BBC - African slavery apology 'needed'

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Traditional African rulers should apologise for the role they played in the slave trade, a Nigerian rights group has said in a letter to chiefs.

"We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless," said the Civil Rights Congress.

The letter said some collaborated or actively sold off their subjects.

The group said it was time for African leaders to copy the US and the UK who have already said they were sorry.

It urged Nigeria's traditional rulers to apologise on behalf of their forefathers and "put a final seal to the history of slave trade", AFP news agency reports.

Civil Rights Congress president Shehu Sani says they are calling for this apology because traditional rulers are seeking inclusion in the forthcoming constitutional amendment in Nigeria.

"We felt that for them to have the moral standing to be part of our constitutional arrangement there are some historical issues for them to address," he told the BBC World Service.

"One part of which is the involvement of their institutions in the slave trade."

He said that on behalf of the buyers of slaves, the ancestors of these traditional rulers "raided communities and kidnapped people, shipping them away across the Sahara or across the Atlantic".

Millions of Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas over a period of about 450 years from the middle of the 15th Century.

More than a million people are thought to have died while in transit across the so-called "middle passage" of the Atlantic, due to the inhuman conditions aboard the slave ships and brutal suppression of any resistance.

Many slaves captured from the African interior died on the long journey to the coast.

Do you think traditional leaders should apologise for the slave trade? How complicit do you think African rulers were at the time? Send us your views using the postform below.

Even though the children aren't really responsible for the crimes of their fathers, there is a healing aspect in repentance and forgiveness. For even the crimes of our fathers affects the lives of their children's children. Those who repent of wrongs done and those who forgive those wrongs find renewal and health which may change the course of a life or of a nation. Njinja, Yaounde, Cameroun

I think even if they apologize what they have done at the past, it doesn't have meaning, it doesn't change things. If the slavery stopped now we faced another one "the mental slavery" and the worst thing is that our leaders don't take lesson from the past and still provoke civil wars. We are tired of wars. as my above friend said lets move forward and forget about the past, I hope one day hearing "the united states of Africa" even if not me my children or my little children will hear this. Moktar, Djibouti

well it true i agree with you traditional ruler should apologise to African also but lets not forget the Arab who came first they have not yet apologise to Africa for their slavery the did with caravan through the Sahara desert. let me ask one question are these African politicians not enslaving their children again in the name of corruption. i think we should examine what is going on in our society today because for people like us who come to Europe through the Mediterranean sea and we live in no document the people should examine this fact because our so call government is enslaving us again thanks oghogho elvis smith robson, lyon france

If our traditional leaders should apologise for selling their subjects into slavery, we should also ask the question whether people living in the west coast of Africa are freemen in their respective countries. Sometimes I wish our fore fathers were all sold into slavery not that i am condoling the menace of the slave trade but rather in my opinion i see the 500 years old inhumane act perpetuated by the then rulers and their colonial counterpart as a blessing in disguise and the truth be said millions of us are still under the captivity of bad government, corrupt and irresponsible leaders that are still destroying many aspiration in Africa who is saying sorry to us. Gabriel Okodoa, Greater Manchester

The era of slavery is over and no amount of apologies and what a view will salvage African the worst that has been done, and the so called traditional ruler that collided with the slave masters were no more. Why cant we have a group that will talk and demand apologies from our past and present leaders that has change the dream of Nigeria and African continent as whole, they have collided with some unknown elements to underdeveloped our continent, lead us to wrong path. The damage that was done during the era of slavery is less to what our corrupt leader have done. no African leader will leave office without been prosecution for corruption and mismanagement. i don't need apologies from the dead, i demand from our present for governing us badly. fatai yussuff, belfast

there is no present without a past. the corruption of the 15th century on the african continent still lives with us. apology comes with an attitude change. if not, there is absolutely no need. we want a positive change in africa and starts with the traditional leaders. they must voice out the truth to these corrupt leaders all over africa. vincent bodam, lagos, nigeria

True, they were culprits to this human tragedy, but the human right group better user their energy to free Nigerians from political corruptions that has plunged the nation back to 1000 years of less development. Nigeria need EMERGENCY surgery, no kidding M Imarhiagbe, ZH/Switzerland

There apologies at this time of an age is irrelevant, rather more emphasis should be focused on how meaningful development can be achieved in Africa. I think the organisation should focus on ills ravaging the continent such as corruption, famine, HIV/AIDS, poor management of resources and the likes. The apologies from US and UK has done us no good; what has been done has been done..lets move forward Adewole M., Coventry, United Kingdom

This is certainly, YES in capital letters. African traditional leaders "rulers" should all stand before their very common poor affected African people to confess and religiously apologise for the cruel act of trans-Sahara slave trade which led to the traumatic and bad leadership portrait on their ruled masses which brought about a present day fail African Nation. Suleiman - Isa, Adamu, Abuja, Nigeria

I think it is proper for everyone involved to tender an apology. There was a national repentance prayer in Abuja on the eve of Nigeria's 49th anniversary on the 30th of September 2009. The prayers started from repentance about slave trade to today's misgovernance. The vice president was in attendance and there were representatives of the kings. The representatives of the traditional rulers from the coastal areas tendered an apology for their role in slave trade just as General Gowon did on the same night for the actions of the nation during the civil war. I don't think the traditional rulers are against this and I think it is the right way to go but it should not excuse the western nations from what they did as well. There are more than enough guilty parties. Debola Ajagunna, Houston USA

It's an interesting call, and the issue has been addressed in West Africa by reputable historians such as Adu Boahene, and documented in the UNESCO History of Africa series. What happened was a form of complicity between slavers and traditional rulers who traded defeated war captives for guns and powder so they could continue to expand their states at the expense of their neighbours. But there is another class of people whose complicity is often overlooked, and that is the cynical gun manufacturers -- like Samuel Galton Jnr of Birmingham who made cheap unproved muskets specially for this trade. Conrad Taylor, London, UK

I think this is a positive stance to take. Especially the part about putting a final seal on it. These people have to be able to say that they are at peace with the past. It is the only way to look positively to the future. Finally it should be kept in mind that commercial interests (like getting the cheapest labour possibly) has been a thorn in civilizations side whenever it has not been held up to proper moral standards. Of course this includes the current issue of sustainability. I think there is a lesson to learn here from history. On some matters humanity simply cannot turn a blind eye. The Trutherizer

Should traditional leaders apologise for the slave trade? Absolutely! Let's put this in perspective here. According to historic accounts, the Europeans slave Traders did not actually forcibly round up the merchandise. Africans delivered Africans into slavery. The Europeans just like with colonial rule, where able to persuade the traditional rulers to part with their fellow Africans with smiles on their faces and monies in their pockets. In the defence of Traditional Rulers, they had no idea of the brutal inhuman treatment to befall their fellowmen. They probably did not fathom that millions will perish even before the whips started cracking on the shores of the American continent. But I feel it is important that we as Africans do not absolve ourselves completely of blame in what can only be described as one of the worse atrocities that that the world has ever seen. O. Ayeni, Edgware, Middlesex , UK

