of 2000 defines it as the "recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining and person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery; sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age."

With this definition we see two aspects of trafficking, both highly repugnant: trafficking involves commercial sexual exploitation of women and children (also known as "forced prostitution") AND it involves involuntary servitude (also known as "slavery"). Not surprisingly, most Americans cannot accept the idea that a form of slavery still exists within the United States!

Shared Hope International, founded by former Congresswoman Linda Smith, is a nonprofit leading a worldwide effort to eradicate the marketplaces of sexual slavery. They have coined the term "Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking" (DMST) to refer to what is happening here in the United States. DMST is defined as "commercial sexual exploitation of American children within American borders."

Wake up, folks! It's real, and it's really happening here!

DMST is a term that more accurately describes the nature of the crime, as well as the victim status, by avoiding the vague term, "human trafficking" or the poorly received term, "child prostitution." The organization believes that the status of "victim" will be clarified, as opposed to looking at the child as the delinquent. Child prostitutes are frequently thought of as "bad kids" and therefore they often they do not get the specialized care that they need.

In truth, these kids are a special group of sexual assault victims. They have not chosen this lifestyle, despite what the perception is. Unfortunately, the term "child prostitution" implies to some people that there is some complicity from the victim.

Not true. Instead, more and more children are involved in sex trafficking because that the supply is becoming younger in response to buyers' demands. These perverts want to be with young people so they can be associated with their victims' youth, health, and vulnerability.

It's the commercial aspect that separates the crime of trafficking from other sexual acts children, and it is this aspect where we need to see change. Frequently, law enforcers and prosecutors do not recognize the commercial aspect or are too lazy, understaffed or under-budgeted to investigate. Instead, they rationalize that just getting the "perp" in the process of committing the act is enough. However, they are failing to get to the real source of the traffickers, the pimps, etc. and are not fully utilizing the power of this law.

Trafficking happens right here at home, not just in poor places by "pimps." Surprisingly, it often involves people you would never expect. For example, just last week, Ronald H. Tills, 74, a retired US State Supreme Court Justice, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on a felony charge of transporting prostitutes across state lines.

In this case, Tills was trafficking a young illegal woman to serve as a prostitute at a convention he was attending. A human trafficking task force investigated the case. Its members included investigators from the FBI, U. S. Border Patrol, and U. S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, as well as the Erie and Niagara County sheriff's offices. But this never really made the news - few people heard about it.

As I pondered the case, I couldn't help wondering why most of us hadn't heard about it. Perhaps there were other pressing news bits, but what is more pressing then protecting children and other victims of sexual assault? Is it more important to know whether Dr. Conrad Murray is going to be charged for manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death? Or is it more likely that human trafficking is a crime we simply don't understand--mostly because of a simple problem with semantics?

If you know someone who is being trafficked or sexually exploited, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-3737-888 or 9-1-1.

Follow Robin Sax on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robinsax

Philippine police arrest alleged terror leader

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine police on Friday arrested the alleged leader of a radical Islamist group believed to be responsible for one of Southeast Asia's deadliest terror attacks.

Dinno-Amor Rosalejos Pareja, also known as Khalil Pareja, was taken into custody in southern Marawi City and is being held without bail, said national police spokesman Senior Superintendent Leonardo Espina. Other details of his arrest were not immediately available. He is accused of rebelling against the state.

Pareja is allegedly the leader of the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Christian converts to Islam that U.S. and Philippine officials say is allied with two al-Qaida-linked groups — the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group based in the southern Philippines.

The group is believed to be behind the 2004 ferry bombing that killed 116 people in Manila Bay. It was the second-most deadly terrorist attack in Southeast Asia after the 2002 attack on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed 202 people.

Espina said Pareja is believed to have taken over leadership of the group following the arrest in 2005 of Hilarion Santos, the movement's leader and Pareja's brother-in-law.

The Rajah Solaiman and its Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah allies also have been blamed for a series of bombings in 2005 that killed about eight people and wounded 150 others in Manila and two southern cities.

In June last year, Washington froze any bank accounts or other financial assets in the United States that belong to the group or its members.

The Treasury Department said the group has received training, money and operational assistance from Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf group and from private Saudi sources that channeled funds through private charitable organizations in the Philippines.

Indonesia militants plotted Obama attack: expert

By Telly Nathalia

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A police investigation into last month's Jakarta hotel bombings shows that militants also planned to use snipers to attack Barack Obama's convoy when the U.S. president visits Indonesia, an intelligence expert told Reuters.

Authorities were also probing whether the suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels on July 17 received overseas funding from a group linked to Al Qaeda, said Dynno Chressbon, an intelligence analyst at the Center for Intelligence and National Security who is close to the police investigations.

He said two of four wanted suspects -- Ario Sudarso and Mohamad Syahrir -- who police released pictures of on Wednesday had been prepared as snipers for an attack on Obama.

"For Obama, they planned to attack the convoy around the airport using MK-IIIs," he said, referring to a type of Russian-made sniper rifle that he said was used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and also in Muslim conflict areas in the Philippines.

An Indonesian police spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday, but the sniper plot and other suspected plots indicate the scale of the ambitions of Indonesian militants may be far higher than first thought.

Obama has been widely expected to include a stopover in the world's most populous Muslim nation when he attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore in November.

The alleged snipers were from a group called the Indonesian Islamic State, which has a training camp in the restive southern Philippines and also has received support from a group headed by Malaysian-born militant Noordin Mohammad Top, Chressbon said.

Top, who formed a violent wing of the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, is believed to be the mastermind behind July's hotel attacks which killed nine people and wounded 53.

Since the hotel bombings, police have arrested at least five people and three others have been killed during raids, while police said a plot to attack Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had been thwarted.

AL QAEDA LINK

A possible Al Qaeda connection to the hotel attacks and other plots was also being investigated, Chressbon said, after two men believed to be from Yemen had stayed at the Marriott at the same time as an Indonesian called Syaifudin Zuhri bin Djaelani Irsyad, or SJ, who is believed to have recruited the suicide bombers.

Police believed the two men from Yemen were connected to Anshar El Muslimin, a group linked to the Al Qaeda network in Iraq set up by the late Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, Chressbon said.

The men had stayed in room 1621 at the Marriott from July 15-17 and claimed to be airline crew, but police suspect they were involved in the plot, he said.

"They booked and said they were Yemen Airways staff," he said, adding that the airline had said its staff did not use the Marriott for stopovers.

Asked about the role of the two men from Yemen, Ansyaad Mbai, head of the anti-terrorism desk at Indonesia's security ministry, said police were trying to confirm a link with the attacks.

"Of course, they have suspicions into this but it cannot be confirmed yet so it's impossible for them to say," Mbai said.

Police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a news conference on Wednesday that police had arrested a man believed to be a Saudi national and a local man suspected of being involved in arranging funding for the hotel attacks.

Chressbon said militants had also been discussing a plot to attack the APEC summit in Singapore, holding a meeting in July 2008 in Solo, Central Java, and another in Cilacap, also in Central Java, in June which Top is believed to have attended.

At the Solo meeting, the two Yemenis had met a Singaporean national called Husein bin Ismail, also known as Hendrawan, who is now in police custody, he said. Ismail had brought a map of the APEC summit site in Singapore to the meeting, Chressbon said.

Militants, including Top, had also held an April 5 meeting in Jakarta at which they discussed a list of possible targets in Jakarta in addition to the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, including other luxury hotels, the Chinese embassy, an American Express building and a DBS Bank building for attacks slated over a period between August 5-17, Chressbon said.

The meeting also discussed possible attacks on the residence of President Yudhoyono, the presidential palace and the election commission building in central Jakarta, Chressbon said, although no timetable had been set, he added.

Police have previously said that Top had chaired a meeting on April 30 where a plot was hatched to carry out a suicide attack on Yudhoyono's residence using a truck packed with explosives in retaliation for the execution of the Bali bombers last year.

Authorities had seized up to half a tonne of explosives suspected of being prepared for the attacks, police said.

