By Philip Rucker and Julie Tate Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A01
The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was "lonely" and had "never found a true Muslim friend."
"I have no one to speak too [sic]," read a posting from January 2005, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was attending boarding school. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems."
The Washington Post reviewed 300 online postings under the name "farouk1986" (a combination of Abdulmutallab's middle name and birth year). The postings mused openly about love and marriage, his college ambitions and angst over standardized testing, as well as his inner struggle as a devout Muslim between liberalism and extremism. In often-intimate writings, posted between 2005 and 2007, he sought friends online, through Facebook and in Islamic chat rooms: "My name is Umar but you can call me Farouk." He often invited readers to "have your say" and once wrote, "May Allah reward you for reading and reward you more for helping."
A U.S. government official said late Monday that federal intelligence officials were reviewing the online postings but had not independently confirmed their authenticity.
Many of the biographical details in the writings, however, match up with facts already known about Abdulmutallab.
Farouk1986 wrote of being born in 1986 and having attended an elite British boarding school in Togo, where many of his classmates were British expatriates and students from around West Africa.
The postings also reference visits to London, the United States and other countries, including Egypt and Yemen. Department of Homeland Security officials said Monday that Abdulmutallab traveled to the United States in July 2004 to Washington and in August 2008 to Houston.
Farouk1986 wrote about considering applications to U.S. and British universities, including University College London, where officials said Abdulmutallab enrolled in a mechanical engineering course from September 2005 to June 2008. He also wrote about his family's wealth; Abdulmutallab's father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a frequent visitor to the United States, retired this year as chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and still sits on the boards of several prominent Nigerian firms.
All of the postings are on the Islamic Forum Web site (http://www.gawaher.com), which uses a commercially available chat-forum software called IP.Board that automatically assigns dates to users' posts as they are created. Many of Farouk1986's postings drew comments from other forum members on the day they were written.
Taken together, the writings demonstrate an acute awareness of Western customs and a worldliness befitting Abdulmutallab's privileged upbringing as a wealthy Nigerian banker's son.
Embracing privilege
In a June 2005 posting, Farouk1986 wrote that he was in Yemen for a three-month Arabic course, saying that "it is just great." He described how many British people and Americans were in Sanaa, gushing about the capital's shopping and global cuisine (including, he noted, Pizza Hut and KFC).
The Yemeni Embassy said Monday that Abdulmutallab was in Yemen between August and December of this year to study Arabic at a language institute. He earlier spent time at the same institute, the embassy said.
Farouk1986 wrote often of the college admissions process, once describing his plans to study engineering at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley or the California Institute of Technology. But he also wrote of his disappointment in scoring a 1200 on the SAT. "I tried the SAT," he wrote in March 2005. "It was a disaster!!!"
On Facebook, Abdulmutallab's profile features a photo of him smiling, standing alongside two friends and wearing a sharp-looking pink polo shirt and sunglasses. He has 287 friends.
Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, 22, who studied with Abdulmutallab at University College London, said Abdulmutallab graduated in May 2008 and showed no signs of radicalization or of links to al-Qaeda. "He always did the bare minimum of work," Marincola said of his classmate, who he said was nicknamed "Biggie."
"When we were studying, he always would go off to pray," Marincola continued. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of."
As a student at the British boarding school in Togo, Farouk1986 wrote that he was lonely because there were few other Muslims. "I'm active, I socialise with everybody around me, no conflicts, I laugh and joke but not excessively," he wrote in one posting seeking counseling from online peers. "I will describe myself as very ambitious and determined, especially in the deen. I strive to live my daily live [sic] according to the quran and sunnah to the best of my ability. I do almost everything, sports, TV, books . . . (of course trying not to cross the limits in the deen)." The deen is a religious way of life.
Ideals colliding
In his January 2005 posting about his loneliness, Farouk1986 wrote about the tension between his desires and his religious duty of "lowering the gaze" in the presence of women. "The Prophet (S) advised young men to fast if they can't get married but it has not been helping me much and I seriously don't want to wait for years before I get married," he wrote.
At 18, he added, he had not started searching for prospective partners because of social norms such as having "a degree, a job, a house, etc. before getting married." But, he said, "my parents I know could help me financially should I get married, even though I think they are also not going to be in favour of early marriage."
He also wrote of his "dilemma between liberalism and extremism" as a Muslim. "The Prophet (S) said religion is easy and anyone who tries to overburden themselves will find it hard and will not be able to continue," he wrote in 2005. "So anytime I relax, I deviate sometimes and then when I strive hard, I get tired of what I am doing i.e. memorising the quran, etc. How should one put the balance right?"
In December 2005, Farouk1986 wrote that his parents were visiting him in London and that he was torn about whether he could eat meat with them. "I am of the view meat not slaughtered by Muslims . . . is haram [forbidden] for consumption unless necessary," he wrote. "My parents are of the view as foreigners, we are allowed to . . . eat any meat. It occured [sic] to me I should not be eating with my parents as they use meat I consider haram. But I fear this might cause division and other complicated family problems."
He pleaded: "Please respond as quickly as possible as my tactic has been to eat outside and not at home till I get an answer."
Abdulmutallab, the youngest of 16 children and the son of the second of his father's two wives, was raised at the family home in Kaduna, a city in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north. At boarding school, Farouk was easygoing and studious, earning the sobriquet "Alfa," a local term for Muslim clerics, because of his penchant for preaching Islam to colleagues, according to family members.
"Farouk was a devoted Muslim who took his religion seriously and was committed to his studies," said an uncle. "He was such a brilliant boy and nobody in the family had the slightest thought he could do something as insane as this."