African leaders were the biggest culprits of the crime. In fact, I estimate that up to 80% of slaves were procure and sold by other Africans for things like whisky and rum. Denying this fact only means it will and is happening again albeit with a different face. How many times have we heard demagogues blame colonialism and foreign powers for what is wrong when it is our own people causing suffering. Its sad that some of these criminals are lionised in history books as great kings when in fact their wealth was based on the blood of many. Unless we are honest to ourselves nothing will change. mustafa, glasgow scotlannd

I don't agree. Most of African leaders who participated in the act were either covertly or overtly forced by the white slave maters....the case of Oba of Benin is a good example. When he refused to trade his kinsmen for mirrors and hats....he was dethroned and beheaded to serve as deterrent to others. How could you blindfold someone and yet accuse him of not being able to see? Malcolm, Ibadan Nigeria

Indeed African traditional Leaders should apologise, and even build a monument honouring the victims of Slave Trade at each region where the slaves were put on board. The evil that many traditional leaders perpetuated in those days continues today. There are still tragic collusion of local leaders with rapacious multinational companies in the devastation and exploitation of African natural resources. A practical example of this is the imbroglio in the Niger Delta in Nigeria. The evil in some of the traditional leaders has been transferred to the modern Nigerian leaders, ad that is why many of them are into corruption. The traditional leaders still wield enormous enormous power, and as a result are are granted series of contracts in various fields in which they are not competent, leaving their responsibilities to pursue other forms of wealth. The traditional larders are indeed insatiable. While there is still the need to have them in the society, they should be more productive, rather than being parasites. John OYEWOLE, Milan, Italy

The was a debate In my Final year BA degree at the University of the Gambia. This is doubt The African Rulers at the time of slavery and Slave bore a lot of responsibility to their fellow Africans for Betraying them and selling them as slaves. The great grand children of those rulers should apologized for the bad deeds of their parents. They should even pay reparation to their victims' children if it can be arranged. Thank you for bringing this topic. Alhagie Bah, The Gambia

Marking the 200th anniversary of Britain's abolition of the slave trade

Group Accuses China of Abuses in Secret Jails - NYTimes.com

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By KEITH BRADSHER

HONG KONG —China’s national government tolerates an extensive network of secret jails in Beijing operated by provincial and municipal governments to prevent their citizens from complaining to national officials, according to a report released here Thursday by Human Rights Watch.

The report was based on interviews with 38 former detainees who had gone to Beijing to complain after suffering what they described as corruption or other abuses of power at lower levels of government. It said that guards at the so-called black jails beat, sexually abused, intimidated and robbed men, women and teenagers.

Provincial and municipal officials in China are subject to a national civil service evaluation system in which they are penalized based on the number of complaints received in Beijing about their management. So local and provincial officials have a strong incentive to prevent petitioners from reaching the central government.

Sophie Richardson, the advocacy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, said that abuses were widespread in China’s prison system, which operates under some judicial supervision, but that they were worse in unofficial jails.

“We’re talking about a country with torture in formal detention centers, and the black jails are 10 floors down” in terms of the treatment of detainees, she said.

Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council director for East Asian affairs, said in a conference call with reporters on Monday that President Obama planned to raise a series of human rights issues with President Hu Jintao when they meet next week in Beijing. While Mr. Bader did not mention the unofficial jails, he did say that President Obama would discuss “rule of law,” an amorphous phrase that would cover a wide range of extrajudicial practices in China.

The jails have been the subject of news reports inside and outside China, but the new report offers many details of abuses within their confines. Central government officials continue to deny their existence.

“There are no black jails in China,” Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a regular news conference in Beijing on Thursday. “If citizens have complaints and suggestions about government work, they can convey them to the relevant authorities through legitimate and normal channels.”

A call to the press office of the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing on Thursday was transferred repeatedly by officials who said that the subject was not in their area of responsibility. The call was finally transferred to a spokesman who declined to give his name and said that he was not aware of any black jails.

China has taken some steps in recent months to safeguard the legal rights of those who run afoul of the authorities. New regulations drafted by the Ministry of Public Security and released on Monday by the State Council, or cabinet, bar forced labor at government-authorized detention centers, where people accused of crimes are held before trial.

The new rules also ban officials at detention centers from charging detainees for expenses like food, which must now be paid for by the government.

But Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that the new rules did nothing to help detainees at unofficial jails, because they applied only to people within the judicial system.

Government-approved detention centers were at the center of a series of scandals earlier this year. Li Qiaoming, 24, died at one of these centers in Yunnan Province last February. Local authorities initially blamed an accident during a game of hide and seek; public criticism prompted an investigation by the central government that determined that Mr. Li was beaten to death.

But the unofficial jails have captured more attention in recent months.

According to Chinese media, a guard at an unofficial jail in an inexpensive guesthouse pleaded guilty on Nov. 4 to raping a 21-year-old woman from Anhui Province who had come to Beijing to complain about harassment at her university. Nearly a dozen people reportedly witnessed the rape, and about 50 detainees, including the young woman, managed to escape jail when the guard fled after the assault.

The court dismissed charges against the guesthouse and two provincial liaison officials, according to the official China Daily newspaper.

Japan Cools to America as It Prepares for Obama Visit - NYTimes.com

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By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — President Obama will arrive in Tokyo on Friday, at a time when America’s relations with Japan are at their most contentious since the trade wars of the 1990s — and back then, the fights were over luxury cars and semiconductors, not over whether the two countries should re-examine their half-century-old strategic relationship.

When Japan’s Democratic Party came to power in September, ending 50 years of largely one-party government, Obama administration officials put on an outwardly positive face, congratulating the newcomers. But quietly, some American officials expressed fears that the blunt criticism that the Japanese had directed at the United States during the political campaign would translate to a more contentious relationship.

Within weeks, those fears started to play out. The new Japanese government said the country would withdraw from an eight-year-old mission in the Indian Ocean to refuel warships supporting American efforts in Afghanistan.

The government also announced that it planned to revisit a 2006 agreement to relocate a Marine airfield on Okinawa to a less populated part of the island, and to move thousands of Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

And Japanese government officials have suddenly lost their shyness about publicly sparring with American officials, as evident in a dispute in September between Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki, and the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has called for a more equal relationship with the United States, and his government wants a review of the status of forces agreement, which protects American troops from Japanese legal prosecution. Japanese citizens, and Okinawans in particular, have demanded such a review for years.