Chressbon said militants had also been planning another wave of attacks after August 23, including on a mall in Jakarta and three malls in Makassar, Sulawesi, while offices in Jakarta housing foreign resource companies had also been targeted.

(Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

Sri Lanka to train Pakistani army

Sri Lanka's army has said it will be happy to give training to members of the Pakistani military.

It says Islamabad has requested the training because of the country's success in defeating the Tamil Tigers.

In May, the government announced the end to a decades-long war with the rebel group.

The army's new commander told the BBC that Pakistan had already asked if it could send its military cadets to train in counter-insurgency operations.

"We'll give a favourable response," Lt Gen Jagath Jayasuriya said of the request.

He said the Sri Lankan military envisaged specialist courses lasting up to six weeks, directed towards small groups from interested armies.

Lt Gen Jayasuriya said there was external interest in how the military had defeated the rebel group in practical terms.

The army now wished to construct a written military doctrine in English.

Mutual support

He said Sri Lanka had offered similar training, through diplomatic channels, to other countries including the United States, India, Bangladesh and The Philippines.

He dismissed reports that the Pakistanis might receive military training in newly recaptured parts of northern Sri Lanka, saying it would be more likely in the south-east.

But he did say new permanent military bases would be set up in those northern areas including the rebels' former headquarters, Kilinochchi.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan have long enjoyed warm relations.

In late May, Pakistan - like India, China and Russia - helped Colombo defeat a motion at the UN which would have criticised both the government and the rebels for allegedly violating humanitarian law during the war.

But India, which is highly influential here, might well be uncomfortable at this news of the Pakistanis' interest in being trained.

Dozens of Migrants Missing in Attempt to Reach Italy

By Sabina Castelfranco
Rome
21 August 2009

Italian border police have rescued five African migrants who were adrift for days in a rubber dinghy in the Mediterranean waters between Libya and Italy. But the few survivors told authorities that dozens of others traveling with them died in their attempt to reach the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

When they left the Libyan coast July 28 on an overcrowded 12 meter rubber dinghy the survivors told authorities the group included about 80 mainly Eritreans, some Ethiopians and a number of Somalis. When the group was rescued by a patrol boat of the Italian Border Police on Thursday, only five were left on board: one woman and four men, two of them minors.

They were apparently the only survivors. According to what survivors told Italian Border Police, the others all perished during the crossing and were thrown overboard one by one, into the Mediterranean, a sea that has come to be known as the "cemetery of immigrants".

Italian Border Police Colonel Riccardo Rocconi said that before any search for bodies could take place it would have to be determined where the dinghy was when the others allegedly went overboard. Officials on the island of Malta said seven bodies had been sighted in Libyan waters this week but were not recovered because they were outside of Maltese waters.

After being rescued, the five migrants were immediately taken to Lampedusa's reception center, directed by Federico Miragliotta.

He says that in consideration of the long journey they have faced, the condition of the migrants is what could be expected for subjects that have been at sea for about three weeks. He said they were exhausted from their trip and have been placed under medical care.

The stories told by those who made it to the remote southern Italian island tell of desperate conditions. Titti was the only woman to have been rescued. She said two of her cousins and a brother had boarded the dinghy with her in the hope of making it to Italy, where they have other relatives.

With tears in her eyes and sun-burns on many parts of her body, she told the media of how she traveled from Eritrea to Libya where she worked in slave-like conditions for several months in a Libyan home.

Then, she said, the traffickers, who she said kept them as prisoners in some warehouses, decided it was time for them to make the crossing and took them to a beach where the rubber dinghy was waiting for them with tanks of petrol.

It was immediately clear, she added, that the petrol was insufficient for the crossing from the Libyan coast to Lampedusa but the people smugglers allegedly dismissed the migrant's complaints.

During the day, Titti said it was like an inferno with the sun and salt water burning their bodies. And at night, she said it was cold and there was nothing to keep them warm. She said they prayed and hoped but all the boats they saw on the way across the Mediterranean failed to come to their rescue.

Seventeen-year-old Hampton, from Eritrea, is another of the survivors. He said during their journey they came across several boats that ignored them. Then a fishing vessel, five days before they were rescued, saw them. He said they were exhausted and had run out of food, water, petrol and their cell phone batteries were dead.

Hampton said he could not believe the behavior of the men on board the fishing vessel. He said they spoke English and all they did was hand them a couple of bottles of water, some bread, and then disappeared.

A United Nations refugee spokeswoman in Italy, Laura Boldrini, expressed horror at the incident, saying it was the first time that a boat carrying migrants had been at sea for so long - more than three weeks. She said "it appears that what is prevailing is fear of providing assistance over the duty of rescuing whoever is found in conditions of difficulty at sea."

Mysteries pile on country

Julfikar Ali Manik and Shariful Islam

Political and security analysts advise the government set up a new, strong investigation body to unravel the mysteries behind the major terrorist attacks.

The suggested organisation would be comprised of experts from a wide spectrum of professions to analyse an incident from different angles.

It would work alongside the existing criminal investigation agencies that seem inadequate to crack sensational cases and unable to withstand pressure not to track down the political elements involved.

The suggestion came in conversation with The Daily Star yesterday, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the August 21 grenade attack.

The probe into the grenade blasts had been politicised like that into many other terror strikes, which had the nation on edge over the last few years.

The way investigation officials had worked under the last BNP-led government threw into question the credibility of their findings.

Prof Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, said, “The perpetrators seem to have tried to achieve many goals through the August 21 blasts. They might be some quarters at home with links abroad.

"Their motives might have been keeping the country under-developed, destroying its secular spirit, hampering its economic growth, etc. The government should form a separate investigation organisation to unearth the motives and unmask the masterminds.”

He added that every detail must come out if measures to stop recurrence of violence were to succeed.

Socio-political analyst Prof Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, historian Prof Syed Anwar Hossain and former inspector general of police ASM Shahjahan too emphasise forming a national body to solve assassinations, terrorist attacks and arms hauls.

On this day in 2004, terrorists hurled grenades at the then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue.

Hasina survived the attempt on her life but saw 23 of her party leaders and workers killed and scores injured.

President Zillur Rahman's wife Ivy Rahman was among those who died.

Three former investigation officers in the August 21 blasts case now face criminal proceedings for carrying out misleading probe during the four-party rule.

Besides politicisation, limited purview of the probe and lack of efficient investigators have long kept the nation in the dark about the conspiracy behind the attack.

From a court's verdict based on charge sheet, people can at best know who executed the attack. The masterminds, motives and the entire conspiracy would still elude them.

Former caretaker government adviser ASM Shahjahan, who was CID chief twice, suggested the government form a committee to delve into the conspiracies behind the terror attacks and assassinations since criminal investigation has its limitations in that regard.

All findings except those that may hamper national security should be let out in the open in the public interest, he continued.

"The whole truth must be uncovered for the sake of justice and the rule of law."

Referring to the recent US revelations about Bangabandhu killing, the analysts said the criminal investigation in this case could not dig up such aspects, which are too vital for the nation to miss.

Syed Anwar observed, "In cases like August 21 blasts, trial and execution of verdict are never enough. We need to know everything about the plots behind.

“The government should set up an enquiry commission that would bring out the truth and publish it in white papers."

Sirajul Islam Chowdhury said, "For special probes, we cannot depend solely on police. Because they cannot go after the political leaders with links to terrorism and organised crime, or they do not even try."

In light of these limitations, experts from different sectors should be engaged to conduct a strong and credible judicial enquiry.

Prof Chowdhury said the August 21 attack was aimed at not merely an individual but the secular principles of the state. He said it was a continuation of the August 15 bloodbath in 1975.

In most cases, the non-communal force has been the target of the attacks, he added.

Prof Anwar said it is obvious that the country's enemies, mostly rightists and extremists, do not bother to follow political norms and values while dealing with political adversaries.

Prof Imtiaz said whoever--Huji or JMB--had staged the August 21 blasts are non-state elements.

They had network in and outside the country and carried out the attack by outfoxing the intelligence agencies. They might have gone to the expense of infiltrating operatives into AL, he continued.