Although Farouk hardly ever stayed in Nigeria and would visit only for holidays, family members and neighbors on Ahman Pategi Street in the rich Unguwar Sarki neighborhood in Kaduna also said he was easygoing and passionate about Islam. "He was of course a very religious, polite and studious fellow," said a cousin, "but it was unthinkable that he would do anything close to attempting to bomb a plane."
By Steve Hendrix Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A01
At a concert in Langley Park featuring Guatemalan country music, the crowd is divisible by headwear, cowboy hats vs. baseball caps. Older immigrants wear the ranch garb of rural Central America; younger ones, the Terps and Nike caps common in suburban Washington.
At the edge of the two-stepping audience, one man stands hatless. Immigrants of all ages approach Jorge Sactic-España to shake hands and pass a few words of Spanish with the man they call Don Jorge or, sometimes, Mayor.
An older man in a white, wide-brimmed hat checks in with the don (a Spanish honorific showing great respect) about an ongoing dispute between Latino store owners and managers of La Union Mall, where the concert is taking place. A younger man (blue N.Y.C. cap) asks if he knows of any construction or painting jobs. A woman in jeans with a bare midriff seeks help with a fundraiser for hungry children in Guatemala.
Dispensing aid and advice is routine for Sactic, although he is no elected official. He owns a bakery.
His Chapina Bakery is a popular gathering spot in the two-story shopping center, the epicenter of the large Hispanic enclave in this part of Prince George's County. Sactic's cachitos and gallinitas are known as the most authentic Latin American sweet buns around.
But it's his standing as a onetime illegal immigrant who has mastered life in the United States that makes him a bridge between newcomers and old-timers, Latinos and gringos -- the unofficial mayor of La Union Mall.
"Some people call me that," Sactic, 48, says with a dismissive wave. His nearly fluent English rises over the accordion music of Paco Pinado, a singer flown in from Guatemala to croon country ballads for homesick compatriots. "To me, it's just a matter of helping whoever I can. I see the value in all of us working together. This is in my nature."
What makes Sactic stand out from other immigrants-made-good is his continuing devotion to the neediest members of the diaspora, say those who have worked with him.
"Once they get their paperwork and a profession, their focus usually becomes more inward, toward their career, their children," says Amanda Martin, director of the Washington-based Guatemalan Human Rights Commission. Her group regularly calls on Sactic to host meetings at the bakery. "That's why it's incredible that Jorge is still so engaged. He is the cement between the bricks in that world."
Sactic, who became a U.S. citizen in 2002, represents a crucial character in the story of immigrant enclaves such as Langley Park, says Jacob L. Vigdor, a professor of public policy at Duke University and an expert on assimilation. As the rare immigrant comfortable in both worlds, Sactic acts as a "cultural concierge," he says.
"We have examples throughout the history of the country of people like this who have taken it upon themselves to serve as conduits of information," Vigdor said. "They find answers for the newcomers."
'Known to everyone'
With the campesino tunes still filling the mall, Sactic retreats to the tiny bakery office to do paperwork through the night.
Visiting La Union can feel like a quick trip to the tropics. All but a handful of the 46 shops are Latino-owned and -oriented, including the soccer supply store and the party shop packed with elaborate dresses for girls' 15th birthday celebrations.
Other shop owners want Sactic to persuade the mall's new management team to give them more time to make rent payments during the downturn and to be more open to face-to-face negotiations. Sactic works up a summary of the issues for a lawyer to review.
"It's a cultural thing," he says. "They should come and meet us and shake our hands."
He orders flour and updates the payroll for his nine employees. He plans a meeting for the immigrant group he founded, AGUA (a Spanish acronym for the Association of Guatemalans United). He works on a paper for the master's degree in international business he is pursuing through the University of Maryland's continuing education program.
The bakers have arrived to fire up the ovens for the day ahead before Sactic begins translating materials for a meeting on the proposed Purple Line's impact on Langley Park. The e-mail he sends when he finishes for the night is time-stamped 3:18 a.m.
"Late at night is when I can get things done," says Sactic, who rents a basement apartment in Hyattsville for times when the drive home to Germantown is too long and too late. "There are so many meetings, people always coming in to talk."
With a little paunch and an ever-present blue sweater vest, the soft-spoken Sactic looks more like a folk singer than a man whom immigrants, activists and embassies turn to as a leader.
Laborers come to his shop with immigration problems, parking tickets and questions about income taxes and health care. Desperate mothers ask for bread to help them get through another jobless week. Government officials from Prince George's and Guatemala City call when they need an emissary for the thousands of Latinos who fill the surrounding apartment buildings.
"When we need to reach the people, we go to Jorge," says Rita Claverie de Sciolli, deputy chief of mission at the Guatemalan Embassy. The diplomats have asked Sactic to host mobile consulate sessions, during which they process passport requests and record births, deaths and marriages.
Claverie says Sactic helped fill the gap recently after a popular embassy program was dropped because of budget cuts: one that sent home the bodies of Guatemalans who died in the Washington area.
That sad gesture of loyalty to homeland can cost a family $2,000 or more, and Sactic is nearly constantly raising money to support the shipments. Most recently, a donation box on his bakery counter featured a photo of a young man who died of a neurological disease. Earlier this month, Sactic contributed 200 sweet buns to be sold to raise money to send a cancer victim back to a mountain cemetery.
"Don Jorge is known to everyone. He helps everyone," says a 22-year-old Guatemalan standing in front of the bakery. The man, who didn't want to be identified because he is in the country illegally, has just been speaking by cellphone to his wife in Guatemala, telling her that he has landed a job as a painter's helper and will be able to send her school fees for their son. Earlier this year, Sactic had given the young worker bread when he couldn't find work.
Not that Sactic can always help. When a tiny elderly woman came to him with a stack of traffic citations, he was surprised to find that one was a ticket for driving under the influence.
