Handing Back Responsibility to Timor-Leste’s Police

Asia Report N°180
3 December 2009

This executive summary is also available in Tetum, Portuguese and Indonesian.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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The United Nations should hand over formal control of the Timor-Leste police as soon as possible. A protracted process that began in May has taken a bureaucratic approach to assessing whether they are ready to take charge, but the reality on the ground is that the Timorese police have long operated under their own command. Without an agreed plan for reforming the country’s police after the 2006 crisis, the UN and the government have made a poor team for institutional development. A longer handover may further damage relations between the UN’s third-largest policing mission and the Timor-Leste government, which has refused to act as a full partner in implementing reforms. The UN has a continued role to play in providing an advisory presence in support of police operations. For this to work, the government must engage with the UN mission and agree upon the shape of this partnership. To make any new mandate a success, they need to use the remaining months before the current one expires in February 2010 to hammer out a detailed framework for future cooperation with the police under local command.

Timor-Leste still needs the UN and stepping back is not the same as leaving too early. There is domestic political support for a continuing albeit reduced police contingent, at least until the planned 2012 national elections. A sizeable international deployment can no longer be left to operate without a clear consensus on the task at hand. Any new mandate should be limited, specific and agreed. The UN can provide units to underwrite security and support the Timorese police in technical areas such as investigations, prosecutions and training. These would best be identified by a comprehensive independent review of police capacity, and matched with key bilateral contributions, including from Australia and Portugal. In return, the Timorese should acknowledge the need to improve oversight and accountability mechanisms. The UN and its agencies must continue to help build up these structures and in the interim monitor human rights.

The UN took a technocratic approach to the highly politicised task of police reform. Sent in to restore order after an uprising in 2006, the UN police helped shore up stability in the country but then fell short when they tried to reform the institution or improve oversight. They are not set up to foster such long-term change and were never given the tools to do so. The Timorese police were divided and mismanaged at the top; the UN misplaced its emphasis on providing hundreds of uniformed officers to local stations across the country. It neglected the role played by the civilian leadership in the 2006 crisis and the need to revamp the ministry overseeing the police as part of a lasting solution. The mismatching of people to jobs, short rotations as well as the lack of familiarity with local conditions and languages clipped the ability of international police to be good teachers and mentors. Without the power to dismiss or discipline officers, the mission could not improve accountability. The government declined to pass laws in support of the UN role, sending a defiant message of non-cooperation down through police ranks.

In the absence of a joint strategy, structural reform has been limited. The government appointed a commander from outside the police ranks, compromising efforts to professionalise the service. It has promoted a paramilitary style of policing, further blurring the lines between the military and police. The skewed attention to highly armed special units will not improve access to justice, and the ambiguity it creates risks planting the seeds of future conflict with the army. Timorese leaders are attuned more than any outsider to the deadly consequences of institutional failure. To avoid this, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, an independence hero, now heads a joint defence and security ministry. Political quick fixes based on personalities may keep the police and the army apart in the short term, but they add little to more lasting solutions that respect for rule of law might provide.

For the international community, this struggle over command of the police between the UN and one of its member states contains many lessons. The slow drawdown of UN police in Timor-Leste is not the prudent exit strategy it may appear. The mission has been neither a success nor failure. Unable to muster consensus on a long-term police development strategy, it leaves behind a weak national police institution. The mission’s most enduring legacy might be in the lessons it can teach the Security Council not to over-stretch its mandates. The UN should think carefully about stepping in and taking control of a local police service, particularly, as in the case of Timor-Leste, when large parts of it remain functioning. Complex reforms of state institutions cannot be done without the political consent of those directly involved.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Timor-Leste:

1. Take steps to support the rapid resolution of as many pending police certification cases as possible, including passing any necessary legislation, and ensure that those with outstanding or future criminal convictions are removed from the Polícia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL).

2. Develop a strong, independent oversight capacity for the police, either through overhauling the police’s internal disciplinary functions by making its operations fully transparent and public or, if necessary, developing a separate police ombudsman body.

3. Implement the proposed new police rank structure to improve professionalisation and decrease potential for political manipulation of the police service.

4. Avoid the militarisation of policing and clearly demarcate in law and policy the role of the police and army as well as the conditions and procedures by which soldiers can aid civilian authorities in internal security or other situations.

To the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) and the Government of Timor-Leste:

5. Ensure that executive policing responsibilities are handed over to the Timorese police as soon as possible, spelling out the steps to hand back formal authority to the PNTL, maintaining a limited advisory and support presence for the UN police in operational areas identified as priorities by the government.

6. Reorient future mission mandates towards maintaining a limited advisory presence for the UN police in those operational areas identified by the government and bolstering security in advance of the next elections in 2012, and clarify the conditions necessary before a future full withdrawal of the international policing contingent.

7. Focus the future mission, bilateral efforts and government programs on solving existing training needs, equipment shortfalls, and fixing administrative processes identified in the joint assessments from the national to sub-district level.

8. Commit to a fully independent review of policing capacity in Timor-Leste to be performed before the final withdrawal of the UN police contingent.

To the UN Security Council:

9. Set realistic goals for a future mandate extension for UNMIT and recognise the limited capacity of UN police to play an ongoing development role with their Timorese counterparts.

To Bilateral Donors, including Australia and Portugal:

10. Support an independent review of policing capacity commissioned by the Government of Timor-Leste and UNMIT, and commit to linking future development efforts to needs identified in the review under a common framework.

11. Insist on a long-term capacity-building strategy centred on building institutional values of rule of law, professionalism and human rights.

To the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations:

12. Conduct a thorough lessons learned exercise on UNMIT’s executive policing mandate, UN police’s development role, and the incomplete security sector review in order to inform future missions.

Dili/Brussels, 3 December 2009

Gatot Purwanto: It was a difficult situation

THE Timor Leste (formerly East Timor) story and that of Col. (ret) Gatot Purwanto, 62, are intertwined. This former Special Forces (Kopassus) officer can be said to have witnessed all of the bloody incidents that happened in Indonesia’s former 27th province. In fact, Gatot was involved in East Timor since the beginning of his military career. Tragically, it was also there tha

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t his vocation ended.

Just before Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975, Gatot would go in and out of this former Portuguese colony, disguised as a trader. His good looks, neat appearance and sociable manner made it easy for him to move around. “I was known as Aseng over there,” he said laughingly, recalling how people often mistook him for an ethnic Chinese.

Inside Timor, his job was to contact local opposition politicians and gather intelligence. He was the only Indonesian officer who was able to penetrate the Fretilin hideout in the jungle, and speak directly to their rebel chief, Xanana Gusmao.

However, the November 12, 1991 Santa Cruz incident ended his bright career. As the assistant commander for intelligence in East Timor, he was responsible for failing to anticipate the demonstration that became violent. The Indonesian Military (TNI) was accused of shooting at the people, killing more than 100. Gatot was discharged from the military.

One bloody incident he remembers well is the attack at Balibo. Gatot, who was then a first lieutenant, witnessed how five Australia-based journalists from Channel 7 and Channel 9—Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie—were captured and shot.