The perpetrators were well prepared and disciplined. They might have been aided and abetted by some other organised forces. Even a part of the state machinery might have a hand in the carnage, observed the DU professor.

“The non-state elements responsible for subversive activities can stay untouchable only if the democratic structure of a country is weak.”

Imtiaz suggested the government assign think-tanks to conduct research or probe to find out facts behind such attacks and form a body like "Public Security Council".

STATUS OF AUGUST 21 CASES

After years of drama over investigation during the tenure of BNP-led coalition government, charges were pressed against 22 people in two August 21 cases on June 11 last year.

Huji boss Mufti Abdul Hannan and BNP leader and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu are among the charge-sheeted accused.

A Dhaka court on August 3 issued an order for further probe into the incident as the earlier one failed to identify the collectors and suppliers of grenades used in the attack.

Abdul Kahar Akand, senior ASP of CID, was given charge of the probe into the carnage after the court asked the police chief to submit report within two months.

"I have just reviewed the case documents and started investigation," Kahar told The Daily Star yesterday.

Cops uncover weapons cache, suspect terrorism

By M. KUMAR

kumar@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: Police conducting a raid on a settlement of illegal Indonesian immigrants near Desa Sri Hartamas here found industrial-grade explosives and weapons at the site, and have not ruled out terrorist involvement.

The explosives, which included six sticks of industrial-grade C4 called Emulex and four wire detonators, were found carefully stashed under the floor of one of the settlement’s huts.

Police also found more than 30 machetes, crudely-made swords, knives and sickles hidden around the settlement.

Emulex is a water-based emulsion explosive usually used in mining, quarrying, road and railway construction, and tunnelling.

Brickfields OCPD Asst Comm Wan Abdul Bari Wan Abdul Khalid said a team from the Travers police station had initially conducted the raid on Thursday evening to weed out the illegals, after monitoring the site for several weeks.

“An initial routine search revealed several weapons hidden throughout the settlement,” he said, adding that the explosives were found when a second search operation was carried out Friday.

The settlement, hidden in the wooded hills behind Desa Sri Hartamas, is believed to have been home to about 10 Indonesian families.

ACP Wan Abdul Bari said most of the residents at the settlement escaped before the raid as they had spotted the police team moving towards them.

“We managed to apprehend three of them, in their 30s, including a woman,” he said, adding that none had proper travel documents.

He said police did not rule out the possibility that terrorists were living in the settlement, which housed about 20 to 30 crudely-built wooden huts that had access to electricity and clean water stolen from a nearby construction site.

The site bore signs of family life, like clothes hanging on clotheslines, baby walkers, gas stoves which were left hastily by its former residents, and even several photo albums with family pictures in them.

Locals in the area said the settlement had been there about three years and had grown in size recently.

Irregularities found in Visa-on-Arrival system

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 08/21/2009

Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) chief Anwar Nasution says there is a serious problem with the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) system, which needs to be addressed.

“There has been a serious mistake in the implementation of the system,” Anwar told Antara nes agency after signing an agreement with the Justice and Human Rights Ministry on improving the latter’s financial reports here on Friday.

Anwar made the statement following the recent discovery of violations in the implementation of the VoA system at Denpasar’s Ngurah Rai International Airport.

BPK auditors had discovered that users of the VoA system at the airport between Oct. 2008 and May 2009 had been made to pay an illegal levy that had caused the state financial losses of some Rp 3 billion.

The official tariff for VoA for stays of less than a week was US$10, and for stays of more than a week US$25, per person. In practice, however, Ngurah Rai immigration officers had charged applicants US$25 for VoA for stays of less than a week.

It is believed this had also been happening at other international entry points around the country.

Rwanda: Tribunal’s Work Incomplete

25,000 to 45,000 Rwandan Patriotic Front Killings from 1994 Never Addressed

August 17, 2009

(New York) - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda may lose its credibility unless it indicts and tries Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) officers suspected of having committed war crimes in Rwanda in 1994, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the tribunal's chief prosecutor made public today.

Responding to claims by the chief prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, that he has done everything he can to investigate crimes on all sides for the events of 1994, the letter points out that the tribunal has brought to justice leading figures behind the genocide but failed to pursue officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the rebel group that ended the genocide and has since become Rwanda's governing party. The RPF is alleged to have killed between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians in the same three-month period.

"The prosecutor's failure to commit to prosecuting senior RPF officers has undermined his credibility and that of the ICTR," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Time is running out for him to fulfill his mandate and to secure the tribunal's legacy as a champion of justice and accountability for all victims in Rwanda."

Although the tribunal has investigated RPF crimes for more than 10 years and has gathered witness testimony and physical evidence, Jallow told the UN Security Council on June 4, 2009, in a briefing about the tribunal's progress, that he did "not have an indictment that is ready in respect of these allegations at this particular stage."

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly urged Jallow to outline his plans for prosecuting the Rwandan Patriotic Front's crimes before the tribunal's tenure ends at the end of 2010.

In response to Human Rights Watch's previous requests, the prosecutor issued a letter suggesting that his office did not have enough evidence to bring prosecutions against Rwandan Patriotic Front officers. The prosecutor defended his June 2008 decision to transfer an RPF case to Rwanda to be prosecuted there. He reiterated his position that Rwanda's attempt to hold RPF officers to account in last year's domestic trial - known as the Kabgayi case - met international fair trial standards. Human Rights Watch's own monitoring of the trial concluded the proceedings amounted to a political whitewash and a miscarriage of justice.

HIV-positive kids still face harsh discrimination

It was just the second day of classes of the new school year, yet the An Nhon Tay Primary School in Ho Chi Minh City’s Cu Chi District was nearly empty on Tuesday. Just 98 students turned up with between five and 10 students in each class. It wasn’t because enrollment numbers were down this year, however, or because of influenza A (H1N1) fears. The reason for the sparsely populated school was in fact because hundreds of parents pulled their children out of classes upon learning the school had admitted 15 HIV-positive students this year. Principal Nguyen Van Chan said that on the first day of classes, many parents rushed into the building to remove their kids after seeing students from the local Mai Hoa Center for HIV-affected children entering the school. “In total, 255 students followed their parents home, and only 44 students stayed at school,” despite the school’s efforts to convince parents to let the kids stay, said Chan. Not until the school sent the 15 HIV-affected children back to Mai Hoa, did some parents allow their kids to return on Tuesday, a teacher said. The incident was a bitter experience, say officials from both An Nhon Tay School and the Mai Hoa center, as the two schools have made significant efforts to integrate the Mai Hoa children into the public school. The 15 children, mostly orphans, had been attending second to fifth grade classes at the center when they were finally given permission to transfer to An Nhon Tay School. Up until recently, nuns from Mai Hoa had been bringing the 15 kids to join some of the school’s ceremonies as well as festivals and sightseeing tours. Mai Hoa had applied for permission to let the HIV-affected children attend classes at An Nhon Tay School this year and had gained approval from the district’s education division, according to Chan. Yet, in the end, they still failed to gain approval from parents whose children were attending the school. “From the teachers’ viewpoint, all students are the same and should have the chance to go to school and study,” Chan said. “However, [allowing HIV-infected kids to attend a public school] is a very sensitive problem and it’s difficult to get society’s acceptance,” he said. “What we are most concerned about is that the HIV-affected children may get hurt [emotionally]. They are too little to be aware [of the stigma],” Chan added. A dream out of reach Since 2006, the Mai Hoa center has been making efforts to give the 15 children, of whom most were infected with HIV from their parents, the same education as offered in public schools. In 2007, Cu Chi District authorities finally agreed to let Mai Hoa offer academic classes for the children with textbooks provided by An Nhon Dong Primary School. However, they were still refused when applying to send the children to public schools last year. The children, who have already faced a host of untold hardships in their young lives, were extremely excited and hopeful upon learning of their acceptance into An Nhon Tay School this year, said Sister Bao from Mai Hoa. “The night before the first day of school the children were so excited,” Sister Bao said. “In the morning they got up at 5:30 a.m. and were ready to go to school. “But in the end, parents objected so much. My heart was broken seeing them stare at and dodge the kids,” Sister Bao said, adding that several of the Mai Hoa children began crying upon learning they would have to return to the center for the rest of the school year. A conference held in May on care programs for children with HIV/AIDS or who have family members with the disease, heard that discrimination against such kids is still rampant in Vietnam despite some schools accepting the children. Source: Tuoi Tre

Story from Thanh Nien News Published: 20 August, 2009

Leaflets knock prime minister

HUNDREDS of anonymous anti-government leaflets condemning Prime Minister Hun Sen as an "absolute leader" and a "puppet of Vietnam" appeared around the streets of Phnom Penh in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The leaflets, bearing a small picture of the premier, warned Cambodian citizens that their present leader was single-handedly responsible for reducing the once-great Khmer nation to ruins.