"I said, 'Abuela, you need a lawyer,' " Sactic recalls with a laugh. "We see everything here."
Struggles and successes
Sactic's American experience began in 1985 with a swim across the Rio Grande at Brownsville, Tex. He was 25. The Guatemalan civil war was raging, and college students were targets of right-wing hit squads. He abandoned his studies in economics and fled north. It would be 15 years before he saw the inside of a classroom again.
"I came to Washington because my aunt was here," he says. "I started with nothing."
At first, he worked the usual entry-level jobs: sweeping floors, folding dropcloths for a painter, washing brushes. Within three years, he started his own painting company. He added construction projects, learned English, hired skilled workers.
"My dad just knows how to get things done," says Sactic's daughter, Jacqueline Manchané, 25, a receptionist at an Elizabeth Arden spa in Germantown. "That's his main talent."
Sactic, his wife, Dora, and their three children reached an immigrant milestone in 2000 when they bought a roomy house in Germantown. There have been other successes. A son, Georgie, 23, owns a cellphone store in the District.
But life wasn't easy; the couple's youngest, Edward, was born with cerebral palsy. For years, their routines revolved around doctor's appointments and 24-hour care. Edward died three years ago at 13.
Sactic's community activities ballooned after Edward's death, Manchané says. "I think before, he had to always make sure he was around," she says. "Now he has more flexibility."
Sactic received an associate's degree from Montgomery College and a bachelor's in business administration from Maryland. In 2004, sensing a literal hunger for the authentic pan dulce of Guatemala, he opened the bakery. The lines went out the door.
"We're selling sentiment," he says as customers fill plastic bins with warm, brown buns. "It's what they grew up with."
At the mall, the scents of Sactic's baked goods mix with the aromas of the traditional cooking of two Guatemalan cafes. "It's like being in Central America here," says Sactic, who is president of the mall's merchants association. "This could be in Guatemala City or Tegucigalpa."
At the concert, Sactic takes a break from his paperwork to enjoy the sight of his dancing compatriots. "Tonight, everyone is happy," he shouts above the ruckus. "It's one night without problems."
Then he turns to talk to another shop owner, someone else waiting for a word with the mayor.
By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A01
A dangerous explosive allegedly concealed by Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in his underwear could have blown a hole in the side of his Detroit-bound aircraft if it had been detonated, according to two federal sources briefed on the investigation.
Authorities said they are still analyzing a badly damaged syringe that Abdulmutallab allegedly employed as a detonating device on Christmas Day. But preliminary conclusions indicate that he allegedly used 80 grams of PETN -- almost twice as much of the highly explosive material as used by convicted shoe bomber Richard C. Reid.
A day after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was "no indication" the incident was connected to a larger plot, there were increasing signs that the failed bombing may have represented one of the most serious terrorist threats in the United States since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
President Obama interrupted his vacation in Hawaii to declare that authorities "will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable." He also said he had ordered a review of the nation's terrorist watch-list system.
In a statement, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, asserted responsibility for the attempt to destroy the Northwest Airlines jet, saying it was a response to U.S.-backed airstrikes against the group in Yemen. Meanwhile, Yemen's government confirmed that Abdulmutallab was in the country from early August to early December after obtaining a visa to study Arabic at a language institute, and said that he had previously studied at the school.
The suspect, 23, has told federal investigators that he had ties to al-Qaeda and that he had traveled to Yemen to collect the incendiary device he tried to use on the plane.
The Obama administration suffered blistering criticism for another day from national security experts and from Republican lawmakers, who demanded changes to the airline screening system and the use of more intrusive technology to detect explosives. Napolitano acknowledged on NBC's "Today" show Monday that "our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that."
In London, Britain's home secretary, Alan Johnson, told the BBC that Abdulmutallab had been placed on a watch list in May and had been banned from entering the country. A British government source said the move came after Abdulmutallab, who in 2008 graduated from University College London, applied for a new visa to attend a college that was not deemed legitimate by authorities there.
Johnson said he also suspected Abdulmutallab may have been working with others: "We don't know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or were there other people behind it -- I suspect it's the latter rather than the former."
Law enforcement officials in the United States, Yemen, Nigeria and Britain spent a fourth day tracking the contacts and travel of Abdulmutallab, who is incarcerated on terrorism-related charges in Milan, Mich., 45 miles south of Detroit, until a bond hearing next week. His public defender, Miriam Siefer, did not return calls for comment.
Authorities remain particularly interested in the development of Abdulmutallab's radical beliefs. They are tracking Web postings and other communications he may have had with clerics in Yemen, including Anwar al-Aulaqi, who corresponded with the alleged Fort Hood, Tex., shooter, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, months before the Nov. 5 gunfire rang out on the Army's largest base, sources said.
Abdulmutallab's relatives issued a statement from their home in Abuja, Nigeria, describing attempts by his father, a prominent banker, to warn Nigerian intelligence agencies and the U.S. Embassy there "about a month and a half ago" and to seek help in regaining contact with his son.
"The disappearance and cessation of communication which got his mother and father concerned to report to the security agencies are completely out of character and a very recent development," the statement said.
Authorities said there was no reason to suspect Abdulmutallab of dangerous activity until his father visited the embassy in Abuja on Nov. 19. The next day, under a program called Visa Viper, mandated by Congress to ensure all terrorism-related information is promptly reported to Washington, the embassy sent a cable saying the father was "concerned that his son was falling under the influence of religious extremists in Yemen," a State Department official said.