The five journalists were in the midst of covering the joint attack by the UDT and Apodeti groups—two rival groups of the Fretilin at the time—into Balibo in October 1975, supported by the Indonesian Army. “It seems to have been my fate to be involved in bloody incidents in East Timor,” lamented Gatot.

Last week, following the screening of the film Balibo, produced by Robert Connolly, at the Utan Kayu Theater in East Jakarta, Gatot described his version of the incident depicted in the controversial film to Tempo reporters Arif Zulkifli, Wahyu Dyatmika, Sunudyantoro, Yophiandi and Agus Supriyanto. Excerpts:

You were in Balibo when the five journalists were shot. What happened?

The battle was not over at the time. The fighting had eased, but shots could still be heard. At the edge of Balibo town, near the church on the hill, there were buildings. We shot in that direction because we heard shots coming from there. When we approached the buildings, we saw the five journalists inside. They were captured and they were still alive.

So what did the troops do?

I was still on lower ground, near Pak Yunus (retired Maj. Gen. Yunus Yosfiah, who at the time was the team commander with the rank of captain—Ed.). We received a report that foreigners had been caught. Pak Yunus ordered me to report them to Pak Dading (retired Lt. Gen. Dading Kalbuadi, at the time the commander—Ed.), who was at the border area. If I am not mistaken, Pak Dading then contacted Jakarta, and asked what they should do with those people.

So, it is not true that the five journalists were killed in the crossfire between the TNI and the Fretilin?

When they were first captured, they were still alive. We surrounded them with our weapons. I saw this at a distance of 30 meters from the lower ground of the hill. They were inside and they seemed to be filming from the top. There were shots coming from that direction from time to time, which is why we aimed there and surrounded the building.

What happened then?

It was a difficult situation. If we captured them, the Indonesian troops would be implicated. We didn’t know what to do with them, execute them or what. At that very moment, when our troops were sitting around, suddenly shots came from the direction of where the journalists were. Maybe someone was trying to rescue them, we thought. Our troops ran over there, to find all five of them dead.

Exactly when did the attack happen?

We entered Balibo just before dawn. But when the incident took place, it was already daylight, maybe about 10 or 11 in the morning.

When the shooting took place, what were the orders from Yunus Yosfiah or Dading Kalbuadi?

Nothing yet. From the team leader, Pak Yunus, there were no orders to kill them or whatever. Pak Dading was still waiting for instructions from Jakarta. Communications took a long time. So, the shots happened when we were provoked into shooting at the place where they were hiding, because shots came from there.

Was there an effort to identify the five journalists? Were they asked who they were?

No, because none of them spoke Indonesian and none of the troops spoke English.

But did the troops know they were journalists?

We should have known, because they were carrying cameras and other equipment. That should have been obvious from those close to them. The shooting happened from a distance of about 15 meters.

Before the troops entered Balibo, did they know there were five foreign journalists inside the town?

We didn’t know. That’s why we were shocked and confused when they were captured. We didn’t know what to do with them.

So, what happened after the shooting?

Pak Dading went to the site. A TVRI reporter, Hendro Subroto, came along. Then Pak Dading spoke with my commander, Pak Yunus.

What was the condition of the troops at the time? Were any of the troops blamed for acting without orders?

It was a difficult situation for us. If we kept the journalists, not execute them, when they got out, they would say, “Yes, that’s right, the Indonesians captured us.” It could be used as evidence that we were there. So it was a difficult decision to make. Perhaps, at that time, people at the top thought the shooting was the best way out. I am not sure. If they were not executed, they could be witnesses to the fact that the Indonesian Army had invaded Timor.

So, the shooting was a rational decision?

Yes…but it was provoked by the shooting coming from where they were. Later, they found a Thompson gun inside the building, next to them (the five journalists).

What happened after that?

The bodies of the five journalists were taken to the house of a Chinese in Balibo, about 300 meters from the location of the shooting, just inside the town. There, the bodies were covered with rice husks and then burnt.

Why use the rice husks?

Because they take a longer time. They (the bodies) needed to be totally disintegrated. That took two days. Some wood was also used.

Why were the bodies torched? Wouldn’t that have shown that the troops tried to cover the shooting?

Because we were in a bind at the time. We had to make sure that the involvement of Indonesian troops was not known. That’s why we didn’t wear uniforms when we attacked, we wore civilian clothes. You may have heard of the blue jeans brigade. That was us with long hair.

Who ordered the bodies to be burnt?

Well, there were orders from… (unclear response). I don’t know exactly, I was just a young officer then. But we were in a difficult position. If we let them live, they would tell everyone it was an Indonesian invasion. If they died and we abandoned them, there would be evidence that they were shot in territory controlled by Indonesian guerrillas. So, the simple way was to eliminate everything. We just claimed not to know anything. It was the instant reaction at the time.

Besides the TNI, who else was in Balibo at the time?

Besides the Susi Team (advance team), the pro-Indonesian forces of Apodeti and UDT jointly took part in Balibo. There were Apodeti leader Thomas Gonzalves and UDT leader Joan Tabarez. There was one unit of our troops against two of theirs. We were 50, they were about 100.

During the invasion, was there support from Indonesian battleships?

I think there was. When we entered Balibo, there were shots from our ships offshore.

Why was Balibo the first target of attack?

Balibo was not the first one. We had advanced quite deeply at that point, but we were forced to withdraw, running back to Haikesak (a small village at the Indonesian border), and to Atambua. After reinforcements came from UDT and Apodeti, we entered again. The troops had been mobilized and trained since the end of 1974. At the point, we should have reached Dili, preparing a dropping zone and other facilities to support the big invasion, like setting up ammunition dumps in specific areas.

What was the situation in Balibo when you entered it?

Balibo is a small town, with non-descript buildings. There were five concrete buildings, the biggest owned by a Chinese and another served as a health center. In areas bordering with Indonesia, like in Balibo and nearby villages, the population tended to be supporters of the Apodeti, and more pro-Indonesian. This was quite different from people on the eastern side, which could not be accessed by our troops and which were controlled by Fretilin.

When you were assigned in East Timor, you reportedly had close relations with Xanana Gusmao?

I befriended Xanana after the operation carried out during the time of Pak Sahala (retired Lt. Gen. Adolf Sahala Rajagukguk, former Army Deputy Chief of Staff—Ed.) in 1981. After that operation, the TNI was sure that Fretelin was in disarray, falling apart. Finally, all Kopassus troops were withdrawn from Timor, with only two companies—Nanggala 51 and 52—remaining.

After the troops were withdrawn, they consolidated and attacked us again. I started thinking, if we keep ourselves low all the time, how can we advance? I finally opened communications with Xanana. He welcomed it. Maybe Xanana thought some good could come from it because at that time he was already thinking that post-war, he could be in politics. That was sometime between 1982 and 1983.

What did Xanana say?

He was very formal at first. We spoke in Tetum. He always stressed to me: Indonesia will not be able to continue funding the war in Timor.

Did your good relations continue?

Yes, we have kept in close touch until today. Since the jungle days, I have been the only Kopassus officer who is able to meet with him. So today, if Timor needs intelligence equipment, I help out. Once, Xanana even asked my help to ‘sterilize’ his office [from wiretaps].