Partly handwritten and partly typed in Khmer, they accuse the prime minister of "selling the nation" and called on the people of Cambodia to oppose Hun Sen's "puppet regime".

"I am so proud that I was born Khmer," reads one, a copy of which has been obtained by the Post. "The Khmer race built Angkor. I remember the time when Khmer glory was well-known all over the world. We were feared and admired for our civilisation, culture and fine arts, but all that has now disappeared because of the absolute regime of the present government."

The leaflets were printed on A4 paper and appeared in prominent public places across the city - including Wat Phnom - before sunrise, but were swiftly taken down by police, witnesses said.

The government played down the leaflets' significance on Wednesday, insisting that Cambodians would not be swayed by acts of political subversion, and that the real test of their loyalty would be the ballot box.

"This is not the first time such a thing has happened," Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said. "This has happened many times before, but the result is always the same at the elections."

Police confirmed on Wednesday that they were investigating the incident, but said the allegations made in the leaflets were "out of date" and failed to take into account the government's current rate of development.

Kirt Chantharith, chief of general staff and spokesman for the commissioner general of the National Police, said: "[They] should not use words like this to insult the leader, but the leaflet is out of date. This game is very old and hasn't worked. National development has been thinking ahead."

Phnom Penh police Chief Touch Naruth echoed the sentiments. "Some people had burned it already because it is saying the same old thing, but they know the true situation," he said.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, was critical of the language used in the leaflets, warning that the use of such openly inflammatory rhetoric could be counterproductive.

"Insulting someone is not necessarily freedom of expression," he said. "Writers should have clear morals and avoid insulting the government."

Junta alert about possible monk-led protests

by Mizzima News

Thursday, 20 August 2009 17:53

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Firm in its belief that Buddhist monks are gearing up for another round of protests, the Burmese military junta has put main Buddhist monasteries and temples under close surveillance, sources in the military establishment in Naypyitaw said. Based on intelligence inputs the military government believes that there could be another round of protests akin to that of the September 2007 demonstrations, which came to be known as the ‘Saffron Revolution’. It is therefore keeping monks under special surveillance. Monks from Kyopinkauk township are included in the list of special surveillance, the source said. In Rangoon security personnel are once again visible, taking up positions in main junctions, and key areas, including the popular Shwe Dagon Pagoda and Kabar Aye Pagoda Street, which were used as places to assemble by protesting monks during the September demonstrations.

Somali insurgents in deadly raid

More than 20 people have been killed in heavy battles in Somalia's capital after Islamist fighters launched a pre-dawn raid in the south of Mogadishu.

A BBC reporter says the al-Shabab group was acting in retaliation to an incursion into the area by African Union peacekeepers on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has decided to list al-Shabab as a terrorist organisation.

It follows the discovery of a suicide attack plot linked to the group.

Earlier this month five men - at least three of whom are of Somali origin - were arrested and charged with planning a suicide attack on an army barracks in Sydney.

Al-Shabab - which is accused of links to al-Qaeda - has denied any connection with the men charged in Australia.

The group is trying to overthrow Somalia's UN-backed government and was listed as a terrorist organisation in the United States in February last year.

Shelling

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the latest fighting started early in the morning and mortars were exchanged by both sides.

He says AU tanks also fired shells.

"Hundreds of well-armed insurgents came to our district with minibuses and pick-up trucks and immediately they started firing towards the government troops and an AU base," local resident Abdi Haji Ahmed told the BBC.

"We ducked fearfully under our house's concrete balcony for hours."

The fighting affected several southern suburbs, causing civilian causalities - an ambulance co-ordinator said at least 18 people had died and 40 others had been taken to hospital.

People were also affected as they tried to get to work at the city's main Bakara market

"Mortars landed into the market, killing six people, including traders, who were rushing to open their business centres early this morning," a businessman said.

Offensive

On Thursday AU troops patrolled along an industrial road in the south of the city where al-Shabab has several bases, our correspondent says.

The AU peacekeepers described the move as a routine military exercise, but the Islamist radicals regarded the patrol as provocative.

Our reporter says the attack comes the day before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the insurgents have vowed to redouble their attacks.

This week has seen pro-government troops go on the offensive outside the capital.

Clashes have been reported on Friday morning in two separate areas of the central Hiran region, but details are sketchy.

Residents in the area say the fighting is close to the strategic town of Beledweyne, which witnessed clashes on Thursday, and the village of Mahas.

Beledweyne is reported to still be in the hands of the government.

Calm has returned to the central town of Buloburte, where government soldiers and al-Shabab fighters fought fiercely on Thursday.

Government forces have withdrawn from the town and al-Shabab is again in control.

Afghan rivals claim poll victory

The two leading contenders for Afghanistan's presidential election have both claimed victory.

The campaign teams for incumbent Hamid Karzai and ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah both said they had won an outright majority in Thursday's poll.

Electoral officials say the ballot counting is now over and the official result will be announced soon, but warned against predicting the outcome.

They say initial results suggest turnout was between 40 and 50%.

If confirmed, that would be a lot lower than the 70% who turned out to vote in the first presidential election, in 2004.

But observers have hailed this election a success, after voting passed off relatively peacefully amid threats of Taliban attacks.

The UN said the vast majority of polling stations were able to function.

However, Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) said on Friday that 11 people had been killed by insurgent attacks while trying to organise the election.

Allegations of ballot box tampering and block voting are also threatening to overshadow the result. Abdullah Abdullah told the BBC he had complained to the electoral commission about alleged voting irregularities by supporters of Mr Karzai in the southern province of Kandahar. Mr Karzai has not commented on the claims.

And, in a sign of the ongoing difficulties facing the next president, the UK government announced the deaths of two British soldiers, killed by an explosion while on routine foot patrol in Helmand province.

The deaths happened on Thursday but were not connected to the election, the Ministry of Defence said.

'Different turnouts'

Deen Mohammad, the campaign chief for Hamid Karzai, said they predicted victory after reports from nearly 29,000 monitors they had at polling stations across the country.

AT THE SCENE
Hafizullah Fayaz BBC Uzbek/Afghan service, Mazar-i-Sharif Security men are still guarding this girls' school-turned-polling station. One said they would stay until all the counting was done and the ballot boxes had gone to the city's main election centre.

Counting for the presidential poll was completed in many of Mazar's voting centres late on election night.

The results are hanging on the walls inside the polling stations - sheets of paper with the candidates' names and number of votes next to them.

Not many voters are around to check on the results. Most of the delegates of the main challengers seem happy with the count, though some have complained of problems with the indelible ink used to mark the fingers of voters who cast their ballots.

Early results at six polling stations here do not give any candidate more than 50%.

"Initial results show that the president has got a majority," he told Reuters news agency. "We will not go to a second round. We have got a majority."

But a spokesman for Abdullah Abdullah was quick to play down the Karzai camp's claims.

Fazl Sangcharaki said the results from his observers at polling booths around the country suggested Abdullah Abdullah had won 63% of the vote to Hamid Karzai's 31%.

"This is not a final result," he told the AFP news agency. "We are still receiving more results from our people on the ground. We might be done by tomorrow."