The State Department, under existing procedures, passed the Viper information to the National Counterterrorism Center for entry in its terrorism database. Neither the State Department nor the NCTC, officials said Monday, checked to see if Abdulmutallab had ever entered the United States or had a valid entry visa -- information readily available in separate consular and immigration databases. "It's not for us to review that," the State Department official said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Abdulmutallab has twice obtained U.S. visas, and before this month had visited the United States once in 2004 and once in 2008.
An intelligence official said that because Abdulmutallab had not previously been entered into the system as a terrorism suspect, procedures did not include such checks. Administration officials said these apparent gaps are among those to be studied in the review Obama has ordered.
"It seems to me that when this happens, the person should go automatically on the no-fly list," she said. "I'd rather, in the interest of protecting people, overreact rather than underreact."
"The Obama administration is flying solo on national security right now," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Hoekstra said he wants to know more about Abdulmutallab's e-mail and other connections to radical clerics to determine whether red flags may have been missed.
"He also had no baggage. They knew he had been to Yemen. Come on, come on, come on. That is pretty suspicious," said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), also a member of the House intelligence panel.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said that at the time the latest visa was issued, "there was nothing in his application nor in any database at the time that would indicate that he should not receive a visa. He was a student at a very reputable school. He had plenty of financial resources, so he was not an intending immigrant. There was no derogatory information about him last year."
In its statement, translated by SITE Intelligence Group, a Bethesda-based analytic service, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula praised Abdulmutallab. It said he had "penetrated all modern and sophisticated technology and devices and security barriers in airports of the world, with courage and bravery, without fearing death and with seeking the help of Allah."
A senior Yemeni government official insisted that al-Qaeda affiliates in the country are not getting stronger. But the branch's assertion of responsibility, the official said, underscores that fighting terrorism is a global issue and that Yemen needs help in tackling terrorists inside its borders. The statement of responsibility, if deemed credible by U.S. intelligence agencies, may mark the first time al-Qaeda affiliates outside Afghanistan or Pakistan have targeted American soil.
One of the top leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is Said al-Shihri, 36, a Saudi national. He was captured in Pakistan in December 2001 and spent six years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before being transferred to Saudi Arabia in November 2007.
In Saudi Arabia, he entered a highly praised rehabilitation program that uses dialogue and art therapy to persuade former militants to renounce extremism. But after graduating, Shihri crossed the border into Yemen and rejoined al-Qaeda.
Correspondent Sudarsan Raghavan in Sanaa, Yemen; special correspondents Karla Adam in London and Aminu Abubakar in Nigeria; staff writers Anne E. Kornblut in Hawaii and Karen DeYoung and Carol D. Leonnig in Washington; and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
"Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Lao Armed Forces, has also been in charge of denying all human rights violations regarding the Hmong, including denying all charges by Amnesty International and others," said Philip Smith of the Center for Public Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C. (Media-Newswire.com) - Washington, D.C., December 29, 2009 - The head of the Hmong effort to forcibly repatriate Lao Hmong refugees from Thailand to Laos is a senior Lao Peoples Army ( LPA ) general who has a track record of denying findings of war crimes and atrocities by Amnesty International, the United Nations and others. Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh ( AKA Bouaxieng Champaphanh ), chairman of the Lao-Thai general border sub-committee, is also the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Lao Armed Forces which has target the Hmong in Laos for military attacks and political and religious persecution. General Bouasieng Champaphanh has been put in charge of the Hmong repatriated from Thailand to Laos.
“Lao Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh, along with other senior Lao Peoples Army commanders and Politburo members, have engaged in efforts before the United Nations to cover-up atrocities and war crimes committed in recent years to exterminate Hmong dissidents and unarmed civilians in the jungles and mountains of Laos, including in Xieng Khouang Province Boulikhamxai and Vientiane Provinces,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis.
Smith continued: “This is the equivalent of putting SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in charge of the plan for the so-called ‘Jewish resettlement’ in Poland and Germany during World War II,” Smith continued.
In 2003, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination passed a resolution in Geneva condemning the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic ( LPDR ) for atrocities against the Hmong including the rape and murder of Hmong children by LPA forces. Thereafter, it again raised concerns about attacks against Hmong civilians and opposition groups in Laos.
Amnesty International has also repeatedly documented atrocities against the Hmong by the LPA against Hmong civilians which were also denied by Laos and General Bouasieng and other LPA Generals. The LPA controls the central committee of the LPDR politburo with a majority of senior military officers controlling the communist party in Laos.
“Ironically, General Bouasieng Champaphanh, an officer in charge of military operations directed against the Hmong in Laos, placed LPA officers in charge of investigating the war crimes they were accused of committing in Xieng Khoang Province and elsewhere for the purpose of denying it to the United Nations after the passage of the resolution by the United Nations Committee in Geneva in 2004,” Smith said. “Earlier this year, Thailand’s Prime Minister and General Anupong Paochinda allowed General Bouasieng Champaphanh to visit the Hmong refugee camp at Ban Huay Nam Khao and speak to the refugees who repeatedly refused his demands to volunteer to return to Laos.”
“Brigadier General Bouasieng Champaphanh, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Lao Armed Forces, has also been in charge of denying all human rights violations regarding the Hmong, including denying all charges by Amnesty International and others,” Smith stated.
“The Chief of Staff of the Army and Deputy Chief of Staff, including the office of General Bouasieng Champaphanh, have authorized repeated ‘Einstatzgruppen’ ethnic cleansing operations, military operations and a campaign of mass starvation against many Lao Hmong civilians and dissident groups in recent months and years,” Smith said.
Laos does not have an independent judiciary. It is a one-party, authoritarian military regime.
In 2004, the U.S. Congress passed H. Res. 402 in response to the Hmong crisis in Laos and Thailand and attacks and human rights violations against Hmong and Laotian civilians and dissidents.