Going back to the Balibo film. What is your impression of it?

From the start until the middle [of the film], it’s quite balanced. The film also blamed the governments of Australia, the United States and Britain, which gave their blessings to the Timor war. But the main incidents, surrounding the shooting of the five journalists, were over-dramatized. No one was tortured. The scene depicting the TNI’s entry into Dili was not that spectacular.

What do you think of demands to expose and try the Balibo perpetrators in court?

A lot of time has passed, right? The perpetrators are now old men. We no longer have a problem with Timor Leste.

Were you against the referendum in Timor Leste?

I thought it was a hurried decision.

Do you think the integration of East Timor between 1975-1999 was a wasted effort?

Look. At the time, the communists had gained control in Portugal. All areas under their control, including colonies they thought of letting go, were also influenced by communism. So it was not wrong for Australia and the US to push Indonesia into taking over. It was the Cold War at that time.

But Indonesia failed to win the people’s hearts over there.

At that time, East Timor was seen as a dumping ground for errant bureaucrats. In Timor, without supervision, those petty bureau chiefs became small kings. They were nepotistic about recruitment, refusing to hire local people, opting instead to give jobs to relatives from Java.

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Chrysler calls for release of Aung San Suu Kyi

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Posted on December 7, 2009
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In what may seem like a cynical attempt to garner some goodwill by a troubled company, carmaker Chrysler has launched a new commercial in which it calls for the release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The company says the commercial for the Chrysler 300 is meant to demonstrate its commitment to supporting social issues and defending human rights around the world.
Until now, advocacy campaigns for Burma have mostly been by celebrities and pressure groups like the US Campaign for Burma.
The involvement of a large corporation can only be good. Even if their goals, like the commercial are largely self-serving.
The auto industry is struggling to regain the public trust after large bailouts from several governments earlier this year, which appears to be pushing them towards more populist subjects.
Oliver Francois, President and CEO – Chrysler Brand, Chrysler Group LLC, who is also the Managing Director of Lancia Automobiles said, “We produced the TV film in honour of all those who put their lives at stake in the hopes of making the world a better place.”
“In particular, those men and women who are still prisoners like Aung San Suu Kyi. For Chrysler, this is a chance to use our brand image to join with others in the fight for peace and to knock down the walls that divide us. We at Chrysler believe in doing the right thing and making a difference.”

Afghanistan: Bad Choices

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by Hendrik Hertzberg

There are no good options for the United States in Afghanistan. That has been the conventional wisdom for some years now, and this time the conventional wisdom—the reigning cliché—happens to be true. President Obama did not pretend otherwise in his address at West Point last week. His grimly businesslike speech was a gritty, almost masochistic exercise in the taking of responsibility. What he had to say did not please everyone; indeed, it pleased no one. Given the situation bequeathed to him and to the nation, pleasure was not an option. His speech was a sombre appeal to reason, not a rousing call to arms. If his argument was less than fully persuasive, that was in the nature of the choices before him. There is no such thing as an airtight argument for a bad choice—not if the argument is made with a modicum of honesty.

In November, two months into the gruelling, three-month review of Afghanistan policy that culminated in last week’s address, the Pentagon offered the President four options, each accompanied by a number, with each number representing an increase in the American troop commitment. But these were variations on a theme. As Obama seems to have realized, his true choices, of which there were also four, were wider and more fundamental: to begin immediately to wind down the American military presence; to maintain the status quo; to commit to a more or less open-ended, more or less full-fledged “counter-insurgency” war; or to pursue some version of the course he has now charted, in which a fresh infusion of military force and civilian effort is paired with a strong signal that America’s patience and resources, on which there are many other demands, are not unlimited.

Obama did the best he could to make a positive case for the path he has chosen, but—chillingly, bleakly—the principal virtue of his choice remains the vices of the others. Withdrawal, beginning at once? The political and diplomatic damage to Obama would be severe: a probable Pentagon revolt; the anger of NATO allies who have risked their soldiers’ lives (and their leaders’ political standing) on our behalf; the near-certainty that a large-scale terrorist attack, whether or not it had anything to do with Afghanistan, would be met at home not with 9/11 solidarity but with savage, politically lethal scapegoating. Even so, if “success,” however narrowly defined, is truly an outright impossibility, then withdrawal may still be the most responsible choice. But it is not yet obvious that a better result is out of the question. “To abandon this area now,” the President said, “would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.” The consequences could also include a second Taliban emirate, a long, bloody civil war, and a sharp, destabilizing increase in Islamist violence, not only in Pakistan but also in India and elsewhere. The status quo? To “muddle through and permit a slow deterioration,” the President said, “would ultimately prove more costly and prolong our stay in Afghanistan, because we would never be able to generate the conditions needed to train Afghan security forces and give them the space to take over.” Or a full-scale counter-insurgency war—in the President’s words, a “dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort, one that would commit us to a nation-building project of up to a decade”? That, too, must be rejected, “because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost and what we need to achieve to secure our interests.” Such a war—such a project—would be hugely out of proportion to whatever marginal security gains it might yield. And it wouldn’t just be beyond “a reasonable cost.” It would be beyond our political, institutional, and material capacity, and therefore impossible.

A dismal process of elimination has left the President to design a strategy that he believes is the only one that offers a chance, in his words, “to bring this war to a successful conclusion.” Or, at least, a bearable one. Deliver a hard punch to the Taliban, break its momentum, and welcome its defectors; throw a bucket of cold water on the hapless and corrupt central government; carve out space and time for projects of civilian betterment and the development of Afghan forces that are capable of maintaining some semblance of security; forge “an effective partnership with Pakistan”—to list the elements of Obama’s strategy is to recognize its difficulty. It is full of internal tensions, most prominently between the buildup of troops and the eighteen-month timeline for beginning their withdrawal. (To the extent that the troop surge weakens the enemy while the timeline focusses minds in Kabul and Islamabad, however, that tension could be a creative one.) The plan does not, of course, guarantee success. The best that can be claimed for it is that it does not guarantee failure, as, in one form or another, the alternatives almost certainly do.

At West Point in June of 2002, George W. Bush proclaimed to the graduating cadets, “Our war on terror is only begun, but in Afghanistan it has begun well.” In truth, it had not begun so well. Six months earlier, the first Taliban emirate had indeed been routed from power. But, at the same time, the perpetrator of 9/11 had been allowed to escape from his mountain hideout; the American forces that could have captured him were held back by an Administration already planning its misguided invasion of Iraq. The evidence, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report concluded last week, “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.”

That was the speech in which the then President—no doubt with Iraq in mind, though he made no mention of that country—expanded what was already being called the Bush Doctrine to embrace the notion of preventive war. Obama, in the aftermath of his West Point speech, was widely condemned—and grudgingly praised—for allegedly adopting “what sounds like the Bush Doctrine” (Rachel Maddow) and “a rehash of the Bush Doctrine” (Mary Matalin). Not so. Whatever the Afghanistan war’s origins (and they were retributive, not preventive, except in the sense that every war, and every act of statecraft, is aimed at “preventing” something), this is not a preventive war. It is an actually existing war, and Obama’s purpose is clearly to bring it to a non-disastrous end.