The 62,000 polling stations are required to make public the results as they count them, but Afghan election officials refused to confirm either candidates' claims.

Instead, they asked the campaign teams to stay calm and refrain from speculating on the results. "We cannot confirm any claims by campaigning managers," said Zekria Barakzai of the IEC. "It's the job of the election commission to declare the results. They should be patient."

Official results had not been expected for a couple of weeks, but the IEC confirmed on Friday that ballot counting was over for the presidential election in all parts of the country and the result could come in the next few days.

Pre-election opinion polls suggested Hamid Karzai was leading the field of 30 candidates, but might face a second round run-off with Mr Abdullah.

If neither candidate wins an outright majority of 50%, then the vote is expected to go to a second round in October.

COUNTING THE VOTES

Counting began after polls closed at 1700 local time on Thursday

Votes counted by hand at each of the 6,200 polling stations

Polling stations are required to post their results immediately, to prevent fraud

Candidates' representatives are also given immediate access to results

The counting appeared to be completed by Friday lunchtime, with official returns due over the weekend

The IEC said that preliminary results suggest up to 50% of the 17 million registered voters actually came out to vote - a significant drop from the 70% of 10 million voters in 2004.

Mr Barakzai said turnout was different from north to south, where the Taliban's campaign of voter intimidation and attacks in its strongholds was believed to have had some effect.

But, says the BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul, some people would have stayed at home because of disillusionment with the current administration of Hamid Karzai.

People are unhappy that the changes they had expected have not happened - unemployment is still high and poverty still endemic, our correspondent says.

But, he says, Western sponsors of the government believe there are some very good members in the cabinet - and the hope is that once the new president is sworn in changes can be made.

Myanmar Troops Gain on Rebels as Villagers Flee

By THOMAS FULLER

MAE SALID, Thailand — For the first time in at least a decade, Myanmar’s central government controls most of its own border with Thailand. By the standards of most countries this might not be considered a major accomplishment. But Myanmar has been fighting ethnic Karen rebels along the mountainous border for nearly as long as it has existed as an independent country.

The Myanmar military and a local proxy militia undertook an assault in June that led to the capture of seven military camps run by the Karen National Union, a rebel group that once so dominated parts of the 1,100-mile Thailand-Myanmar border that it collected customs duties at its own checkpoints.

The June offensive surprised the Karen forces partly because it took place during the muddy monsoon season, usually a time of a climate-induced truce. Hundreds of rebels fled into the jungles infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

The Karen have led one of the most resilient insurgencies in Asia. They once proposed to their British colonial overlords that they create an independent “Karenistan.” But they now appear understaffed, under-equipped and divided, according to Bertil Lintner, a Thailand-based expert on ethnic groups in Myanmar, formerly called Burma. “They have lost most of their military strength,” he said.

The main losers of the most recent fighting, however, were not combatants but villagers, many of them children, forced to flee their homes in the remote and impoverished Karen hills. The Karen Human Rights Group, an organization that monitors the conflict, counted 4,862 villagers who crossed to the Thai side of the border, where already crowded refugee camps hold more than 120,000 people.

After six decades of independence from Britain, much of that time marked by civil war, Myanmar is still a long way from controlling all of its borders. Karen militants still occupy some camps along the Salween River, north of the border with Thailand. The Kachin and Wa ethnic groups, among others, have their own significant armies on the border with China. They have resisted a proposal that they become border guards controlled by the central government.

But the victories along the Thai border in June brought the military a step closer to its goal of national consolidation before parliamentary elections next year, an event that the military says will usher in the first civilian government in almost five decades.

“If you look back 20 years, every year the Karen have lost more and more territory,” said Win Min, an expert on Myanmar at Payap University in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. Mr. Win Min doubts, however, that the government will be able to eliminate all Karen resistance.

The June offensive may have been partly inspired by the success of the Sri Lankan government in using force to rout Tamil Tiger rebels in May, crippling or perhaps ending that long-running insurgency. Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, visited Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, in June. Both governments have been criticized by human rights groups and Western nations for the treatment of civilians during the offensives.

Unlike the Tamil rebels, however, the Karen today remain a fighting force, albeit dispersed and demoralized, according to Mr. Win Min.

Naw Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the Karen National Union, says the group has at least 4,000 men under arms, most of them hiding in remote locations. The number is impossible to verify.

“Our soldiers are still deep inside,” Ms. Sein said in an interview on the Thai side of the border. “We still have our strength from the people.”

The area’s isolation remains an advantage for the Karen rebels, allowing them to carry out guerrilla attacks on the military and to lay land mines on footpaths. There are few roads in the Karen hills. Many villages lack electricity and telephone service, and families still sometimes keep elephants for transportation and to haul logs, according to Paw Paw, a midwife who lives in the Butho district, a six-hour walk from the Thai border. She periodically treks across the border to stock up on medical supplies.

Karen villagers remain sympathetic to and supportive of insurgents, she said, and terrified of government troops, notorious for pressing villagers into serving as porters and guides through heavily mined areas.

Dr. Cynthia Maung, who runs a clinic on the Thai side of the border, says that many young Karen have fled to Thailand for fear of being recruited, leaving the old behind. “The community structure is being destroyed,” she said.

The Karen are largely Christian and were favored by British colonialists for top posts in the government. This and other factors are the seeds of conflict with the majority Burman, most of whom are Buddhist and today hold the reins of power in Myanmar’s military junta.

The conflict between the Karen National Union and the central government dates from 1949, a year after independence from Britain. The latest round of fighting started June 2, when the Burmese military attacked with mortars and large-caliber weapons, according to Col. Bothien Thientha, 48, of the Karen National Liberation Army, the military wing of the National Union.

The Myanmar government’s local ally, the Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army, led the charge toward his camp at Mae Salid, across the river from the Thai town of the same name. Colonel Thientha tried to launch a rocket-propelled grenade but it backfired, injuring his shoulder and blowing off four fingers of his left hand. He and 90 other soldiers abandoned their camp.

The colonel’s injury highlights a major problem for the Karen rebels: a dwindling stock of weapons, which are aging.

Colonel Thientha says his unit’s members keep their weapons wrapped in plastic bags hidden in the jungle. “We don’t have enough, but we use them in moderation,” he said.

The timing of the offensive was particularly bad for the children of the Lay Klo Yaw elementary and middle school. Financed by an American missionary family, the school was inaugurated on June 1. The next day, when mortar shells began exploding in the distance, 125 schoolchildren fled across the Moei River to Thailand carrying their blankets, sleeping mats and books.

Ehganyaw, a teacher from the school who uses only one name, now watches with binoculars as soldiers of the pro-government Buddhist militia slowly take apart the spoils of war across the river: plank by plank, the school and church are being disassembled.

“They’ve taken all the wood,” Mr. Ehganyaw exclaimed as he peered across the river with a journalist’s telephoto lens. “The church is gone!”

China’s Secretive Military Opens Up in Cyberspace

By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — China’s military launched a long-promised strategic assault Thursday on its skeptics and detractors, a globe-spanning offensive powered not by arms, but entirely by charm.

The weapon was the Defense Ministry’s new Web site, its sharp home page topped by a photograph of a winding Great Wall and studded below with links to military news, video and photographs. The lead item on Thursday dealt not with missiles or troops, but with President Hu Jintao’s expressions of sympathy to Taiwan, which is believed to have lost more than 500 lives this month to a typhoon.

The site, which has Chinese and English versions, is another step by China’s famously secretive armed forces to give outsiders a peek at their operations, or at least the view they want to offer. The ministry named a press spokesman only last year; last month the People’s Liberation Army, or P.L.A., bused journalists to a base near Beijing for an afternoon of watching soldiers fire mortars and conduct mock counterterrorism operations.

A notice about the Web site said it was intended to give outsiders a better understanding of China’s defense policies, improve cooperation with foreigners and “display before the world the fine image of the P.L.A. as a mighty, civilized and peaceful force.”

The contents range from ordinary news (“Chinese Navy fights pirates”) to background material (“Thirty years of reform and development”) to carefully phrased opinion (“Sino-foreign military exchange and co-op boosts regional stability”).