“Over the last three years, political analysts have painstakingly documented evidence that supports the ongoing persecution of Lao Hmong and Political Prisoners in secret detention centres throughout Laos. It is a broadly accepted view held by the International Community that the Lao Hmong Refugees will face similar persecution, arbitrary detention, torture, and possibly death, if forced back to Laos. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Foreign Prisoner Support Service have independently reported returnee abuse in Laos” says Kay Danes, advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service in Australia and a former political prisoner in Laos.
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Contact: Maria Gomez Telephone ( 202 ) 543-1444 Center for Public Policy Analysis info@centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org
WASHINGTON — US lawmakers on Tuesday denounced Thailand for expelling more than 4,000 Hmong into Laos and demanded that the Vientiane government allow immediate international monitoring to ensure their safety.
The senators representing Minnesota and Wisconsin, states home to much of the Hmong community in the United States, said they "strongly condemn" Thailand for going ahead with Monday's mass expulsion despite US and UN pleas.
"This action violates humanitarian and refugee principles and could have serious repercussions," said the statement by Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
"We share the concern of many of our Hmong-American constituents whose loved ones have been forced to return, and we will be paying close attention as the Hmong are resettled in Laos," said the senators, all members of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party.
The senators urged Laos "to ensure the safety and well-being of these individuals and to allow immediate and ongoing monitoring by international observers at all stages of the resettlement and reintegration process."
In a separate joint statement, the top Democrat and Republican on the House Foreign Relations Committee said that the repatriation "marks a dangerous precedent" for refugees worldwide.
"The Lao government must ensure that they are treated humanely, guarantee access to the international community for independent monitoring, and let those who are eligible for resettlement be resettled promptly," wrote Representatives Howard Berman, the committee chair, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican.
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont had earlier held out the threat of scaling back military cooperation with Thailand, a long-standing US ally, if it went ahead with the expulsions.
Both Thailand and Laos said that the Hmong were illegal immigrants and not political refugees as they contended. Thailand said it had received assurances that Laos would treat them well.
But Hmong activists say that the ethnic group continues to face persecution in communist Laos stemming from the time of the Vietnam War, when the mountain people were recruited to fight alongside US forces.
Doctors Without Borders said earlier this year that Hmong who fled to Thailand recounted killings, gang-rape and malnutrition inflicted by Laotian forces.
On Sunday your paper reported that Thailand will begin using the Army to repatriate several thousand Hmong refugees back to Laos. The story deserves more coverage than you gave it.
It is a very sad situation that people are being forced at gunpoint back to a place they want to leave. In the midst of this sad story, however, a real tragedy is taking place - one that brings shame to both America and Thailand.
First, remember that the Hmong were the Lao mountain soldiers who fought on behalf of the USA and Thailand during the Vietnam War. They were highly regarded as fighters, and they played a major part in keeping Laos in the control of our allies until the end.
Among the present Hmong refugees is a small group known as the "Jungle Hmong" who will be going back to predictable brutality and likely death. They are a rebellious group that remained in the jungle after the communist victory and refused to assimilate or cooperate. They thought of themselves as patriots, and awaited the day when they might help free their country from their old enemy - likely with ongoing encouragement from some Hmong who escaped to other countries. Over the years, the Lao government, regarding them as criminals and traitors, has been systematically exterminating them. Many, maybe most, of them would now like to find a way to assimilate, but, with good reason, they believe they will be jailed and/or killed if they come under the control of Lao officials.
The Jungle Hmong in Thailand (mostly women, children, and old men) have been officially and properly designated as political refugees, and other governments have stated a willingness to accept them. Last April it appeared that common sense and compassion might prevail when the Thai foreign minister announced that Thailand would facilitate the resettlement of 158 of the Jungle Hmong held at Nong Khai. A month later, however, Laos insisted that they be sent back, and Thailand caved in. A couple of months ago, Laos became a party to an important UN human rights accord, but many observers believe that the communists' hatred for the Jungle Hmong is so deep and strong that, in spite of the now official policy, those Hmong will likely be brutally received if returned to Laos.
Thailand and America have both paid some lip service to resettlement of the Jungle Hmong, but both governments have been fundamentally spineless. They know that the Jungle Hmong are legitimate political refugees, they know that they are terrified to return to Laos, they know that they have good reason to so feel, they know they are our former allies, and they know that most of the persons in Thailand pose no possible threat to anyone. Nevertheless they will not do what it takes to move them on. One wonders if the Afghans will notice this sense of ongoing commitment that America has for former military allies.
In a related story, the legendary old Hmong general, Vang Pao, announced a couple of weeks ago that he would like to travel back to Laos to see if he could ease the tensions between his followers and the present government. The Lao government, however, expressed contempt for the idea by saying he must serve his death sentence first.
In the fall of 2002, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen on his way home from Tunisia, was pulled out of line by US officials while changing planes at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. He was locked up for twelve days, much of that time incommunicado, and harshly interrogated. When he was finally allowed to make a phone call, after a week in captivity, he called his mother in Canada, who found him a lawyer.
The lawyer saw Arar on Saturday. The very next night—a Sunday evening—immigration officials held an extraordinary six-hour hearing starting at 9 PM, orchestrated from Washington, D.C. When Arar asked to have his lawyer present, they told him that she had chosen not to participate in the hearing. In fact, the only "notice" they had provided was to leave a message on the lawyer's office voice mail that Sunday night. She got the message Monday morning, and immediately called the immigration service. They told her, falsely, that Arar was being transferred to New Jersey, and she could contact him the next day. In fact, that night federal agents took him on a federally chartered jet to Jordan, and from there to Syria.