When Mr. Hatoyama met Mr. Obama in New York during the United Nations General Assembly in September, the conditions seemed ripe for a kiss-and-make-up session. At their initial meeting, Mr. Obama congratulated Mr. Hatoyama “for running an extraordinary campaign” and complimented his party for “leading dramatic change in Japan.”

Mr. Hatoyama responded with the usual diplomatic niceties, telling reporters after the meeting that “I told President Obama that the Japan-U.S. alliance will continue to be the central pillar, key pillar of the security of Japan and Japanese foreign policy.”

But there were also a few awkward moments. Mr. Hatoyama and his wife, Miyuki, were the last to arrive at a leaders’ dinner at the Phipps Conservatory on the margins of the Group of 20 economic summit meeting in Pittsburgh later that week in September. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, had been greeting arriving guests for almost two hours. “I’m sorry we were late,” Mrs. Hatoyama apologized.

A few days later, after the Obamas and the Hatoyamas flew to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee for the 2016 Olympics, Tokyo beat out Chicago in the first round of voting, then was bumped as Rio de Janeiro took the prize.

But all of that paled in comparison with the uproar that erupted in Japan after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited Tokyo in October. Mr. Gates, known for speaking bluntly, pressed Mr. Hatoyama and Japanese military officials to keep their commitment on the military agreements.

“It is time to move on,” Mr. Gates said, calling Japanese proposals to reopen the base issue “counterproductive.” Then, adding insult to injury in the eyes of Japanese commentators, Mr. Gates turned down invitations to attend a welcoming ceremony at the Defense Ministry and to dine with officials there.

In the weeks since, in advance of Mr. Obama’s visit, both countries have taken pains to tone down the rancor. The Japanese government has sent several high-level officials, including members of Parliament, to Washington to take the political temperature. Besides meeting with Obama administration officials, the Japanese representatives have spoken with members of research and policy groups based in Washington, particularly experts on foreign policy issues related to Japan.

“The feelers they’ve been putting out is, ‘Please don’t push us to make a decision because if you do, you’ll hear what you don’t want to hear,’ ” said Andrew L. Oros, a professor at Washington College and the author of “Normalizing Japan: Politics, Identity and the Evolution of Security Practice.”

Japan’s new government is “trying to backtrack from some of their campaign rhetoric, but it’s too soon,” Mr. Oros said.

“This was a historic election,” he added. “They overturned 50 years of conservative rule. They can’t do everything at once.”

Indeed, the new government is under political pressure at home. More than 20,000 Okinawa residents held a protest rally against the base last week, and residents have been vociferous in letting the government know that they expect it to keep its campaign promises.

Administration officials said they had no intention of letting the relationship slide. Mr. Obama will be “looking to build his relationship and his personal ties with the new D.P.J. government there,” Jeffrey A. Bader, Mr. Obama’s senior director for East Asian affairs, told reporters on Monday, using the initials for the Democratic Party of Japan. “This government is looking for a more equal partnership with the United States. We are prepared to move in that direction.”

But the United States, while tamping down the tone of the discussion, is still pressing Japan, particularly on the Okinawa base issue. Mr. Obama, in an interview on Tuesday with NHK television of Japan, said Japan must honor the agreement.

While “it’s perfectly appropriate for the new government to want to re-examine how to move forward,” Mr. Obama told NHK, he added that he was “confident that once that review is completed that they will conclude that the alliance we have, the basing arrangements that have been discussed, all those things serve the interest of Japan and they will continue.”

In an effort to defuse tensions and perhaps make up for saying it would not refuel the Indian Ocean warships, Japan said Tuesday that it would sharply increase its nonmilitary aid to Afghanistan, pledging $5 billion for a variety of projects that include building schools and highways, training police officers, clearing land mines, and rehabilitating former Taliban fighters.

But even if the military squabble is eventually resolved, Japan’s economic relationship with the United States is being altered. China has now surpassed the United States as Japan’s major trading partner, a switch that economists expect to continue as China’s economy grows.

“Japan sees its future more within Asia,” said Eswar S. Prasad, an Asia specialist and professor at Cornell University. “They feel that they owe a lot less to the U.S. right now. U.S. economic policy is hurting them in a lot of ways, particularly with the decline in the value of the dollar versus the yen.”

Cambodia Stirs Tensions With Embrace of Former Thai Leader Thaksin - NYTimes.com

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By SETH MYDANS

BANGKOK — In one of his most provocative moves since being ousted in a coup three years ago, Thailand’s fugitive former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is visiting neighboring Cambodia this week, stirring tensions between the nations and invigorating his political supporters at home.

Speaking in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, on Thursday, he accused the Thai government of “false patriotism” in long-running frictions that include an armed standoff at a disputed 11th-century temple on the nations’ common border.

But the provocation was not his words so much as his presence and his warm welcome in Cambodia, the closest he has come to his homeland as he has circled the world, from Hong Kong to London to Nicaragua to Montenegro and now to a refuge in Dubai. While he insists he wants to go home, Mr. Thaksin has been on the run as the Thai government seeks his extradition on a conviction for corruption while he was in office.

In Phnom Penh, he will be looking over the shoulders of regional heads of state, including those of Cambodia and Thailand, as they gather Friday in Singapore, just a short flight away, for a regional meeting.

“Thaksin is up to no good,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an expert on Thailand at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “I would say Thaksin is on a new offensive.

“I think both of them, their moves, have been perfectly calculated,” he added. He was referring to Mr. Thaksin and to his host, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, who appeared to be using the visit to tweak his counterparts across the border.

On Wednesday, Cambodia rejected Thailand’s demand for Mr. Thaksin’s extradition.

Mr. Pavin said that if Mr. Thaksin could show the public that the Thai government “is incapable and unable to solve this crisis, then this will be a slap in the face of the government and will raise questions about the legitimacy of the government.”

Mr. Thaksin’s visit has escalated a confrontation between the nations that began with a dispute in 2008 over sovereignty at the Preah Vihear temple, where the two armies have fought several bloody skirmishes and remain on alert.

The two nations recalled their ambassadors last week after Mr. Hun Sen announced the appointment of Mr. Thaksin as an “economic adviser,” and Thailand said it would scrap an agreement governing negotiations over disputed offshore oil and gas deposits.

In its diplomatic note rejecting the demand for Mr. Thaksin’s extradition on Wednesday, the Cambodian government noted, in capital letters, that he had been forced from office although he had been “OVERWHELMINGLY and DEMOCRATICALLY elected by the Thai people.”

On Thursday both nations expelled an additional diplomat in a tit-for tat escalation of the diplomatic row.