The botched war in Afghanistan, like the economic crisis and the broken health-care system, is an inheritance from which Obama is trying to extricate the country. In each case, the institutional, historical, and political constraints under which a President must operate mean that the solutions—or, if there are no solutions, the ameliorations—are doomed to be nearly as messy as the problems. If there is no Obama Doctrine, there is an Obama approach—undergirded by humane values but also by a respect for reality. The most telling signpost in Obama’s speech may have been neither his call for more troops nor his timeline for removing them but his use of a quotation from another President who inherited a seemingly intractable war: “Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.” That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, in one of the homelier passages from his canonical farewell address, delivered the year Barack Obama was born. President Eisenhower’s point was that a nation’s security is all of a piece—that military actions do not inhabit a separate universe but must be weighed on the same scale, and be subject to the same judgments, as a nation’s other vital concerns. That seems to be President Obama’s point as well.

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Struggles of the second generation

U.S.-born children of Latino immigrants fight to secure a higher foothold

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 7, 2009

Javier Saavedra slumped his burly frame into a worn, plaid couch in the cramped basement room he shares with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter, his expression darkening as he ticked off all the wrong turns that had gotten them stuck below the economy's ground floor.

Raised by Mexican immigrant parents, Saavedra was a gang member by 13, a high school dropout by 16 and a father by 21. Now 23, he has been trying to turn his life around since his daughter, Julissa, was born.

But without a high school diploma, Saavedra was unable to find a job that paid enough for him and his girlfriend, Mayra Hererra, 20 and pregnant with their second child, to move out of her parents' brick home in Hyattsville.

Even the dim, wood-paneled room piled with baby toys and large plastic bags of clothing was costing them $350 a month.

"I get so upset with myself," Saavedra said. "I should have a better chance at a job [than our parents]. I want to be helping them with their bills, not them still helping me."

Millions of children of Latino immigrants are confronting the same challenge as they come of age in one of the most difficult economic climates in decades.

Whether they succeed will have consequences far beyond immigrant circles. As a result of the arrival of more than 20 million mostly Mexican and Central American newcomers in a wave that swelled in the 1970s and soared during the 1990s, the offspring of Latino immigrants now account for one of every 10 children, both in the United States and the Washington region.

Largely because of the growth of this second generation, Latino immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren will represent almost a third of the nation's working-age adults by mid-century, according to projections from U.S. Census Bureau data by Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer with the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.

Not since the last great wave of immigration to the United States around 1900 has the country's economic future been so closely entwined with the generational progress of an immigrant group. And so far, on nearly every measure, the news is troubling.

Second-generation Latinos have the highest high school dropout rate -- one in seven -- of any U.S.-born racial or ethnic group and the highest teen pregnancy rate. These Latinos also receive far fewer college degrees and make significantly less money than non-Hispanic whites and other second-generation immigrants.

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Their struggles have fueled an outcry for stricter immigration laws, with advocates saying that the rapid increase in Latino immigrants and their children has strained the United States' resources and social fabric.

"The last 30 years of immigration have made our country more unequal, poorer than we would have been otherwise, more fractious and less cohesive," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors tighter restrictions on immigration.

Supporters of Latino immigrants say that the newcomers and their children have spurred economic growth and contribute far more to society than they take from it. They also note that even a complete halt to future immigration would not change the footprint of the 15.5 million U.S.-born offspring of Latino immigrants already in the country.

Perhaps the only yardstick by which the second generation has achieved unambiguous success is the one that has stirred the most public controversy: English proficiency. Despite fears among some people that English usage is diminishing in the Latino community, census data and several studies indicate that by the second generation, nearly all Latinos are fluent in English and that by the third generation, few can even speak Spanish.

The second generation's lack of success on educational and economic fronts is largely explained by their immigrant parents' extremely low starting point. Forty percent of second-generation Latino children are born to parents who never completed high school. Only 12 percent have a parent with a college degree or higher.

Saavedra's parents, who entered the United States illegally but later obtained legal permanent residency, didn't get beyond the third grade in Mexico. They were often at a loss when it came to helping him with homework. "They didn't even know how to get you the stuff you needed" for science projects, he said.

Although adding on a year or two of education beyond high school can boost their incomes, to be truly guaranteed a middle-class lifestyle, second-generation Latinos need at least a bachelor's degree -- a feat that the last major wave of immigrants, from Eastern and Southern Europe, took three or four generations to achieve.

"The second generation is doing way better" than their parents, said Ruben Rumbaut, a professor at the University of California at Irvine and a leading scholar on second-generation Latino immigrants. "But way better can still mean they are high school dropouts with 11 years of education, as opposed to their parents, with six years. And in this economy, an 11th-grade dropout is not going to make it."

Rage and remorse

Saavedra is determined to be the exception, although he knows it won't be easy.

The sun was burning down from a late-April sky, and Saavedra's brow filled with sweat as he mixed cement with a shovel at a Northern Virginia construction site.

When he was a child, his father would sometimes take him to sites like this in hopes of motivating the boy to stay in school.

"He used to say to me, 'What do you think is heavier: the pencil or the shovel?' " Saavedra recalled.

Still, this was the first work he had gotten in a month, and he seemed eager to show his gratitude to his girlfriend's Mexican-born father for taking him along. He sprang quickly to lug the heaviest equipment and joked in Spanish with the slender immigrant working alongside him.

"Somos como 'El Gordo y La Flaca' " -- We're like 'The Fat Man and the Skinny Lady' -- said Saavedra, referring to a popular TV talk show.

Yet for all his cheer, Saavedra knew that the one-day, $12-per-hour assignment to build a trash lot behind a hotel wouldn't cover his and Herrera's $106 cellphone bill.

And even Saavedra's outfit -- sparkly stud earrings, a basketball jersey that fell to his thighs and baggy pants that ballooned around his ankles -- broadcast his gnawing sense that he didn't belong among the crew of Mexican immigrants.

Technically, he is what researchers call a "1.5-generation" immigrant, because he was born in Mexico and moved to the United States as a 4-year-old. But with no memory of living anywhere other than Maryland, Saavedra considers himself, and tries to dress like, a member of the second generation.

He hauled an 80-pound bag of cement onto his shoulder and cracked a grin that was half-smirk, half-wince.

"It's times like these," he said, "that I think, 'Oh, man! Why didn't I finish high school?' "

The short answer is that he joined a gang and was kicked out of Bladensburg High School for fighting in his sophomore year. The long answer, Saavedra said, is that he was too filled with rage to put much stock in school.

The youngest boy in a family of seven children, he said he grew up fearing his father's temper and often felt ignored by his parents. "You know, like they'd buy [my older brother] Air Jordans but say there wasn't enough to buy them for me."

School offered little solace. As his family moved around Prince George's County, Saavedra passed through five elementary schools. Each time he started a new school, he said, "people tried jumping me and saying, 'Oh, you're the new guy.' . . . The hate started building up in my heart until I just got so tired."