Part of the site seemed to be a work in progress. Late Thursday, there was a lot of blank space at the top of the home page, and what looked like a photo gallery was evidently not functioning. It had no pictures, only blank boxes containing the word “undefined.”

In style and tone, the site is not radically different from some Internet offerings by the Pentagon. But while many foreign militaries have openly, if grudgingly, accepted public scrutiny in recent decades, much in China remains tightly held, from strategic doctrine to weapons development.

“China is more open to the world. So is the P.L.A.,” an army commander, Col. Leng Jiesong, told journalists during the July tour of the army base.

U.S. Military to Stay in Philippines

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has decided to keep an elite 600-troop counterinsurgency operation deployed in the Philippines despite pressure to reassign its members to fulfill urgent needs elsewhere, like in Afghanistan or Iraq, according to Pentagon officials.

The high-level attention given to the future of the force, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, illustrates the Pentagon’s difficulty in finding enough of these highly trained units for assignments to two wars — as well as for the wider effort to combat insurgencies and militancy in other parts of the world deemed to be threats to American interests.

Senior officials said the decision also acknowledged a cautionary lesson from Afghanistan: that battlefield success should be rewarded with sustained commitment, while prematurely turning the military’s attention elsewhere — as when the Bush administration shifted focus to Iraq — provides insurgents and terrorists the opportunity to rush back in.

In the seven years that the Philippines-based American force has been operating, its members have trained local security units and provided logistical and intelligence support to Filipino forces fighting insurgents.

Senior officials say the American force and partners in the Central Intelligence Agency were instrumental in successes by the Filipino armed forces in killing and capturing leaders of the militant group Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, antigovernment organizations operating in the south.

In a simultaneous counterinsurgency effort in the Philippines, members of the American force have completed hundreds of infrastructure projects, including roads, schools, health clinics and firehouses, conducted medical examinations and administered vaccines.

Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of American forces in the Pacific, said the force’s work was not yet done. “The successes we enjoy, and the gains, can tend to anesthetize us a little bit,” he said. “When the options were presented to our leadership, the decision was made to continue the Philippines mission.”

Before making his decision, Mr. Gates visited the Philippines in June. Then, Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, followed with an unannounced visit in July — underscoring the tight link between the military and intelligence efforts.

“Based on his briefings heading into Manila and his meetings on the ground there, Secretary Gates just felt this is not the right time to begin scaling back our support,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “While we have made real progress against international terrorist groups there, everyone believes they would ramp back up their attacks if we were to draw down.”

Even independent, nongovernmental organizations that normally look skeptically on American military efforts have praised the Philippines operation.

“In general, the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines has been regarded as a success story, especially in terms of winning hearts and minds through civic action and medical assistance projects,” said Mark L. Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group.

He noted, however, that the insurgency in the Philippines “is a political problem first and foremost” and that no military effort alone can bring success against antigovernment forces.

Special Operations Forces are the most highly skilled in the military at capture-and-kill missions against insurgent and terrorist leaders. Within their ranks, Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, have for decades been training allied troops on their home soil and conducting counterinsurgency missions.

The American ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie A. Kenney, said that measuring the impact of the military mission there was difficult, but she emphasized that the task force’s efforts were multiplied by being closely coordinated with the Filipino government and American development assistance.

Col. Bill Coultrup, the task force commander, said that when he arrived in 2007, his goal was simple: “Help the Philippines security forces. It’s their fight. We don’t want to take over.”

His service includes deployments with Special Operations units in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Bosnia, where the mission focused on capturing or killing adversaries. But in the Philippines, Colonel Coultrup’s work has been only 20 percent combat-related. That portion of the military mission is designed to “help the armed forces of the Philippines neutralize high-value targets — individuals who will never change their minds,” he said.

Eighty percent of the effort, though, has been “civil-military operations to change the conditions that allow those high-value targets to have a safe haven,” Colonel Coultrup added. “We do that through helping give a better life to the citizens: good governance, better health care, a higher standard of living.”

Congo’s Militias Lure Former Rebels From Burundi

By JOSH KRON and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

LUBERIZI, Congo — For Takwita Mungu, like many leftover soldiers from Burundi’s recently ended civil war, it all began with a phone call.

After seven years of bush fighting, and then giving up his gun under a new disarmament program for Burundian rebels, Private Mungu was unemployed, broke and restless. But the militia recruiter on the other end of the phone offered a glittering promise: diamonds, gold and a job fighting for the last bastion of militant Hutuism, in Congo.

“I knew right away,” said Private Mungu, 28, who had agreed to demobilize this past April but said he received neither compensation nor a job, only a shove back into the wilds of civilian life.

According to United Nations and Burundian military officials, Private Mungu is just one of hundreds of former Burundian rebel soldiers who are blazing an illicit trail across rivers and borders to fight for their brethren here in eastern Congo, worsening an already devastating conflict.

The men are joining the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., an ethnic Hutu militia based in Congo that is considered one of Africa’s most venomous rebel movements. It was also the target of the recent, joint Congo-Rwanda military offensive intended to finally bring peace to this war-racked region.

For decades, the same ethnic tensions that plunged Rwanda into genocide in 1994 have brought violence to Burundi. The country, whose demographics, economy and history mirror those of Rwanda, has been a relatively forgotten piece of the Hutu-Tutsi saga that has plagued Africa’s Great Lakes Region.

Just as the violence in Rwanda spread beyond its borders, the fighting in Burundi has spilled over into Congo, where militants and their extremist ideologies prey on villages and the minerals beneath them. While a recent peace deal in Burundi has officially ended years of rebellion and bloodshed there, it has disenfranchised many former fighters.

The way Private Mungu describes it, he was a pawn in a veteran Hutu resistance movement, which fought its way to a power-sharing agreement in Burundi in December that granted its members cabinet posts and a slice of the country’s security apparatus.

But most of the jobs went to the top rebel officers, leaving more than 10,000 — from soldiers to schoolteachers — out in the cold. The most fortunate of these received less than $100 in disarmament packages; many, like Private Mungu, say they got nothing. Some have been hired to bolster shaky political parties, and according to a June report by Human Rights Watch, several former fighters have died doing it. Congo has been another option.

Each month, about 40 new Burundian recruits arrive in Luberizi, a sleepy, palm-strewn town just across the Burundi border in Congo, said Safari Ndabachekure, the local F.D.L.R. recruiter. Many of the Burundian rebels live under the nose of a Congolese Army base nearby. While the two sides are formally at war, politics seem to disappear in Luberizi. Government officials and militia members live side by side in poverty, passing and greeting one another when they are not in the mountains, where the bulk of fighting goes on.

Congo’s laxity with the F.D.L.R. has led Rwanda to invade twice since the mid-1990s. But in January, Congo-Rwanda relations appeared to suddenly flip from enemies to partners, as the two countries agreed to work together to wipe out the Hutu militiamen along the border. But despite the official position of Congo’s government, human rights groups say that Congolese soldiers are still supporting Hutu militiamen, who come from different nations.

Burundian militiamen have been swept into Congo’s battles before. According to United Nations agencies and human rights groups, Burundians were being lured by similar means to Laurent Nkunda, a renegade Tutsi general who wreaked havoc in eastern Congo until he was seized in January. Before that, Burundians fought for another Congolese militia, the Mai Mai. As Burundi’s war has wound down, many of the former rebel soldiers have been willing to kill for whoever pays them, regardless of ethnic allegiances.

“In Burundi, the good life is only for the big person,” said Mr. Safari, the recruiter, who arrived in Congo two years ago. Now he helps orchestrate a circuit through which new arrivals receive temporary shelter, financial assistance and a free weapon.

“The first purpose is to promote the Hutu persons,” he said. “The second is to look for money.”

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo has called the rebel migrations a destabilizing factor, and it said it was Burundian fighters who raided a prison in eastern Congo in April, freeing 220 rebels.

The flow of Burundian fighters into Congo is “definitely a concern,” said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, though he said it was limited to a small portion of Burundi’s former combatants.