Mr. Hun Sen may be looking to his own long-term interests and placing a bet on Mr. Thaksin as the future leader of Thailand, Mr. Pavin said.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Democrat Party remain politically weak, and many analysts believe that supporters of Mr. Thaksin would be likely to win any new election.

Mr. Hun Sen, who greeted Mr. Thaksin on Monday with an embrace and a vow of “eternal friendship,” seemed to taunt Mr. Abhisit, who took office in a parliamentary vote last December, with the backing of the military and without a popular vote. He was an indirect beneficiary of the coup that ousted Mr. Thaksin.

“If Abhisit is so capable, why not dissolve the Parliament and call for a new election?” Mr. Hun Sen asked Wednesday. “What is he afraid of? I am the prime minister of Cambodia who received two-thirds of the vote, and how many votes did Abhisit receive? Or did he steal his seat from other people?”

Mr. Hun Sen, 58, and Mr. Abhisit, 45, come from different worlds, the first of them raised as a barefoot temple boy who took up arms for the Khmer Rouge, the other an Eton and Oxford man, fluent in English and in Western ways.

If Mr. Thaksin’s intention was to discomfit the Thai government and keep himself on the front pages of newspapers at home, he seems to have succeeded.

“Rejected!” read a banner headline, in red type, in The Nation, a daily newspaper, on Thursday, referring to Cambodia’s refusal to extradite Mr. Thaksin.

Filling most of the front page under the headline was a facsimile of Cambodia’s diplomatic note, with its capitalized reference to the “ABSOLUTE REALITIES” of Thai politics and an implication of Mr. Thaksin’s legitimacy as prime minister.

The newspaper also printed Mr. Thaksin’s schedule in Cambodia for the next few days: a visit to the ancient temples at Angkor, a round of golf with Mr. Hun Sen and a possible meeting with supporters bused in from Thailand.

After that, it said, renewing the mystery that Mr. Thaksin has cultivated, the schedule simply noted, “Depart Cambodia for an unknown destination.”

Rep. Kennedy and Bishop in Bitter Rift on Abortion - NYTimes.com

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By ABBY GOODNOUGH

Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island was to meet Thursday with Thomas J. Tobin, the Roman Catholic bishop of Providence, and perhaps start healing a bitter rift over whether health care legislation now before Congress should restrict abortion coverage.

Instead, they postponed the meeting, and Bishop Tobin stepped up his public rebuke of Mr. Kennedy, accusing him Wednesday of “false advertising” for describing himself as a Catholic and saying he should not receive holy communion because he supports using taxpayer money for abortions.

“If you freely choose to be a Catholic, it means you believe certain things, you do certain things,” Bishop Tobin said on WPRO, a Providence radio station. “If you cannot do all that in conscience, then you should perhaps feel free to go somewhere else.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has lobbied forcefully against including federal financing for abortion in the health care legislation, and Bishop Tobin, who has led the Catholic Church in Rhode Island since 2005, has been a vocal participant.

His conflict with Mr. Kennedy — an unusually personal example of the pressure Catholic bishops are bringing to bear on the health care debate — started last month, when Mr. Kennedy, a Democrat in his eighth term, questioned why the church had vowed to fight any health care bill that did not explicitly ban the use of public money for abortions.

In an interview with Cybercast News Service on Oct. 21, Mr. Kennedy said he could not understand “how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time,” adding that its stance was fanning “flames of dissent and discord.”

The next day, Bishop Tobin called the comments “irresponsible and ignorant of the facts” and Mr. Kennedy “a disappointment” to the church.

Mr. Kennedy, a son of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, then agreed to meet with the bishop, but said his discord with the church hierarchy “does not make me any less of a Catholic.”

When the House approved its version of the legislation last Saturday, Mr. Kennedy voted for the bill but opposed an amendment, ultimately adopted, that restricted abortion coverage.

Bishop Tobin, in a letter publicly released Monday, called Mr. Kennedy’s support of abortion rights “a deliberate and obstinate act of the will” that was “unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members.”

“It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church,” he wrote, “redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic ‘profile in courage,’ especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children.”

Mr. Kennedy declined an interview request, and on Tuesday he told reporters in Providence that he would not comment on the bishop’s letter.

“I had initially agreed to a meeting with him,” Mr. Kennedy said, “provided we would not debate this in public in terms of my personal faith. But unfortunately he hasn’t kept to that agreement, and that’s very disconcerting to me.”

The battle is being waged nearly three months after Mr. Kennedy’s father died of brain cancer and received a Catholic funeral despite his longtime conflict with the church over abortion rights and other issues. After the senator’s death, his family made public a letter he had written to Pope Benedict XVI. “I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic,” he wrote.

In Wednesday’s radio interview, Bishop Tobin said he still hoped to have a private conversation with Representative Kennedy, who, he said, has a chance to win the church’s acceptance.

“It’s not too late for the congressman to redeem his image,” the bishop said, “and to embrace the church and the teachings of the church.”

Copenhagen Journal - Push to Build Mosques Is Met With Resistance - NYTimes.com

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By JOHN TAGLIABUE

COPENHAGEN — Paris has its grand mosque, on the Left Bank. So does Rome, the city of the pope. Yet despite a sizable Muslim population, this Danish city has nothing but the occasional tiny storefront Muslim place of worship.

The city, Denmark’s capital, is now inching toward construction of not one, but two grand mosques. In August, the city council approved the construction of a Shiite Muslim mosque, replete with two 104-foot-tall minarets, in an industrial quarter on the site of a former factory. Plans are also afoot for a Sunni mosque. But it has been a long and complicated process, tangled up in local politics and the publication four years ago of cartoons mocking Islam.

The difficulties reflect the tortuous path Denmark has taken in dealing with its immigrants, most of whom are Muslim. Copenhagen in particular has been racked by gang wars, with shootouts and killings in recent months between groups of Hells Angels and immigrant bands.

The turmoil has fed the popularity of an anti-immigrant conservative party, the Danish People’s Party. In city elections scheduled for Nov. 17, the People’s Party, by some estimates, could double the roughly 6 percent of the vote it took in the last municipal election.

Denmark is not alone in grappling with the question. In Italy, the rightist Northern League opposes mosques in Italian cities; in Switzerland, voters will go to the polls on Nov. 29 in a referendum to decide whether to ban the construction of minarets.

In Denmark, it was the cartoons, one of which depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, that gave the initial impetus to a movement for a mosque.

“I wrote a front-page story saying we somehow had to reconnect to the Muslims, to collect money to build a mosque as a sign of solidarity,” said Herbert Pundik, 82, the former editor of the Danish daily Politiken. Mr. Pundik, speaking by phone from Tel Aviv, where he now lives, said that within 24 hours there had been more than 1,000 positive responses. But then the Muslim reaction to the cartoons turned violent, with attacks on Danish embassies in several cities, including Beirut and Damascus.