By the time he got to William Wirt Middle School in Riverdale, Saavedra was an eager recruit for the Latino gangs that held sway there. He soon started his own clique of the gang Sur 13, transforming himself from his family's invisible youngest son to Casper, the nickname he chose as leader of some of the toughest guys in the neighborhood.

"All my life," he said, "I've always wanted to be known for something."

Hererra, who met Saavedra at a family party and started dating him in high school, said she wished the rest of the world could see the kind, thoughtful side of his personality he reserved for her. "Towards me he'd show emotion," she said. "He was always so attentive. . . . But towards everyone else, he'd just show anger."

Although Saavedra listened respectfully to her pleas to leave the gang, he didn't start reconsidering his choices until months after he had left high school. Without a diploma, he was cycling through low-paying, occasional jobs: cleaning carpets, driving for FedEx, working construction.

Friends started getting killed, including Edward Trujillo, a gang leader whom Saavedra had looked up to as a boy. He was gunned down on a residential street in the Riverdale area.

Saavedra himself narrowly missed being shot on four occasions. And he was constantly in brawls. "Some guy would call at 2 in the morning about a fight, and he'd be off," Hererra said.

Although Saavedra was not convicted of any crimes, he was picked up multiple times on suspicion of vandalism, assault and theft. Sgt. George Norris, a member of the Prince George's police gang unit, said he made a point of pulling Saavedra over for questioning and locking him up when possible. When Saavedra moved, Norris surprised him by turning up at the new address.

"I wanted him to know that wherever he went, whatever he did, I was going to be there," Norris said.

But after Saavedra decided to get free therapy from a local youth group, Norris also offered support, inviting him to speak at conferences and berating him when he showed signs of slipping back into gang life.

The hour-a-week therapy sessions helped Saavedra get more of a handle on his temper.

Perhaps most significantly, Hererra became pregnant and threatened to leave him if he didn't put the safety of their child first.

All in all, "it took him a good year to come around," she said. "He wasn't really changed until he saw the baby being born."

Progress and setbacks

Some weeks after the construction job, Saavedra lay on an operating table in Bethesda, tensing his torso as a doctor traced a laser over a tattoo of a teardrop just below his eye.

With funding from a local youth group called Identity, he had already had a number of his old gang tattoos removed, including the large, black SUR in gothic letters on his right arm, and the 13 written on his left. The teardrops would be the last to go.

"Without this on my face, I can probably get a better job," he said as he walked out of the doctor's office carrying Julissa's sippy cup in one hand and her pink diaper bag in the other. "I won't be getting pulled over for looking suspicious. People won't be thinking, 'Oh, he must've murdered someone.' "

Still, Saavedra said, he sometimes misses the status of being a gang leader. But he had recently hit on what seemed a perfect way to fill the void: a club of mostly former gang members who trick out lowrider bicycles with velvet seats, chrome wheels, twisted metal handlebars and plaques decorated with the gothic letters and fearsome imagery popular with Latino gangs.

Saavedra said he also hopes the club, called Street Nations, will offer his nephews and other young boys an alternative to joining a gang. "They like the gang lifestyle. But I be trying to tell them, 'It's not cool. If you want to be in gangs, later on you'll regret it.' "

A few days later, Saavedra took extra-small T-shirts printed with the Street Nations logo to give to his nephews at the club's first official meeting in a Riverdale park.

Hererra chuckled at the sight of the couple's youngest nephew posing for photographs next to the group's heavily tattooed, pierced older members. "Chris!" Saavedra shouted at the 8-year-old. "Stay in school and you get a bike!"

Saavedra and Hererra were trying to make their own educations a priority as well.

Despite her pregnancy, Hererra had continued to take classes toward a business degree at a Northern Virginia vocational college. Now 21, she hopes to graduate next year and get a job in human resources.

Saavedra had subscribed to an online course to work toward a high school diploma. His plan was to do a lesson a week on the computer next to his and Hererra's bed in the basement.

But Saavedra ended up whiling away his time updating the Street Nations Web site and chatting with other members on its message board -- "your Twitter," Hererra called it.

By summer's end, the online course was all but forgotten. FedEx had come through with a steady delivery job, and between the 12-hour workdays and evenings taking care of Julissa and his newborn son, Anthony Javier, so Hererra could go to class, Saavedra said, "I'm not even focused on my GED right now."

At $500 a week, his wages still aren't enough for the couple to get a place of their own. There are nights when Saavedra wonders whether they ever will.

"I try to stay positive," Saavedra said. "But sometimes inside me, I just feel like giving up and running away from this. You know, just getting lost. Honestly, sometimes that's just how I feel."

Mounting forced labour by Burmese army in Taung Oo region

Report by Nan Htoo San

Friday, 04 December 2009 08:22

The Burmese Army based in Taung Oo region is forcing many locals, including women to work against their will, locals said. Army battalions under the Military Operation Command 5 (MOC 5) based in Htan Ta Pin township, Taung Oo district have been constantly summoning locals to work since November. Locals are forced to carry rations and military equipment, which are necessary transportation for the army come winter, Taung Oo locals said. Image by Rusty Stewart via Flickr "It's happening around the mountain area in Htan Ta Pin Township called the military operation area. Locals are made to carry rations, military equipment and ammunition for battalions under the MOC 5. About 20 to 30 locals, including women, are summoned for duty at a time," a Taung Oo local Saw El War said. Some of the military camps are situated on the roadsides and vehicles are also requisitioned. Then villagers are forced to walk in front of the vehicles as landmine detectors. If the military camps are far from the main road, locals are forced to carry rations and military equipments. The Light Infantry Battalion 542 (LIB 542) based in Ka Lawme Del village under the command of MOC 5 summoned 32 women and 24 men on November 27. The infantry battalion forced them to transport army rations (rice) from Ka Lawme Del camp to Palei War camp. "There is an army camp in our village. Therefore, two villagers have to work in the camp daily. Besides, villagers are forced to carry rations, cut wood and bamboo for the camp. Villagers are treated inhumanly," a Zee Phyu Kon villager in Htan Ta Pin Township said. There are often gun battles between the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Burmese Army, when the latter’s troops escort the convoy transporting ration. Currently there are 78 military camps in Taung Oo district, which is under the control of KNU's brigade 2. The battalions from MOC 5 and Southern Military Command have entered the area since 2006.

Beware Social Media Snake Oil

Image via CrunchBase

Hordes of marketing "experts" are promoting the value of wikis, social networks, and blogs. All the hype may obscure the real potential of these online tools

By Stephen Baker

For business, the rising popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media Web sites presents a tantalizing opportunity. As millions of people flock to these online services to chat, flirt, swap photos, and network, companies have the chance to tune in to billions of digital conversations. They can pitch a product, listen to customer feedback, or ask for ideas. If they work it right, customers might even produce companies' advertising for them and trade the ads with friends for free. Starbucks (SBUX), Dell (DELL), and Ford Motor (F) have all testified to the magic social media can create.

But the same tools carry risks. Employees encouraged to tap social networking sites can fritter away hours, or worse. They can spill company secrets or harm corporate relationships by denigrating partners. What's more, with one misstep, one clumsy entrée, companies can quickly find themselves victims of the forces they were trying to master. Thousands of bloggers attacked Motrin last year because of an advertisement from the Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) brand they found demeaning to mothers.