Several former Burundian soldiers said Congo was a last resort; they do not have a burning desire to return to the bush.

“We are tired of fighting,” said Jean-Pierre Habiyaremye, 28, a former Burundian rebel who has resisted the offers to fight in Congo. “We want to form associations and build with our hands.”

But for his disarmament package, he said he was given $41 and a frying pan, while the Hutu rebels in Congo dangle promises of up to $500 cash. “With money like that,” he said, “it’s easy for them to find people.”

Josh Kron reported from Luberizi, Congo, and Jeffrey Gettleman from Nairobi, Kenya.

Iran Seems to Signal Flexibility on Nuclear Issue

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has settled on a strategy of trying to consolidate power by surrounding himself with loyalists at home while appearing to signal to the international community a readiness to address the nuclear issue, political commentators, diplomats and scientists said on Thursday.

While much attention has been focused on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s decision to try to pack his cabinet with loyalists, his choice of a well-respected physicist, Ali Akbar Salehi, as a vice president and the head of Iran’s nuclear agency has been greeted in the diplomatic and scientific community as signaling a possibly less dogmatic, more pragmatic nuclear policy.

Two other recent developments have added to that perception. The first, according to diplomats and scientists, is recent indications that Iran may be prepared to be more cooperative with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The second was Mr. Ahmadinejad’s decision to retain the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and not to move a more conservative ally into that position.

The United States and Western Europe have accused Iran of developing a nuclear weapons program and demanded that it stop uranium enrichment. Iran has refused, insisting that it is pursuing only peaceful nuclear energy.

On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia, the United States, Britain, China, France and Germany would meet on Sept. 2 to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. The United States and France have given Iran until the end of September to respond to their most recent demands or face a new round of sanctions.

Experts said that the Iranian president and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, might have calculated that resolving the nuclear standoff could satisfy two needs. It could help the troubled economy by heading off new sanctions — and possibly assist in lifting existing sanctions — while giving the two leaders much-needed credibility for having achieved a positive policy objective.

Experts were quick to caution that this outline might well prove to be wishful thinking. Trying to discern events in Iran today is something like the Kremlin-watching that went on during the cold war. Repression, arrests and censorship have made independent reporting impossible in Iran. Indeed, there is a competing view that Iran will never make any concessions on its nuclear program, figuring that conflict with Washington may restore some degree of national unity.

Moreover, some experts said that Iran’s severe political crisis had caused such unprecedented paralysis and infighting that Mr. Ahmadinejad might not have the power to carry out any cohesive policy in a bitterly divided government.

Nevertheless, the appointment of Mr. Salehi to head the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran — even though it is the supreme leader who decides nuclear policy — was seen as significant enough to warrant at least a flicker of optimism.

Mr. Salehi served as Iran’s representative to the I.A.E.A. when the reform leader Mohammad Khatami was president. It was during that time, in 2003, that the agency became aware of Iran’s 18 years of lying about its secret nuclear program. For Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Salehi’s appointment also serves a political purpose: he succeeds Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the agency’s longtime director, who is seen as an ally of Mir Hussein Moussavi, the leader of the political opposition.

One Western diplomat who spent years working in Iran and has grown increasingly pessimistic about its political future, said there was at least one hopeful sign.

“One signal deserves to be explored,” he said. “It seems that in the past few days the Iranians have been surprisingly cooperative with the I.A.E.A.”

Iran allowed the agency’s inspectors to visit the nearly finished Arak heavy water reactor last week after a yearlong ban, diplomats told The Associated Press. Last week, they added, Tehran acceded to the agency’s requests to expand its monitoring of the Natanz uranium enrichment site, which produces nuclear materials that could be further enriched to weapons grade.

But the chances of making progress on the nuclear issue may hinge on developments in the Iranian government. While the turmoil that gripped the capital, Tehran, after the June presidential election has eased, many experts say, the fight now seems to have moved inside the institutions of power, possibly limiting Mr. Ahmadinejad’s room to maneuver.

“Ahmadinejad will have great difficulty governing,” said Muhammad Sahimi, an Iranian expatriate and professor at chemical engineering at the University of Southern California who remains in close contact with a network of friends and relatives around Iran. “He is being opposed on all sides. Khamenei’s authority has been greatly damaged. Cracks in the conservative camp have become too glaring, and every day there are new revelations.”

Still, most experts on Iran’s nuclear policy say they are heartened by what they have seen of late, though they are not expecting any breakthroughs.

Iran’s representative to the I.A.E.A., Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said this week that Tehran would agree to “talks without preconditions.” He is close to Mr. Salehi, the new head of the Iranian atomic agency, and even though Mr. Soltanieh retracted the statement a day later, the incident was seen by some as another possible signal.

“I think Iran plays a little cat and mouse now at the I.A.E.A. level,” said one commentator with expertise on the nuclear issue. “He did not make the original statement without Tehran’s authorization.”

Amid Health Care Debate, Older Obama Voters Reconsider

By KEVIN SACK

SUNRISE, Fla. — It was karaoke night at the Sunrise Lakes retirement village, and 76-year-old Shirley Scrop, wearing a T-shirt commemorating her granddaughter’s bat mitzvah, was laying down a rap about health care.

“I walk in the morning and I swim in the pool, I go to the doctor because I’m no fool,” she chanted, swaying like Ray Charles in a tennis skirt. “At the doctor’s office, I don’t want to stay, but I sit and I sit and I sit all day.”

But truth be told, Ms. Scrop admitted after taking her bow, she would not change a thing about her health care. Only two months ago, she had surgery to remove a breast tumor, and Medicare and her supplemental policy covered the cost, while allowing her a broad choice of physicians.

That is why, despite voting for President Obama last November, Ms. Scrop now sees the health care debate in Washington as a source of considerable concern. Like many among the lipsticked poker sharks, treadmill walkers and mah-jongg warriors who stay active at the community’s Phase 4 Clubhouse, Ms. Scrop has found her lifelong allegiance to the Democratic Party competing with her fears that the cost of providing universal coverage will fall heavily on the aged.

“It’s scary,” said Ms. Scrop, a retired bookkeeper from Long Island who moved to southeast Florida in 1989. “If they change the benefit amounts, it’s going to come out of my pocket. I’m sure there’s going to be some kind of change. I just hope it’s not going to be too bad.”

It seemed to matter little that Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have vowed to protect Medicare benefit levels and have disavowed any interest in “pulling the plug on grandma,” as the president put it last week. Ms. Scrop and other residents of this sprawling community of coral-colored condominiums have heard about plans to wring hundreds of billions of dollars out of the projected growth in Medicare spending. Even though the largest of the proposed cuts would reduce reimbursements to hospitals, many fear that beneficiaries would ultimately lose out.

Whether or not they buy the false accusation that the Obama administration plans to set up “death panels” — some do and some do not — many express a generalized fear that care of the elderly will take a back seat and that access to procedures and drugs may be restricted. They paid into Medicare their entire working lives, several said, and basic fairness demands that they be allowed to keep what they have.

“I don’t want to have things cut from what I need,” said Sandy Burd, 64, the clubhouse social director. “If I’m 65 and need an M.R.I., I don’t want them to say, ‘I’m sorry, but it has to go to someone who’s 45.’ ”

Hal Goldman, 79, who retired 22 years ago from Sears, Roebuck & Company, echoed that sentiment.

“What they’re trying to do — Obama is — is take from the senior citizens and give to the poor and the illegal immigrants,” Mr. Goldman said “It’s hurting the senior citizens who worked all their lives. Because of their age, like in Canada, you’ll have to wait six months for an M.R.I.”

In fact, the health care bills circulating in Congress would not extend coverage to illegal immigrants, though they could reduce some of the choices that Medicare beneficiaries now enjoy.

In last year’s election, voters 60 and older were the only age group to support Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee. But that was not the case here in Broward County, which was critical to the Democratic victory in Florida. In the nine precincts that make up Sunrise Lakes, which is dominated by elderly Jewish transplants from the urban North, three of every four votes went to Mr. Obama.