“The steam went out of the project,” Mr. Pundik said.

Yet it did not die. Bijan Eskandani, the architect of the Shiite mosque, said he found inspiration for his design in the “Persian element in Islamic art,” which he said consisted of a “special lyric, poetic attitude.” The Shiite community, he said in written answers to questions, lacked the financial means to acquire a suitable site for a mosque. “The building lot they have is situated in an ugly, unattractive, inharmonious gray factory area,” he said, adding that, “a sparkling mosque there may make a difference.”

The very word Persian sends chills down Martin Henriksen’s spine. “We are against the mosque,” said Mr. Henriksen, 29, one of the People’s Party’s five-member directorate, in an interview in Copenhagen’s Parliament building. “It’s obvious to everyone that the Iranian regime has something to do with it,” he said. “The Iranian regime is based on a fascist identity that we don’t want to set foot in Denmark.”

Since becoming party to the national government coalition in 2001, the People’s Party has helped enact legislation to stem the flow of immigrants and raise the bar for obtaining citizenship. Immigrants, Mr. Henriksen insists, “need to show an ability and a will to become Danes.” He cites past Jewish immigration as an example. “Many Jews have come to Denmark since the 16th century,” he said. “We don’t have discussions about whether to build synagogues.” There are at least four synagogues in the city.

Abdul Wahid Pedersen, whose parents are Scandinavian, converted to Islam years ago. “I was 28, a child of the 60s,” he said. Now 55, he is chairman of a 15-member committee promoting construction of a grand mosque for Copenhagen’s Sunni Muslims.

He concedes that of the estimated 250,000 Muslims in a Danish population of 5.5 million, only about 35,000 are Sunnis. Yet he defends the need for a grand mosque and says that while the Sunni community is not soliciting financing from Saudi Arabia, as the People’s Party contends, he has no problem accepting a donation. “If someone wants to chip in, that is O.K.,” he said, in the shop in a working-class neighborhood where he sells Islamic literature, prayer rugs and other religious objects. “But they will have no influence on running the place.” Mr. Pedersen said his committee was even considering installing wind turbines atop the minarets and covering the mosque’s dome with one large solar panel.

The city’s deputy mayor, Klaus Bondam, 45, defends the right of Muslims to their mosques. The minarets, he said, would be “quite slim towers, we’re not going to be Damascus or Cairo.” The city had also made clear there would be no calling to prayers from the mosques’ minarets. As to the charge of foreign underwriting, Mr. Bondam said it did not concern him as long as the sources were listed openly.

But he said he feared that the debate over the mosques could help the People’s Party double its share of the vote in this month’s local elections to as much as 12 percent. “It’s the little discomfit of people of other religion or background,” he said. “Why can’t they be like me?”

For Toger Seidenfaden, 52, the present editor of Politiken, the People’s Party is “democratic and parliamentary — they are not brownshirts.” But he said they were a “very Danish, nationalist party — they’d like Denmark before globalization.”

On the broad avenue called Njalsgade, where the Sunni mosque is to be built on a vacant lot, Preben Anderson, 61, a bricklayer, said he had nothing against a mosque, though he pointedly said that he could not speak for his neighbors. “We have churches,” he said. “We have to have mosques.” He stood across the street from where weeds and junk now cover the lot where the Sunni mosque could one day stand. One neighborhood resident, asked if he could point out the site where the mosque would be built, professed not to know.

Yet, Per Nielsen, 56, a retired history teacher, said the economic slowdown and the gang wars in nearby neighborhoods were feeding the popularity of the People’s Party. As for the mosque, he said, “There’s very strong pressure — people living here don’t want it.”

Somali Money From Abroad Is a Lifeline at Home - NYTimes.com

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By MATTHEW SALTMARSH

PARIS — As Somalis struggle to survive the chaos that has overtaken their country, a network of companies that distribute money from the nation’s large diaspora has quietly expanded, providing a crucial safety net.

As in other poor countries, the main purpose of these companies is to ensure that money from those working abroad reaches family members left behind.

But in war-torn Somalia, where the government has little control of the country and is itself struggling to survive, the companies are now also helping international organizations shift money into and within Somalia, according to the World Bank, academics and aid workers.

And in Somaliland, a breakaway region where the government is more stable than in other parts of the country, the Somali diaspora has contributed money for education, health and other social programs.

“The remittance system has become the lifeline for the Somali people and the lifeblood of the economy during the last two decades of civil strife,” said Samuel Munzele Maimbo, a World Bank specialist based in Mozambique, who added that many Somalis survived only because of the money from abroad. For others, the money has been crucial to establishing or propping up businesses.

A study sponsored by the British Department for International Development from May 2008 found that 80 percent of the start-up capital for small and medium-size enterprises in Somalia benefit from money sent by the diaspora.

Dilip Ratha, a World Bank economist, said that Somalia, like Haiti, was among the countries that are the most dependent on money from abroad.

The remittance system — and its importance in Somalia — has grown as decades of political upheaval have driven many Somalis abroad and, in recent years, as Islamists have wrested control over much of the country from a weak transitional government. The government, which has international support, is trapped in a small section of the capital under the protection of African Union peacekeepers.

A recent study by the United Nations Development Program estimated the size of the Somali diaspora at more than one million and the amount of annual remittances to Somalia at up to $1 billion, equivalent to about 18 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

The system began to take off during the dictatorial rule of President Mohammed Siad Barre, who ran the country from 1969 to 1991. As the banking system weakened, according to Mohamed Waldo, a consultant who has worked with Somali remittance companies, traders stepped in with a solution: act as middlemen in the resale of consumer goods shipped home by the increasing number of Somalis working abroad, especially in the Persian Gulf region. The traders kept a small cut of the proceeds and turned the rest over to the laborers’ relatives in Somalia. The shipments got around currency restrictions.

Eventually, when the government collapsed, Somali workers abroad began to send money instead.

Mr. Waldo said that these days, there were more than 20 active Somali remittance companies, five of them large. One of the leading companies is Dahabshiil, founded in the early 1970s by Mohamed Said Duale from his general store in Burao in northwest Somalia.

In 1988, fighting between government forces and rebels with the Somali National Movement swept Burao. Mr. Duale subsequently left the country and continued his work from abroad.

In 1991, when the Barre government was overthrown, Mr. Duale returned to Somalia. He opened offices in major towns and later in remote villages that the Western money-transfer giants would struggle to serve.

“Through word of mouth we built this business,” said his son, Abdirashid Duale, now chief executive of the company.

Today, Dahabshiil says it has more than 1,000 branches and agents in 40 countries.