Over the past five years, an entire industry of consultants has arisen to help companies navigate the world of social networks, blogs, and wikis. The self-proclaimed experts range from legions of wannabes, many of them refugees from the real estate bust, to industry superstars such as Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk. They produce best-selling books and dole out advice or lead workshops at companies for thousands of dollars a day. The consultants evangelize the transformative power of social media and often cast themselves as triumphant case studies of successful networking and self-branding.

The problem, according to a growing chorus of critics, is that many would-be guides are leading clients astray. Consultants often use buzz as their dominant currency, and success is defined more often by numbers of Twitter followers, blog mentions, or YouTube (GOOG) hits than by traditional measures, such as return on investment. This approach could sour companies on social media and the rich opportunities it represents. "It's a bit of a Wild West scenario," blogs David Armano, a consultant with the Dachis Group of Austin, Tex. Without naming names, he compares some consultants to "snake oil salesmen."

Critics complain that many of the new experts have adopted an orthodoxy that provides little flexibility for differing situations—or outcomes. Their pronouncements follow a rigid gospel: Be transparent, engage with your customers, break down silos. Yet these strictures don't always make business sense. Adam Kmiec, director of interactive marketing at Marc USA in Pittsburgh, tells of a company he met with that got much of its revenue from the Defense Dept. and had allocated $4 million for social media. "What do you hope to get?" he asked them. Ultimately, the client decided the privacy-obsessed Pentagon may not be thrilled with a supplier publicizing itself through Twitter.

FURY VS. BUZZ

Scrutiny of the hype merchants is picking up. Rob Spencer, senior research fellow for idea management at drug giant Pfizer (PFE), mingles frequently with social media vendors and consultants as he looks for ways to amplify the company's brainpower. He urges caution. "You have to tread your way carefully and have your B.S. sensors up," he says. "I call them innovation hippies. 'Here's my book for free. Won't you hire me for $500 to run some workshops?'"

Social media consultants' own promotions can collide, on occasion, with those of their customers. Take the case of James Andrews, who was working early this year at the PR firm Ketchum (OMC). As a consultant, he helped companies such as Newell Rubbermaid (NWL), Monster Worldwide (MWW), and FedEx (FDX) work out their strategies for blogs and the microblogging service Twitter. On landing in Memphis for FedEx meetings, he says he had an ugly run-in with a racist at the airport and twittered that he would "die if he had to live" in the city. The tweet produced an outpouring of blogged fury from FedEx employees and a fast apology from an embarrassed Ketchum. But for Andrews, the tweet generated buzz and may even have boosted his brand. "It helps me today," he says. "I use it as a case study. It creates authenticity." In June, Andrews left Ketchum to launch a boutique consultancy, Everywhere. He helps Macy's (M), CNN (TWX), and Jane Fonda promote their brands and monitor their audiences on Facebook, blogs, and Twitter.

Skeptics can draw from plenty of examples of social media experiments run amok. Consider Saatchi & Saatchi's ill-fated promotion for the Toyota (TM) Matrix. Targeting young men, a demographic known to resist traditional advertising, Saatchi's social media team last year created a campaign based on the pranks of the popular MTV (VIA.B) show Punk'd. According to the plan, a prospective buyer of a Matrix would single out a friend to be the target of a prank. The promise: a bit of fear, a lot of laughs, and perhaps a groundswell of free marketing across Facebook, MySpace (NWS), and Twitter.

Amber Duick, one of the targets in the short-lived campaign, says she received a series of e-mails from a fictitious British soccer hooligan named Sebastian Bowler. He said he was coming to visit her and bringing along his pit bull. He had a MySpace page where he bragged about "drinking alcohol to excess" and participating in riots. One e-mail Duick received was a fake bill for damage to a hotel room wrecked by Bowler. He had left her e-mail address, the message explained, as his contact info. Duick filed a $10 million lawsuit in October and says that to protect herself from the oncoming Bowler, she slept with a machete by her bed. "She was terrified," says her lawyer, Nicholas Tepper.

In a statement, Saatchi and Toyota wrote that they would "vigorously defend against the claim," which is "entirely without merit." They said the plaintiff had granted "her permission to receive campaign e-mails and other communications from Toyota."

CAN CHAGRIN BE GOOD?

James Cooper, Saatchi's digital creative director, says social media, by their nature, are unpredictable, which makes them an easy target for critics. "Anyone who says 'This is going to work' is either lying or deranged," he says. He compares the risk model with venture capital, where one bet out of 10 might pay off richly, while the others struggle or even bomb. And he stresses the difficulty of measuring results. "If something's got 20 million hits on YouTube, that's a good thing," he says. "But what if half the comments are negative? I don't think anyone's got a long-term case study yet."

While the marketing consultants focus on buzz and engagement, their in-house colleagues are trying to use social media to change how companies operate. The goal of Enterprise 2.0, a descendant of the "knowledge management" movement in the '90s, is to reroute the information traveling through corporations, undermining rigid hierarchies. Tools from Microsoft's (MSFT) SharePoint, IBM's (IBM) Lotus Notes, along with packages from newer companies such as Jive Software and Socialtext enable vast networks to share documents and work together on projects.

Yet the buzz around social media has led many companies to buy these systems before they're ready to put them to work. Jennifer Okimoto, associate partner at IBM Global Business Services, says many corporations took the plunge into social media and now are sitting on loads of uninstalled software. "I'm working with a company that has made huge investments" in social software, she says on a phone call from Switzerland. Yet only a small number of employees at the company use it. A Forrester Research (FORR) study shows that despite buzz around Enterprise 2.0, less than 15% of the knowledge workforce makes use of internal blogs, wikis, and other collaborative tools. "E-mail is still dominant," says Ted Schadler, author of the report.

The economic situation is heightening the focus on accountability. "Companies no longer have fluff money" to experiment with, says Mark Turrell, chief executive of Imaginatik (IMGKF), a vendor of corporate knowledge management tools. "A lot of programs you launch and get good buzz. But now it's all about outcomes."

The debates over buzz are leading to confrontations among consultants. In late October, Marc USA's Kmiec, a little-known figure in the industry, launched a blog attack against Chris Brogan, one of the towering chieftains of social media. President of consultancy New Marketing Labs, Brogan is an object of considerable envy: He boasts 110,379 followers on Twitter, has co-authored a new social media best-seller, Trust Agents, and commands top dollar on the speaking circuit.

Kmiec wrote of Brogan: "He speaks well. He presents well. Does that make him talented? Yes. Does it make him smart? Yes. Does it make him an expert? No." Kmiec asked Brogan for client case studies and metrics to prove his social media success. Responding on Kmiec's blog, Brogan dismissed the questions about his clients and social media metrics: "Is it an exacting marketing science? Not at all. Partly because it's so damned new that we're inventing the case studies while we're experimenting with what comes out of it. Are companies asking for more and more experiences with me to see if it'll work for them? Hell, yes."