In Syria, Arar was handed over to intelligence officials who imprisoned him in a cell the size of a grave, three feet by six feet by seven feet. Syrian security agents tortured him, including beating him with an electric cable, while asking the same questions that FBI interrogators had been asking at JFK—was he a terrorist, was he linked to al-Qaeda, did he know various other persons thought to be associated with al-Qaeda? (The Syrian security forces are widely known for their use of torture, as the US State Department reports every year in its annual Human Rights Country Reports.) After a year, the Syrians released Arar, concluding that he had done nothing wrong.
Arar returned to Canada—this time bypassing JFK. Canada launched a major independent investigation, which concluded that he was wholly innocent, and that Canadian officials had erred in providing the Americans with misleading information about him while he was in US custody. The Canadians erroneously told US officials that Arar was a target of a terrorist investigation; in fact, he had merely been identified as someone who should be contacted to see if he had any information about the target, and was not suspected of any terrorist activity himself. The Canadian parliament offered Arar a unanimous apology, and Canada paid him CAD $10.5 million in compensation.[*]
But the Canadians were unaware that the US intended to send Arar to Syria, and they had no part in that decision. It was the US, not Canada, that locked up Arar without charges, blocked his access to the courts, spirited him off to Syria, and then provided the Syrians a dossier of questions to ask him while he was being tortured. Arar filed suit in a US court, suing the federal officials who had a part in his mistreatment—including Attorney General John Ashcroft, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, and FBI Director Robert Mueller. As a volunteer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, I am one of Arar's lawyers.
Arar's claims were simple: to forcibly send him to Syria to be tortured violates the Constitution's due process clause, which the Supreme Court has interpreted as forbidding conduct that "shocks the conscience," as well as the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows torture victims to sue those who subject them to torture "under color of foreign law." Courts have long held that torture is the paradigmatic example of conduct that "shocks the conscience" and violates due process. And Arar alleged that the US defendants sent him to Syria for the purpose of subjecting him to torture under Syrian law. These allegations were largely confirmed not only by the Canadian investigation, but also by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. In twenty-five years as a lawyer, I have never had a clearer and more egregious case of abuse.
Yet thus far the US courts have shut the door entirely on Arar, not even allowing him to offer proof of his claims. In Arar's latest setback, an eleven-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on November 2, 2009, that "special factors counseling hesitation" barred Arar's core claim that his constitutional rights were violated when he was sent to be tortured. The Supreme Court has ruled that suits for damages are generally available for such violations of constitutional rights, but has refused to permit suits where Congress has provided an alternative remedy, or where "military discipline" would be undermined by permitting soldiers to sue their commanding officers. The Bush administration argued that Arar's claim for damages should similarly be dismissed because it implicated sensitive issues of national security, foreign policy, and secret diplomatic communications between the US and foreign governments. The seven-judge majority agreed, finding that any adjudication would likely involve classified information, and could not proceed
without inquiry into the perceived need for the [extraordinary rendition] policy, the threats to which it responds, the substance and sources of the intelligence used to formulate it, and the propriety of adopting specific responses to particular threats in light of apparent geopolitical circumstances and our relations with foreign countries.
Two things are remarkable about the majority's reasoning. First, the rationale quoted above appears to presume that sending people to be tortured may be permissible depending on the "geopolitical circumstances" or "the threats to which [the torture] responds." But under our law and international law, torture is never permissible, and thus these concerns ought not even enter the picture. Second, to dismiss Arar's case at this early stage, the court had to find that, even accepting as true his allegations that federal officials sent an innocent man to be tortured, Arar would be entitled to no remedy. The court concluded, without actually reviewing any classified evidence, that Arar's case was too sensitive to adjudicate, because it would require court review of national security policy and confidential diplomacy. The court suggested that Arar ask Congress for a remedy instead—notwithstanding that he is a foreign national with no voice in the US political process, and that US officials have prohibited him from entering the country for any purpose.
Four judges dissented. Judge Guido Calabresi, former dean of the Yale Law School, predicted that "when the history of this distinguished court is written, today's majority decision will be viewed with dismay." Judge Rosemary Pooler dismissed the majority's national security concerns as "hyperbolic and speculative," and maintained that Arar should have a remedy "to reinforce our system of checks and balances, to provide a deterrent, and to redress conduct that shocks the conscience."
Judge Barrington Parker, appointed to the Second Circuit by President George W. Bush, wrote that "if the Constitution ever implied a damages remedy, this is such a case—where executive officials allegedly blocked access to the remedies chosen by Congress in order to deliver a man to known torturers." Had Arar been able to get to a court to challenge his removal before federal officials put him on a plane, the court would plainly have had authority to review the case and forbid the removal; courts routinely enjoin removal when a foreign national faces a substantial risk of torture. The fact that the defendants lied to Arar's lawyer to keep her from filing an action when the torture could have been averted, in Parker's view, only strengthened the case for a damages remedy after the fact; otherwise, the courts are essentially rewarding the obstruction of justice.
Judge Robert Sack reasoned that if Arar had been tortured by federal officials at JFK, he would indisputably have a right to sue, and that the defendants' choice to outsource his torture abroad should not insulate them from liability:
I do not think that whether the defendants violated Arar's Fifth Amendment rights turns on whom they selected to do the torturing: themselves, a Syrian Intelligence officer, a warlord in Somalia, a drug cartel in Colombia, a military contractor in Baghdad or Boston, a Mafia family in New Jersey, or a Crip set in South Los Angeles.