The United Nations Development Program uses Dahabshiil to transfer money for local programs, said Álvaro Rodríguez, the agency’s director for Somalia. Such companies provide “the only safe and efficient option to transfer funds to projects benefiting the most vulnerable people of Somalia,” he said. “Their service is fast and efficient.”

Abdirashid Duale, who gives his age as “35, but with 25 years of experience,” declined to provide profit or revenue figures, saying that would only help his competitors. The company charges commissions that vary from 1 percent to 5 percent depending on the size of the transaction; he said most Somalis he worked with abroad sent home $200 to $300 a month.

Nikos Passas, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who researches terrorism and white-collar crime, said Dahabshiil was helped by the closing of a larger rival, Al Barakaat, at the behest of the United States authorities in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

In the end, F.B.I. agents found no evidence linking Al Barakaat to terrorist financing. But for Dahabshiil, gaining market share from Al Barakaat was “like shooting fish in a barrel,” Professor Passas said.

Dahabshiil’s image has been helped by its charitable works. It says it invests 5 percent of annual profit in such ventures; Abdirashid Duale said this represented around $1 million a year.

In Mogadishu — a city of pockmarked Italian architecture and rubble — Dahabshiil operates from Bakara Market, despite continued clashes in the area between the weak government and Islamist insurgents.

Its office, in an unassuming two-story building, is protected by security guards.

Looking ahead, Abdirashid Duale plans more expansion.

“One day the fighting will stop,” he said, “and we will still be here.”

Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu.

U.S. Adviser to Kurds Stands to Reap Oil Profits - NYTimes.com

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By JAMES GLANZ and WALTER GIBBS

OSLO — Peter W. Galbraith, an influential former American ambassador, is a powerful voice on Iraq who helped shape the views of policy makers like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and John Kerry. In the summer of 2005, he was also an adviser to the Kurdish regional government as Iraq wrote its Constitution — tough and sensitive talks not least because of issues like how Iraq would divide its vast oil wealth.

Now Mr. Galbraith, 58, son of the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith, stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars as a result of his closeness to the Kurds, his relations with a Norwegian oil company and constitutional provisions he helped the Kurds extract.

In the constitutional negotiations, he helped the Kurds ram through provisions that gave their region — rather than the central Baghdad government — sole authority over many of their internal affairs, including clauses that he maintains will give the Kurds virtually complete control over all new oil finds on their territory.

Mr. Galbraith, widely viewed in Washington as a smart and bold foreign policy expert, has always described himself as an unpaid adviser to the Kurds, although he has spoken in general terms about having business interests in Kurdistan, as the north of Iraq is known.

So it came as a shock to many last month when a group of Norwegian investigative journalists at the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv began publishing documents linking Mr. Galbraith to a specific Norwegian oil company with major contracts in Iraq.

Interviews by The New York Times with more than a dozen current and former government and business officials in Norway, France, Iraq, the United States and elsewhere, along with legal records and other documents, reveal in considerable detail that he received rights to an enormous stake in at least one of Kurdistan’s oil fields in the spring of 2004.

As it turns out, Mr. Galbraith received the rights after he helped negotiate a potentially lucrative contract that allowed the Norwegian oil company DNO to drill for oil in the promising Dohuk region of Kurdistan, the interviews and documents show.

He says his actions were proper because he was at the time a private citizen deeply involved in Kurdish causes, both in business and policy.

When drillers struck oil in a rich new field called Tawke in December 2005, no one but a handful of government and business officials and members of Mr. Galbraith’s inner circle knew that the constitutional provisions he had pushed through only months earlier could enrich him so handsomely.

As the scope of Mr. Galbraith’s financial interests in Kurdistan become clear, they have the potential to inflame some of Iraqis’ deepest fears, including conspiracy theories that the true reason for the American invasion of their country was to take its oil. It may not help that outside Kurdistan, Mr. Galbraith’s influential view that Iraq should be broken up along ethnic lines is considered offensive to many Iraqis’ nationalism. Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry, who have been influenced by Mr. Galbraith’s thinking but do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not aware of Mr. Galbraith’s oil dealings in Iraq, aides to both politicians say.

Some officials say that his financial ties could raise serious questions about the integrity of the constitutional negotiations themselves. “The idea that an oil company was participating in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution leaves me speechless,” said Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, a principal drafter of the law that governed Iraq after the United States ceded control to an Iraqi government on June 28, 2004.

In effect, he said, the company “has a representative in the room, drafting.”

DNO’s chief executive, Helge Eide, confirmed that Mr. Galbraith helped negotiate the Tawke deal and advised the company during 2005. But Mr. Eide said that Mr. Galbraith acted solely as a political adviser and that the company never discussed the Constitution negotiations with him. “We certainly never did give any input, language or suggestions on the Constitution,” Mr. Eide said.

When the findings based on interviews by The Times and other research were presented to Mr. Galbraith last weekend, he responded in writing to The Times, confirming that he did work as a mediator between DNO and the Kurdish government until the oil contract was signed in the spring of 2004, and saying that he maintained an “ongoing business relationship” with the company throughout the constitutional negotiations in 2005 and later.

Mr. Galbraith says he held no official position in the United States or Iraq during this entire period and acted purely as a private citizen. He maintains that his largely undeclared dual role was entirely proper. He says that he was simply advocating positions that the Kurds had documented before his relationship with DNO even began.

“What is true is that I undertook business activities that were entirely consistent with my long-held policy views,” Mr. Galbraith said in his response. “I believe my work with DNO (and other companies) helped create the Kurdistan oil industry which helps provide Kurdistan an economic base for the autonomy its people almost unanimously desire.”

“So, while I may have had interests, I see no conflict,” Mr. Galbraith said.

Kurdish officials said that they were informed of Mr. Galbraith’s work for DNO and that they still considered him a friend and advocate. Mr. Galbraith said that during his work on the Constitution negotiations, the Kurds “did not pay me and they knew I was being paid by DNO.”

Mr. Istrabadi, who was also the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations from 2004 to 2007, said the case was especially troubling given the influence of Mr. Galbraith’s policy views. In his writings — some of them on the Op-Ed page of The Times and in the New York Review of Books — he is generally identified as a former ambassador or with some other generic description that gives no insight into his business interests in the area.

Mr. Galbraith, for many years on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has a long relationship with the Kurds. In 1988, he documented Saddam Hussein’s systematic campaign against the Kurds, including the use of gas. He served as United States ambassador to Croatia between 1993 and 1998. In September, he was fired as the No. 2 official with the United Nations mission in Afghanistan after he accused the head of the mission of concealing allegations of electoral fraud.

Views of Mr. Galbraith’s business ties are harsh within the central Baghdad government, which has long maintained, in stark opposition to Mr. Galbraith’s interpretation of the Constitution, that all the oil contracts signed by the Kurdish government were illegal.