DANGER OF A BACKLASH

Many argue that a fixation on hard numbers could lead companies to ignore the harder-to-quantify dividends of social media, such as trust and commitment. A Twittering employee, for example, might develop trust or goodwill among customers but have trouble putting a number on it. "There is this default assumption that return on investment is the correct measure for everything," says Susan Etlinger, senior vice-president at Horn Group, a San Francisco consultancy. "Everything needs to monetize within 12 weeks, so we can understand that we're successful. But frequently the thing they're measuring is misleading."

This can lead to confusion. The risk is that a backlash against the consultants' easy promises could reduce social media investments just as the industry takes off. Think back to the dot-com boom a decade ago. Soaring valuations were based initially on promise and hype. In early 2000, when investors started focusing on scarce profits, the market collapsed. But many companies drew the wrong conclusions. Believing the fall of a hyped market was a sign of the failed promise of the Internet, they drew back on Internet investments. This happened just as the technology was on the verge of living up to much of its promise, dominating global communications, transforming entire industries—and spawning social media.

The best way to avoid a similar backlash today is for social media's practitioners, including thousands of consultants, to shift the focus from promises to results. It may be the only way to convert the skeptics—and flush out the snake oil.

Why Dubai Matters

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Sure, it will pay a hefty price for its debt woes. But the city-state's open economy has attracted legions of foreign investors and serves as a model for its Gulf neighbors

By Stanley Reed

Dubai — After Dubai announced in late November that the state-controlled investment firm Dubai World was seeking to reschedule payments on some $26 billion of debt, global markets went into a tailspin. While foreign bourses quickly rebounded, local shares have taken a pounding, and the credibility of Dubai's leadership has suffered serious damage. Yet lost in all the drama is the fact that Dubai is an important economic experiment in a strategically vital region. The humiliating debt implosion aside, the emirate remains the most dynamic business hub in the Gulf and has become a model for its neighbors.

In a region of conservative, autocratic countries long chained to the boom-and-bust cycles of the oil industry, Dubai stands out for creating an open economy that has diversified well beyond energy. With nowhere near the oil and gas reserves of other Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, it had to. "Dubai shows that if you are part of the global economy, you do well; you don't have to have oil," says David Aaron, director of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy in Washington.

There's no denying that the emirate overreached and will pay a hefty price. Dubai led the region in allowing outsiders to own property, opening up its real estate market to foreign investment in 2003, and created a mortgage industry to finance their purchases. But lax rules ushered in wild speculation. With real estate prices rising at a double-digit annual clip, investors made a killing buying apartments with low deposits and quickly flipping them. Then when the credit crunch came, buyers fled and developers saw their cash flow dry up. Hardest hit was Nakheel, a subsidiary of Dubai World that created the iconic palm island real estate development off the coast. It has about $8 billion in debt and $13 billion in other liabilities such as bills from suppliers, Barclays Capital (BCS) reports.

Dubai's leadership has doubtless mishandled the recent turmoil. The emirate's debt problems have been looming for at least a year, but ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has made little progress in coming to grips with the challenge. As recently as October, Dubai raised nearly $2 billion in new money through an Islamic bond issue. Asked about the emirate's ability to pay its debts, Sheikh Mohammed told reporters: "I assure you, we are all right."

Part of the problem is that while Dubai is more open than its neighbors, it's no Jeffersonian democracy. It is dominated by a handful of people, and their decision-making and finances remain opaque. The debt crisis illustrates that. Until recently, no one knew how much debt Dubai had and which state-linked companies it might back in a crunch. Just as murky was the extent to which its wealthier neighbors, chiefly Abu Dhabi, were willing to bail it out. Investors who had assumed the best got spooked when it appeared Dubai couldn't meet its obligations. "To lower the perception of risk, Dubai must become more transparent quickly," says Matthew Vogel, head of emerging markets research at Barclays Capital in London.

Hassle-Free Business Climate

Nonetheless, Dubai remains the region's nimblest competitor. It is a tolerant and comfortable base for anyone seeking a foothold in the Arab world, and today Americans, Europeans, Asians, and Middle Easterners work side-by-side in the senior ranks of its big companies. Salaries are high, and there's no personal income tax. Luxury apartment buildings abound, many of them weekend getaways for residents of neighboring states who flock to Dubai to enjoy lavish restaurants and bars often filled with available young women. Then there's all that famous froth such as the indoor ski slope, the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel on the beachfront, and the world's tallest building, the soon-to-open Burj Dubai.

Beneath all the glitz, though, Dubai has become a place where serious business gets done. While the city-state has just 1.6 million residents and a gross domestic product of $80 billion, it is the business gateway for a region with a $1 trillion economy, millions of eager young consumers, and hundreds of billions of petrodollars to invest. Microsoft (MSFT), General Electric (GE), Cisco Systems (CSCO), and a host of other A-list multinationals have flocked to Dubai because of its open culture, top-notch infrastructure, and hassle-free business climate.

And virtually every leading investment bank is present in the Dubai International Financial Center, a lavish gray-granite complex with ornate fountains built on what was a desolate patch of sand just a few years ago. A big draw is the emerging market for Islamic financial services, which has become a $1 trillion business globally. "Dubai will continue to lay the foundations for sustainable growth," says Michael Geoghegan, group chief executive of HSBC, the leading lender in the United Arab Emirates with $611 million in loans out to Dubai World. "I am confident that Dubai and the U.A.E. will overcome any short-term issues they face."

Model Gulf State

Dubai's homegrown companies have made their mark, too. At the core of debt-plagued Dubai World is a first-class ports operation, and the company has vast real estate holdings and a host of other businesses that span the globe. Emirates, the airline founded by the ruling Maktoum family in 1985 with $10 million in capital, is now among the world's top 10 carriers and a major customer for both Airbus and Boeing (BA). And Dubai-based Abraaj Capital, an independent group owned by local and Saudi investors, has grown into the leading private equity firm investing in the region.

Dubai's success hasn't gone unnoticed in the neighborhood, and nearby states are following its lead. Gas-rich Qatar is promoting its own financial center. Abu Dhabi has announced an $8 billion financial-services joint venture with GE. And it's working hard to transform itself into a higher-end version of Dubai with even fancier hotels and branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. Even hyperconservative Saudi Arabia has taken a leaf from Dubai's book by liberalizing its financial system to draw in Western investment banks such as Morgan Stanley (MS) and Deutsche Bank (DB).

What these countries see in Dubai is a chance to move beyond the petro-economy that has provided their wealth but does little to create jobs. The Gulf region has millions of young, underemployed people who want a better life—and who risk being drawn toward Islamist extremism if they don't get it. Some of the most talented of these have made their way to Dubai, where they find a more meritocratic culture that offers seemingly endless opportunities. "They look at this place as somewhere that allows them to do things that they can't do [at home]," says Tarik Yousef, dean of the Dubai School of Government. "It has been built out of nothing."