That makes it particularly striking that there is such anxiety here about Democratic health care initiatives. Although the opinion is far from universal, some Obama supporters said they were regretting, or at least reassessing, their choice.

“I voted for President Obama, and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m sorry now because I don’t trust what he’s saying,” said Elaine Carl, 71, president of recreation at the development’s Phase 4. “I think they’re going to take away from Medicare. I really do.”

On Tuesday night, at three poker tables set up in the clubhouse lobby, disagreements over health care temporarily interrupted the kvetching about the broken air conditioning.

“I can go wherever I want right now, and if I’m told that I can’t, that would worry me,” said Ruth P. Fox, 82, as she slid a nickel into the pot (in clear contravention of posted regulations against gambling). “I have a geriatric doctor, and she’s wonderful.”

But Eleanor S. Robinson, who is 80, said her elderly friends tended to worry just to worry. “When Roosevelt put in Social Security, a lot of people were worried about that, too,” Ms. Robinson recalled. “And if we didn’t have a Social Security check now, all of us would be up a creek. You sometimes have to go forward and take a chance.”

There are others, of course, whose enthusiasm for Mr. Obama has not flagged. Ronald A. Clifford, 73, who patrols the property in a golf cart as a part-time security guard, blamed “roughnecks” for fomenting dissent at town-hall-style meetings because “they hate having a black president.”

“All in all, I support Obama no matter what he does,” Mr. Clifford said. “Whatever he does, that’s the emes. You know what that is? That’s Yiddish for the truth.”

Whatever the feelings about Mr. Obama, there was widespread appreciation that he had taken on an ambitious agenda.

“You have to give the man a chance; he took on a big task,” said Sylvia Bank, who said she had just celebrated her 88th birthday, prompting a friend to knock on wood. “If it was my son, I wouldn’t let him be president, not at this time.”

Hilda Gruber, 84, glanced up from her cards. “What does that have to do with the price of eggs in Afghanistan?” she asked.

Back in the ballroom, where the karaoke set-up had been underwritten by a supplier of motorized wheelchairs, Ms. Scrop said the best health care came from a positive outlook and regular exercise. She said she played tennis nine times a week, and line danced to boot.

“I’m not ready to leave this earth, because they only take good people up there,” she said with an impish grin. “Since I’m going to be here a long, long time, I don’t want my coverage to be too high.”

Bombs Hurt Maliki Case That Iraq Can Guard Itself

By ROD NORDLAND

BAGHDAD — In recent months, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to convince Iraq that it is finished with war. He ordered blast walls around Baghdad pulled down, including those near the Foreign and Finance Ministries. He has refused to ask the American military for help in any major way since Iraqi soldiers took full security responsibility in the cities on June 30.

Then two trucks drove into downtown Baghdad on Wednesday, detonating huge bombs that killed nearly 100 people and that gravely wounded Mr. Maliki’s case that Iraq is ready to defend itself without American help. The attacks also deepened a widespread dissatisfaction with Mr. Maliki, with some critics accusing him of polishing his political image as the man who restored security to Iraq at the expense of actual safety.

“The removal of the T-walls from the streets was just a propaganda way to say to Iraqis, ‘We have improved the situation,’ and it was just rubbish,” said Qassim Daoud, an independent Shiite politician and former national security adviser, using another name for the big concrete barriers that have come to define an Iraq in conflict.

Among the troubling questions to emerge from the heaps of rubble piled up from the blasts is how the Maliki government ultimately asked the Americans for help on Wednesday, apparently for the first time since the June 30 transfer. Under the countries’ security agreement, United States forces must stay out of Iraqi cities unless officially asked to return.

The request on Wednesday did not appear to have come until more than three hours after the explosions. By that time, most of the dying was done and most of the bleeding was stanched.

Hospitals filled to overflowing with more than 1,000 wounded people, but only a trickle of the victims went to the nearest one, the American military-run Ibn Sina Hospital in the Green Zone just three minutes away.

United States officials put the best possible face on it. “The Iraqis were fully in the lead yesterday and remain there today,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, spokesman for the American military in Iraq. “They were the first responders and established security. They later requested U.S. forces’ assistance, which we provided to complement the Iraqi efforts.”

Others saw it as evidence that Mr. Maliki had overstated the readiness of Iraqi forces and safety in Iraq in the prelude to national elections in January that he hopes to win.

“The prime minister and the Iraqi people paid the price for their reach exceeding their grasp,” said John A. Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert and president of the Center for a New American Security, a research institution in Washington. “The insurgency is not over.”

Inviting the Americans back must have been difficult for Mr. Maliki, because no government spokesmen publicly mentioned that the United States helped, even as American troops continued to pitch in on Thursday.

The Iraqis also kept quiet about a decision by the prime minister late Wednesday to suspend his earlier order that all blast walls and similar fortifications be removed from the city by mid-September. An Iraqi government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss security matters, said the suspension took immediate effect. There was no official announcement, but blast-wall removal that had been under way in the Salhiya area of Baghdad did not resume Thursday.

Many officials blamed such removals for the ease with which two open-topped trucks filled with nearly eight tons of explosives got within killing range of the Foreign and Finance Ministries. Iraqi officials said 95 people died and 1,203 were hospitalized.

It could have been even worse. Two other bombings seem to have been planned for Wednesday. A truck carrying 2,200 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer was found abandoned just blocks from the Foreign Ministry. In addition, a car packed with explosives was stopped by the police, who said they arrested two extremists.

The Baghdad Operations Command, which reports to Mr. Maliki, issued a statement on Thursday saying it had detained 11 Iraqi security force officers in connection with the bombings. They included the commanders of two battalions stationed in the areas where the bombings occurred, and the chiefs of intelligence and the police and the top traffic wardens in the two neighborhoods. It was not clear if they were charged with negligence or complicity.

The arrests drew derision from many quarters. “They took this action to absorb the anger of the people,” said Zainab Kenani, a Shiite legislator from a political bloc that often supports Mr. Maliki. “These small officers had nothing to do with those incidents.”

Hadi al-Ameri, a Shiite legislator and chairman of Parliament’s security committee, said the leadership of the military and intelligence operations needed to be replaced.

“We have six intelligence services,” he said on Iraqiya, the state-owned television network. “How did these trucks get into this sensitive area?”

He was referring to the Foreign Ministry, which is near Parliament, several other government office buildings and the Green Zone’s main entrance. Fortifications and blast walls have been removed in recent months from the main roads there.

After the blasts, the United States military provided the Iraqis with air surveillance support, explosives-disposal and forensics teams and help setting up security cordons, said Lt. Col. Philip Smith, a spokesman for American forces in Baghdad.

Many United States soldiers at the scenes told reporters that they were waiting for permission to help more than three hours after the bombings.

Assistance on Thursday “was mostly focused on forensics of the blast sites and remnants of the car bombs themselves,” Colonel Smith added.

Maj. Gen. Jihad al-Jabouri, commander of an Iraqi bomb disposal unit, said the trucks carried ammonium nitrate fertilizer, along with artillery and mortar shells. The truck that hit the Foreign Ministry held 4,400 pounds of explosives, he said, while that at the Finance Ministry carried 3,300 pounds.

Mr. Maliki’s office issued a statement saying the bombings were “without a doubt a call to re-evaluate our security plans and mechanisms to face the challenge of terrorism,” suggesting that he was willing to review security arrangements.

On Thursday night, Iraqis placed hundreds of candles on burned-out cars, damaged walls and sidewalks near the Foreign Ministry bombing.

An Iraqi soldier approached a group that was about to add more candles and said his captain had ordered him to stop them.

“So where was your captain when the explosion happened?” one young man replied. “Why didn’t he put a checkpoint up here? Now you ask me to stop lighting a candle for my family. I am not going to stop, and if you want to stop me, just try.”

The soldier stood aside.

Reporting was contributed by Abeer Mohammed, Sam Dagher, Amir A. al-Obeidi, Mohammed Hussein and Riyadh Mohammed.