What no judge pointed out, however, is that this is the same court of appeals that has regularly entertained lawsuits for torture and other gross human rights violations against foreign government officials, even when the wrongs were committed wholly outside the United States and affected only foreigners. One might think that such cases, in which we stand in judgment over other countries' alleged wrongs, would be even more diplomatically sensitive to adjudicate. Yet one month after the court dismissed Arar's suit, it affirmed a $19 million judgment against Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, the former leader of a Haitian death squad, for rape, torture, and attempted killing of three Haitian women by forces under his control. Under this precedent, had Arar been able to sue the Syrians who participated in his torture, the federal courts would have been ready and able to hear his claims. (He could not because none of the Syrians were in the United States, a prerequisite to the court exercising jurisdiction.) But because he sought to hold US officials accountable, his claims were too sensitive even to consider. International human rights, it seems, are something the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stands ready to impose on others, but not on ourselves.
The same week that the court of appeals in New York dismissed Arar's case, a court in Milan, Italy, convicted twenty-two American CIA agents, a US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and two Italian military intelligence agents for the "extraordinary rendition" of a Muslim cleric, Abu Omar. He was abducted from the streets of Milan in 2003 and delivered to the Egyptian security service, which imprisoned him for four years without charges and tortured him, before returning him to Italy, uncharged.
That case involved the same sort of secret information, diplomatic communications, and conduct on the part of US officials as Arar's. In Italy, however, the courts did not deny all accountability at the threshold, but instead addressed each of these issues in turn as they arose. Some claims against some defendants were dismissed because they rested on secret information, but the case proceeded against most of the defendants. As the Italian court showed, concerns about national secrets and confidential international communications can be accommodated in the course of litigation, and need not serve as a threshold bar to any accountability whatsoever.
2.
More than sixty years ago, in a series of trials conducted in Nuremberg, Germany, the United States and its allies made history by holding Nazi officials accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during World War II—including abductions, disappearances, torture, and genocide. The Nuremberg judgments in turn had a critical part in the birth of international human rights. In the ashes of World War II, many nations, working with the United States, created a regime of rights and responsibility designed to affirm the inviolability of human dignity and to ensure that such atrocities would not happen again.
The legacy of that period includes a set of charters defining the scope of human rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, and the international treaty prohibiting torture. Equally if not more importantly, however, the same legacy includes the establishment of forums for holding rights violators accountable—including international war crimes tribunals, regional human rights courts (such as the European Court of Human Rights), the International Criminal Court, and domestic courts that hear international human rights claims. Nuremberg was as much about the necessity of a forum for accountability as it was about the norms themselves. In the absence of effective enforcement, international human rights are mere words on paper.
The last forum I have mentioned—the domestic court—may be the most important. By bringing human rights home, domestic courts give them a concreteness and immediacy that is critical to their effectiveness. Here, too, the United States has been a leader. In 1980, the same court that dismissed Arar's case ruled, in a landmark decision, Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, that federal courts could adjudicate claims by foreign citizens against foreign defendants for human rights violations committed abroad. Filartiga involved a young man who had been abducted, tortured, and killed by a Paraguyan police chief. When the family learned that the officer had fled to the United States, they sued him in US court. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declared that the torturer is the "enemy of all mankind," and therefore may be sued for his wrongdoing wherever he is found.
The usual reluctance to have a US court pass judgment on overseas conduct not involving any American citizens was overcome by the fact that the prohibition on torture is universal. Since that decision, US courts have adjudicated human rights claims involving brutality in Burma, South Africa, Yugoslavia, Nigeria, Mexico, the Philippines, Argentina, and many other nations. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in 2004. Yet according to the Second Circuit, the same sorts of claims are too sensitive to permit adjudication when brought against US officials.
In addition to a forum for enforcement, human rights also require equal application. Their purpose is to identify those norms so fundamental to human dignity that no government may violate them. Indeed, Nuremberg's legacy has always been somewhat clouded by the fact that the Soviet Union, itself responsible for terrible crimes against humanity, participated as a prosecutor, but was never held accountable for its own crimes. If international human rights are to be legitimate, they must be universal, and not a euphemism for "victor's justice." The torture standard does not differ based on whether the United States, Haiti, or Paraguay is engaged in the practice. The Italian court convicted Italians and Americans alike. If anything, it should be easier, not more difficult, to hold one's own government officials accountable than to hold foreign government officials accountable.
The notion that domestic courts can hold another country's torturers accountable is not an American anomaly, as the Italian case illustrates. International law recognizes a principle of "universal jurisdiction," which holds that torturers can be held to account anywhere. Applying that principle, a Spanish judge in 1998 issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity, including torture. Great Britain's highest court, the Law Lords, ruled that the warrant could be enforced to extradite Pinochet from England to stand trial. (In the end, Pinochet was returned to Chile on medical grounds, but was then indicted there.) The same Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, is currently investigating whether criminal charges should be leveled against the Bush administration lawyers responsible for authorizing torture at Guantánamo—John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Jay Bybee, William Haynes, and Douglas Feith. The torture they authorized was inflicted on several Spanish citizens at Guantánamo, causing terrorist charges against them in Spain, also prosecuted by Garzón, to be dismissed.
The principle of universal jurisdiction recognizes that if a country is responsibly pursuing accountability for its own wrongs, a foreign court should defer to the domestic process. In his speech at the National Archives on May 21, 2009, President Obama insisted that the Justice Department and the courts "can work through and punish any violations of our laws or miscarriages of justice." Cases like Arar's belie his confidence, as does the Justice Department's failure even to investigate the lawyers who authorized the CIA and the military to engage in torture and disappearances as a means of getting suspects to talk. If we fail to carry out this responsibility, other nations, using principles that the US did much to develop, may take up the charge.
For the millions of Facebook users who are trying to figure out the nuances of the service’s many features, the company has recently upgraded its Help Center. Most notably, it has added a new search results page and an improved left-hand navigation box.
The search results page has already shown results from Facebook’s own answers to frequently asked questions, as well as results from user discussions. Now, it also provides links to pages about related topics. And, if users are searching in a language that doesn’t have answers in a particular topic, the results on each topic will show them results from other languages.