Referring to the Constitution negotiations, Abdul-Hadi al-Hassani, vice chairman of the oil and gas committee in the Iraqi Parliament, said that Mr. Galbraith’s “interference was not justified, illegal and not right, particularly because he is involved in a company where his financial interests have been merged with the political interest.”

Citing what he said were confidentiality agreements, Mr. Galbraith refused to give details of his financial arrangement with the company, and the precise nature of his compensation remains unknown. But several officials, including Mr. Galbraith’s business partner in the deal, the Norwegian businessman Endre Rosjo, said that in addition to whatever consulting fees the company paid, he and Mr. Galbraith were together granted rights to 10 percent of the large Tawke field and possibly others.

An internal DNO document dated Dec. 3, 2006, which was first obtained by Dagens Naeringsliv, indicates that a company called Porcupine, registered in Delaware under Mr. Galbraith’s name, still held the rights to the 5 percent stake at that time, while a company associated with Mr. Rosjo held the other 5 percent.

Mr. Eide, the DNO executive, said that as far as the company knew, Mr. Galbraith’s work was proper.

“To our knowledge, Mr. Galbraith in 2004 was working as a businessman with no political assignments,” Mr. Eide said. “Given our network model and limited experience and knowledge from the region at that time, our evaluation concluded that we should use Mr. Galbraith to advise DNO in the first stage of the project.”

As revelations began appearing in recent weeks, Mr. Galbraith at first issued qualified denials stating that he had never been party to any arrangement in Iraq technically referred to in the oil industry as a production-sharing contract. But industry insiders say that the rights could have been couched in different terms — not an ownership stake, but a conditional right or option to become part of such an agreement at a future date.

Estimating the value of any stake in the Kurdish fields is difficult given the political uncertainties. But Are Martin Berntzen, an oil analyst at Oslo’s First Securities brokerage, said the Tawke field alone has proven reserves of about 230 million barrels, a figure likely to increase as new wells are drilled.

“Given no political risk, a 5 percent stake should be worth at least $115 million,” he said, though he emphasized that he knew nothing about Mr. Galbraith’s arrangement.

A possible indication of Mr. Galbraith’s estimate of the deal’s worth may be discerned in a London arbitration case in which Porcupine and a Yemeni investor who now apparently holds Mr. Rosjo’s former share are seeking more than $525 million from DNO, according to a filing reported on the legal news Web site Law.com. Oil analysts in Norway played down the likelihood of a reward as large as the claim.

According to DNO, the claim represents up to 10 percent of the value of the regional production contract, which the Norwegian oil firm now shares with a Turkish energy company after Kurdish authorities reviewed the previous deal and barred “certain third-party interests” from participating further. At a shareholders meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Eide refused to name Mr. Galbraith as a claimant in the case. He acknowledged, however, that DNO lost a procedural ruling in the case last May, and he said a final decision on damages was expected in early 2010.

In his response, Mr. Galbraith would say only that “my contractual relationship was with DNO and is the subject of pending arbitration.”

Mohammed Hussein contributed reporting from Baghdad, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

Update: John King to Replace Lou Dobbs; Focus Will Be on Political News - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

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By BRIAN STELTER

John King will anchor an ambitious new 7 p.m. hour of political news for CNN beginning early next year, the network said Thursday.

The announcement came a day after Lou Dobbs abruptly announced that he was quitting his CNN anchor job immediately. Until Mr. King begins his new assignment, a rotating cast of anchors will fill in at 7 p.m. on an interim program called “CNN Tonight.”

Mr. King is currently the anchor of “State of the Union,” CNN’s Sunday political news show. Previously the cable news channel’s chief national correspondent, Mr. King became better known during last year’s presidential election when he dissected election results on his touch-screen “Magic Wall.”

In moving Mr. King to a weekday time slot, CNN will seek to improve its dismal evening ratings. According to Nielsen, CNN ranked third among cable news channels in the 7 p.m. hour in October, mirroring its other prime-time declines.

The new political news hour is an affirmation of CNN’s straightforward news strategy at a time when its cable news rivals, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC, are drawing bigger audiences with opinionated programs.

“John doing that show is obviously a statement about the importance of real nonpartisan news to CNN, and also the importance of political coverage to CNN,” Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., told employees on a conference call Thursday morning.

Mr. Klein added, according to an employee who transcribed the call, “Having made a statement that we’re all about nonpartisan journalism and outstanding journalism, we have to live up to that. We have got the hardest mission.”

Mr. King will remain the anchor of “State of the Union” until early in 2010. CNN did not identify a replacement for him.

Only 10 months ago, CNN rebuilt its Sunday morning schedule around Mr. King, giving him four hours for interviews and debates. The channel’s media criticism show “Reliable Sources,” hosted by The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, is now shown within “State of the Union.”

In a clear contrast to the outspoken Mr. Dobbs, Mr. King, a former Associated Press writer, is known for his straightforward style. CNN called the forthcoming 7 p.m. program “a definitive political hour that goes well beyond the surface of the day’s top stories to provide in-depth analysis and context to key political movements in Washington and across the nation.” CNN’s chief competitors at that hour are Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith, a news anchor, and a political commentator, Chris Matthews, on MSNBC.

“John embodies what we are striving for at CNN -– he is steadfast in his objective and nonpartisan political reporting and has the passion for chasing down stories that really matter to Americans,” Mr. Klein said in an e-mail message to staff members.

In a statement, Mr. King said, “There is a lot of noise and conflict in our political discourse, which is fun to cover, but I’m convinced from my travels that people also thirst for more details as well as insight and context. I’m looking forward to combining those conversations with top newsmakers, smart reporting and expert analysis.”

Update: 1:33 p.m.: Mr. King has spoken to The A.P. about his new job:

He said Thursday that he wants his show to bring more depth to issues, to get beyond a phrase like “public option” to explain what it really means. There will be provocative discussions, and guests with many different opinions will be welcomed.

“I’m going to do what I think needs to be done,” he said. “I think over time that viewers, if they compare and contrast, will be getting more meat” from his show than his competitors.

Iraq, Rebuilding Its Economy, Shuns U.S. Businesses - NYTimes.com

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By ROD NORDLAND

BAGHDAD— Iraq’s Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent.

That would be the country that spent that trillion dollars — on the invasion and occupation, but also on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, and on ambitious reconstruction projects in every province aimed at rebuilding the country and restarting the economy.

Yet when the post-Saddam Iraqi government swept out its old commercial fairgrounds and invited companies from around the world, the United States was not among the 32 nations represented. Of the 396 companies that exhibited their wares, “there are two or three American participants, but I can’t remember their names,” said Hashem Mohammed Haten, director general of Iraq’s state fair company. A pair of missiles atop a ceremonial gateway to the fairgrounds recall an era when Saddam Hussein had pretensions, if not weapons, of mass destruction.