Hard Choices

While Dubai's neighbors want to emulate its success, that doesn't mean they won't exact a serious political toll for the recent turmoil. The U.A.E., a federation of seven city-states ruled by hereditary clans, is largely bankrolled by Abu Dhabi, but Dubai is its business center. Sheikh Mo, as Dubai's leader is popularly known, is vice-president and prime minister. Abu Dhabi's ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, serves as president, and he's unlikely to simply write a check to bail out Dubai. Instead, he will probably force Sheikh Mo to make hard choices about developer Nakheel and other troubled enterprises. Some in Abu Dhabi will even want to see Dubai pay for its profligacy by turning over stakes in major assets. The two sides "will sit down and say this is sustainable, this isn't," says Hashem Montasser, Dubai-based managing director of EFG-Hermes, the leading regional investment bank. "I am sure there will be differences."

Until Dubai cleans up its act, it will be much harder to find the money needed to keep building the new highways, the public transit system, and other big infrastructure projects that have helped give it its edge. Already businesses in the emirate say it's tough to line up bank credit, and that won't ease anytime soon. "We are expecting it to be very difficult for Dubai-based entities to raise money," says Farouk Soussa, a Standard & Poor's (MHP) analyst in Dubai.

Given Sheikh Mo's missteps in the current crisis, he may find himself increasingly under the thumb of his neighbors in Abu Dhabi. It hasn't gone unnoticed that solo portraits of him on billboards in prominent locations across Dubai have been replaced by signs showing both the Dubai leader and Sheikh Khalifa.

Dubai may no longer be allowed to run an independent foreign policy. Sheikh Mo has long kept the city-state close to Iran—and tapped into its capital—while most other Gulf states see the Islamic Republic as one of their greatest enemies. And Abu Dhabi, which worries that the U.A.E. is losing its character due to excessive immigration, may push to tighten up on visas for visitors from Iran, Russia, and elsewhere. "The entire U.A.E. will gravitate toward Abu Dhabi," says Ian Bremmer, president of New York-based risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "That means Dubai will become more conservative socially and politically. Dubai's branding will be toned down."

"Don't Count Dubai Out"

That toned-down branding means the emirate will surely rein in some of its excesses. Although the skyline and palm islands won't disappear, further over-the-top development will likely be put on hold. The city-state has "realized it's no longer about building the world's tallest tower," says Saud Masud, research chief for Swiss bank UBS (UBS). "Now it's about Dubai's legacy and its long-term future." And the crisis could help spur greater transparency—admittedly the weakest part of Dubai's economic model, says David Kirsch, an analyst at Washington-based consultancy PFC Energy. "This will put more pressure on Dubai to tighten up on regulations and improve governance," Kirsch says.

It is also hard to see Dubai losing its role as the region's leading business hub. It's true that Qatar's Doha, Abu Dhabi, and even the Saudi capital, Riyadh, are scoring some successes in attracting banking and other businesses. And with greater access to capital, they'll be able to close the infrastructure gap with Dubai. But few expatriates are going to want to settle in those places, which don't really want lots of foreigners and their unfamiliar ways anyhow.

While Dubai's current problems may be severe, the viability of its economic model remains sound. Demand for business services is down now, but it will surely bounce back once the credit crunch eases. "Don't count Dubai out," says Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein. "It has world-class infrastructure, a high-quality talent pool, and will continue to be an important financial center for decades to come." Singapore, which has served as an inspiration for Dubai, learned from the crash of 1997-1998 and emerged much stronger from it. Dubai, too, now has the opportunity to take lessons from its mistakes and thrive once again.

With Vivian Salama, Arif Sharif, Anthony DiPaola, Jason Kelly, Rochelle Garner, and Jonathan Keehner.

Devices to Take Textbooks Beyond Text

Image by nDevilTV via Flickr

By ANNE EISENBERG

NEWSPAPERS and novels are moving briskly from paper to pixels, but textbooks have yet to find the perfect electronic home. They are readable on laptops and smartphones, but the displays can be eye-taxing. Even dedicated e-readers with their crisp printlike displays can’t handle textbook staples like color illustrations or the videos and Web-linked supplements publishers increasingly supply.

Now there is a new approach that may adapt well to textbook pages: two-screen e-book readers with a traditional e-paper display on one screen and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics like science animations in color.

The dual screens are linked by a central processor so that, for example, a link on the e-paper display can open on the color screen.

A two-screen device called the eDGe will be released by enTourage Systems in February for $490, said Doug Atkinson, vice president of marketing and business development for the company, based in McLean, Va.

The dual screens of the eDGe open like a book with facing pages. The e-reader screen is 9.7 inches diagonally; the color touch screen on the liquid-crystal display is 10.1 inches. The two screens interact in many ways. For instance, if the textbook on the black-and-white e-reader displays an illustration from a file that is in color, “the machine can move the illustration over to the LCD and run it there in color,” Mr. Atkinson said.

The e-reader screen is used with a stylus that can underline or highlight text, take notes in the margin, pull up a blank piece of e-paper for solving math problems, or touch a link for a video of a chemical interaction that is then displayed on the LCD screen.

The virtual keyboard is on the LCD side, as well as an audio recorder and a video camera. The device uses Google’s Android operating system, so other applications like word processing can be added, Mr. Atkinson said.

The two screens swivel, so that the LCD screen can be tucked beneath the e-reader if space is tight. Then the device can be used as a note-taking tablet, or it can be flipped over to the other side for sending e-mail.

Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., said that the enTourage device was part of the next generation of e-readers, which would be hybrids. “They won’t just be a netbook or a tablet or an e-reader,” Ms. Epps said, “but a combination that will bend the categories consumers expect from electronics.”

E-textbooks have special requirements that can be addressed by hybrids like the eDGe, she explained. “The devices have to render graphics faithfully, ideally with color,” she said, “and students should have the ability to take extensive notes and share them,” as well as have access to whatever interactive elements publishers provide.

Until such features come to market, Ms. Epps said, “electronic book readers are great for reading novels, but they aren’t right for textbooks.”

Allen Weiner, a research vice president with Gartner, said that many students would simply read e-textbooks on their laptops. But even so, dual-screen devices are likely to find a place in the market, he said, provided the models have fairly large screens for both displays. “The window you need for effective video interaction doesn’t have to be giant,” Mr. Weiner said, “but it needs to be a decent size” so that readers can click on a link and find out more. In addition, students can use the hybrids to take notes and underline text directly on the screen using the stylus, something they can’t do on most laptops.

Two other new devices also use dual screens. Barnes & Noble’s new Nook e-book reader ($259) has a small LCD touch screen beneath the reading display to be used primarily for navigation. Another device not yet on the market, the Alex from Spring Design in Cupertino, Calif., has a 3.5-inch LCD for browsing the Internet and interacting with the e-reader content. Spring Design will announce pricing in January, said Eric Kmiec, the company’s vice president for sales and marketing.

“You will probably soon see combined e-reading devices with LCDs that are slightly smaller than the enTourage, but larger than the Alex,” Mr. Weiner predicted.

Electronic textbooks may one day offer a convenient way to study, said Ms. Epps, literally lightening a student’s load. That’s already happened at Catholic University of America in Washington, where Robert A. Destro, a professor of law, and his students are testing a version of the eDGe. Professor Destro has 13 textbooks on his device.

“It’s wonderful not to have to lug those books around,” he said.