The left-hand interface now more clearly divides the sub-site into conceptually different areas. The top link, “Using Facebook,” shows Facebook’s own responses. The second link, “Added Applications,” shows all of the applications that a user has added; click on each app and you can provide feedback to Facebook or the app owner.
The third link, “Help Discussions,” shows user-generated discussions on various site features. Facebook had previously more tightly integrated user discussions beneath its official explanations. Now, for example, each FAQ answer and community discussion thread now comes with its own unique URL so you can share them more easily with friends in need.
The fourth link, “Getting Started,” provides a step-by-step guide for new users. The last link, “Safety,” provides a detailed explanation of Facebook’s safety policies and efforts, as well as links to other resources on internet safety.
Other notable updates include notices on the right-hand side of the site alerting users to the privacy changes that Facebook introduced earlier this month, as well a guide to what to do if your account has been hacked or phished.
The good news for Senator Ben Nelson is that he doesn’t have to face Nebraska voters until 2012.
If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.
Nelson's health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan. Overall, 64% oppose the health care legislation, including 53% who are Strongly Opposed. In Nebraska, opposition is even stronger than it is nationally.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state believe that passage of the legislation will hurt the quality of care, and 62% say it will raise costs.
The House and Senate have passed different versions of the health care legislation and now will try to agree on a plan to pass early in 2010. Because every Democratic vote is required to pass the legislation in the Senate, Nelson’s vote is essential. If Nelson votes to block final passage of the health care plan, he would still trail Heineman but would be in a much more competitive situation.
When survey respondents were asked how they would vote if Nelson blocks health care reform, 47% still pick Heneman while 37% would vote to keep the incumbent in office. Twenty percent (20%) of those who initially said they’d vote for Heineman say they’d switch to supporting Nelson. Another six percent (6%) of Heineman supporters say they’re not sure what they’d do if Nelson stops the health care plan from becoming law.
If Nelson votes to block health care reform, 10% of all voters would prefer a third-party option. Most of those who would prefer a third choice initially said they would vote for Nelson.
Overall, 40% of Nebraska voters have a favorable opinion of Nelson while 55% have an unfavorable view. Those figures include 12% with a Very Favorable opinion while 34% hold a Very Unfavorable view.
Twenty-six percent (26%) say Nelson has done a good or excellent job in the health care debate. Forty-seven percent (47%) give him poor marks.
Forty-two percent (42%) say their senator has been too supportive of President Obama’s agenda while 13% say he’s not been supportive enough. Thirty percent (30%) say he’s got the balance about right.
Nelson is also one of the key players in the discussion about how abortion should be handled in the health care plan. Sixty-five percent (65%) of Nebraska voters say that coverage of abortion should be prohibited in any plan that receives government subsidies. Only six percent (6%) want coverage mandated, while 22% want no requirements either way.
Obama earned 42% of the Nebraska vote in 2008, and 38% continue to approve of his job performance. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Nebraska voters disapprove of how the president is performing.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The killing of at least nine men in a remote valley of eastern Afghanistan by a joint operation of Afghan and American forces put President Hamid Karzai and senior NATO officials at odds on Monday over whether those killed had been civilians or Taliban insurgents.
In a statement e-mailed to the news media, Mr. Karzai condemned the weekend attack and said the dead had been civilians, eight of them schoolboys. He called for an investigation.
Local officials, including the governor and members of Parliament from Kunar Province, where the deaths occurred, confirmed the reports. But the Kunar police chief, Khalilullah Ziayee, cautioned that his office was still investigating the killings and that outstanding questions remained, including why the eight young men had been in the same house at the time.
“There are still questions to be answered, like why these students were together and what they were doing on that night,” Mr. Ziayee said.
A senior NATO official with knowledge of the operation said that the raid had been carried out by a joint Afghan-American force and that its target was a group of men who were known Taliban members and smugglers of homemade bombs, which the American and NATO forces call improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s.
According to the NATO official, nine men were killed. “These were people who had a well-established network, they were I.E.D. smugglers and also were responsible for direct attacks on Afghan security and coalition forces in those area,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.
“When the raid took place they were armed and had material for making I.E.D.’s,” the official added.
Senior American military officials cautioned that such episodes tended to be complex and that because of the anger about civilian casualties, Mr. Karzai was under enormous pressure to speak out quickly, sometimes before investigations were complete. NATO will investigate the killings in conjunction with Mr. Karzai’s staff, the official said.
But the conflicting accounts and Mr. Karzai’s public statements underlined the tensions over civilian casualties that have become among the most contentious between the Afghan president and his international backers, as well as one of the most politically fraught for Afghans.
Several members of Parliament from Kunar, as well as neighboring Nangahar and Laghman Provinces, walked out of a parliamentary session on Monday to show their anger over the deaths. They said that 10 people had been killed and that all were civilians.
“When this story first broke, the local officials were adamant that they were all Taliban” until several members of Parliament from the area called President Karzai, the NATO official said.
The deaths occurred in the village of Ghazi Khan, in the rugged Narang Valley, a rural area difficult to reach. The Taliban are active in much of the province, along with numerous wood and arms smugglers and gem traders.
While some conventional American forces are deployed in Kunar, in the more remote areas most operations are carried out by Special Forces.
The governor of Kunar, Fazullah Wahidi, said that “the coalition claimed they were enemy fighters,” but that elders in the district and a delegation sent to the remote area had found that “10 people were killed and all of them were civilians.”
A NATO spokesman had no comment on the killings and said that no NATO forces were operating in the area.
Attacks using homemade bombs killed one American service member on Friday and another on Saturday in southern Afghanistan.
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