The trade fair is a telling indication of an uncomfortable truth: America’s war in Iraq has been good for business in Iraq — but not necessarily for American business.

American companies are not seeing much lasting benefit from their country’s investment in Iraq. Some American businesses have calculated that the high security costs and fear of violence make Iraq a business no-go area. Even those who are interested and want to come are hampered by American companies’ reputation here for overcharging and shoddy workmanship, an outgrowth of the first years of the occupation, and a lasting and widespread anti-Americanism.

While Iraq’s imports nearly doubled in 2008, to $43.5 billion from $25.67 billion in 2007, imports from American companies stayed flat at $2 billion over that period. Among investors, the United Arab Emirates leads the field, with $31 billion invested in Iraq, most of that in 2008, compared to only about $400 million from American companies when United States government reconstruction spending is excluded, according to Dunia Frontier Investments, a leading emerging-market analyst. “Following this initial U.S.-dominated reconstruction phase, U.S. private investors have become negligible players in Iraq,” Dunia said in a recent report.

Indeed, even those companies that prospered during the war and occupation, including many of the big military contractors, will simply leave with the United States military as it completes its pullout over the next two years.

KBR was among the earliest contractors in Iraq and has $33 billion in contracts to support American bases. Yet it has not had any contracts with the Iraqi government to support those facilities when they’re handed over — or for that matter, to build anything else in the country.

“KBR is currently assessing the business environment in Iraq in order to make an informed decision regarding potential government contract opportunities there,” said a spokesperson, Heather Browne.

A few big American multinationals, like Bechtel, will still be in the midst of long-term projects like power plants and waterworks — but those were five- and 10-year undertakings kick-started with American reconstruction aid.

Now, Iraq is doling out its own oil-financed funds for capital projects, and American companies have so far received surprisingly little of it. Sports City, a billion-dollar complex of stadiums and housing in Basra planned for the Gulf Games in 2013, was awarded to an Iraqi general contractor, Al Jiburi Construction, over 60 other bidders, many of them American.

“We have a couple American companies as our subcontractors,” said Adai al Sultani, an assistant to the firm’s owner, with evident pride. When the transportation ministry put up more than $30 billion in railroad expansion contracts recently, they went to Czech, British and Italian companies.

Those nations had been members of the coalition led by the United States, although all pulled outlong before the United States. But one of the biggest beneficiaries of Iraqi contract money is Turkey, which wouldn’t allow American warplanes to use its airbases during the invasion of Iraq, followed closely by Iran.

Turkey has gone from almost no legal trade with Iraq before the war to $10 billion in exports last year, five times as much as the United States. Turkey’s trade minister, Kursad Tuzmen, predicted that number would triple in the next couple years.

Both Turkey and Iran had huge pavilions at the trade fair, crowded with businessmen discussing deals. So did France and Brazil, also not coalition countries.

Last month FedEx, which has been flying packages in and out of Iraq since 2004, announced it was suspending its operations. The reason is that Iraqi officials gave RusAir, a Russian airline, exclusive rights to cargo flights.

FedEx was one of the very few American businesses that braved the risks of working not only on American bases but also in the Red Zone, back when it was particularly dangerous to do so. Now that the danger is much less, its business is being thwarted by an upstart Russian come-lately.

“FedEx Express has had no choice but to use Rus and, as a result, the reliability of our service to Iraq has been substantially degraded,” the company said in a statement about the suspension.

It is almost an article of faith among many Iraqis, judging from opinion polls, that the United States invaded Iraq not to topple Saddam Hussein, but to get their country’s oil.

If true, then the war failed in even more ways than some critics charge.

It wasn’t until last week that the first major oil field exploitation contract was signed with a foreign company — British Petroleum, in a joint deal with China’s state-run China National Petroleum Corporation.

Exxon Mobil, an American company, has an oil field deal awaiting final approval from Iraq’s oil ministry. The Italian oil giant Eni, whose junior partner is the American-owned Occidental Petroleum, is expected to sign a similar deal. These, however, are service contracts, so the foreign oil companies don’t actually own rights to any new oil they may find.

The newest edition of the Iraqi Yellow Pages, a business-to-business directory, doesn’t have a single ad from an American company.

American officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, disputed that United States companies were having a difficult time in the Iraqi free market. “I wouldn’t read too much into American presence or lack of it at the trade fair as a bellwether,” one official said. “I would say the future is very positive.”

Another official pointed out that a recent Iraqi-American investment conference held in Washington stirred up enormous interest among American companies. “We had to turn away several hundred companies that wanted to come,” he said, adding that the embassy in Baghdad has had many subsequent inquiries from firms. That interest has not translated into action yet.

“After the conference in Washington, I’m surprised you can get on a flight here considering all the opportunities,” said Mike Pullen, a lawyer at the British-American firm DLA Piper, who works in Iraq.

“It’s a pity we can’t get more people to come,” he said. “They’re losing out to Turkish companies, Russian companies.”

“Turkish companies are acceptable to all different Iraqi ethnic groups, because they are not an occupier, and they can implement big reconstruction projects at a lower cost,” said an executive of the Iraqiya company, a leading Iraqi construction firm that often works with the Turks. He did not wish to be identified for fear of offending American clients.

Even Iraqi Kurds, many of whom are politically at odds with Turkey, seem to get along with the Turks when it comes to business.

“Turkish companies are not afraid to do business in Iraq,” said Eren Balamir, who was in charge of Turkey’s pavilion at the fair.

The high cost of security — a cost that most regional businesses don’t have — has dissuaded many American businesses from coming; some reconstruction contracts spent as much as 25 percent of their budgets on security.

Security isn’t the only impediment. Being seen as the occupier is just not good for business. Although the United States, legally speaking, has not been an occupying power since June 2004 when the Security Council formally ended occupation, many see it that way. Even Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has described Americans as occupiers to curry electoral support.

One European ambassador, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his government’s policy, said his own country’s trade opportunities greatly increased in Iraq after it withdrew the last of its troops more than a year ago. “Being considered an occupier handicapped us extremely,” he said. “The farther we are away from that the more our companies can be accepted on their own merits.”

“As a U.S. company you already have a few strikes against you before you even step foot in Baghdad airport,” said Marc Zeepvat of the Trans National Research Corporation in New Jersey, who specializes in studying the Iraqi market for institutional investors. “The U.S. government and U.S. companies have to wake up and realize they’re not in a privileged position any more.”

“The State Department’s travel advisory doesn’t help either,” Mr. Zeepvat said. It tells people, in effect, “don’t come.”