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White farmers confront Mugabe in a legal battle
By Celia W. Dugger
Saturday, December 27, 2008
CHEGUTU, Zimbabwe: Edna Madzongwe, president of the Senate and a powerful member of Zimbabwe's governing party, began showing up uninvited at the Etheredges' farm here last year, at times still dressed up after a day in Parliament.
And she made her intentions clear, the Etheredges say: she wanted their farm and intended to get it through the government's land redistribution program.
The farm is a beautiful spread, with three roomy farm houses and a lush, 55,000-tree orange orchard that generates $4 million a year in exports. The Etheredges, outraged by what they saw as her attempt to steal the farm, secretly taped their exchanges with her.
"Are you really serious to tell me that I cannot take up residence because of what it does to you?" she asked Richard Etheredge, 72, whose father bought the farm in 1947. "Government takes what it wants."
He dryly replied, "That we don't deny," according to a transcript of the tapes.
Etheredge this year became one of dozens of white farmers to challenge the government's right to confiscate their land, and they sought relief in an unusual place: a tribunal of African judges established by the 15 nations of the Southern African Development Community regional trade bloc.
The case is rooted in one of the most fraught issues facing not just Zimbabwe, but other nations in the region, especially South Africa: the unjust division of land between whites and blacks that is a legacy of colonialism and white minority rule.
But the tribunal's recent ruling, in favor of the white farmers, is also a milestone of particular relevance to Zimbabwe. It suggests that a growing number of influential Africans — among them religious leaders and now jurists — are confronting Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's 84-year-old liberation hero and president, for his government's violations of human rights and the rule of law, even as most regional heads of state continue to resist taking harsher steps to isolate his government.
Zimbabwe's handling of the land issue has had disastrous consequences. Since 2000, when Mugabe began encouraging the violent invasion of the country's large, white-owned commercial farms — once the country's largest employers — food production has collapsed, hunger has afflicted millions and the economy has never recovered.
Mugabe presents this redistribution as a triumph over greedy whites. But it set off a scramble for the best farms among the country's ruling elite, who often had little knowledge or interest in farming, and became a potent source of patronage for Mugabe. His own relatives, as well as generals, judges, ministers and members of Parliament, were beneficiaries, farmer and human rights groups say.
By this year, the number of white-owned commercial farms dwindled to about 300 from 4,500. Even many of the remaining ones came under assault in this year's bloodstained election season.
Among those singled out were farms here in Chegutu, where some owners had dared to take their cases to the SADC tribunal, challenging Mugabe before judges he could not entice with gifts of land.
In March, the tribunal ordered the Zimbabwean authorities not to evict any farmers seeking legal protection, pending resolution of the case. But as with other international efforts to influence Mugabe and his allies, Zimbabwean authorities apparently decided to ignore the tribunal's order.
On June 17 — just 10 days before the discredited presidential runoff between Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai — dozens of youths led by a man named Gilbert Moyo surrounded Etheredge's son, Peter, 38, at the main gate of the farm, family members said.
"Moyo told me he'd been sent by Edna," Peter recalled, referring to Madzongwe, the Senate president. Peter said Moyo threatened to kill him if the Etheredge clan did not clear off the farm immediately.
Peter, his twin, James, and their families fled.
Madzongwe denied hiring Moyo and his gang. "If a farm is acquired, there are rules," she said in a recent telephone interview. "I go by the book."
But Jason Lawrence Cox, a local farmer, swore in an affidavit that he saw her on June 21 drive past piles of the Etheredges' belongings, dumped at the side of the road, and onto their farm.
The gang had looted the three family homes on the farm of all but the large mounted heads of an eland and a kudu, according to photos taken before and after the invasion. They used a jackhammer to break through the foot-thick wall of the walk-in safe. The haul from the homes and the farm included 1,760 pounds of ivory, 14 handmade guns, 14 refrigerators and freezers, 5 stoves, 3 tractors, a pickup truck and 400 tons of oranges, the family said.
Eleven days later, a far more violent farm invasion occurred at the home of Mike and Angela Campbell, also here in Chegutu. Campbell, 76, was the first farmer to take on Mugabe before the tribunal.
A gang came that Sunday afternoon, pouring out of a pickup truck and a bus, Campbell said. Her son-in-law, Ben Freeth, 38, said that he was bludgeoned with rifle butts and that his skull and ribs were fractured. Mike Campbell was also severely beaten.
Campbell, 66, said she was dragged by her hair, after her arm was broken in multiple places, and dumped next to her husband. The doctor who treated them in the capital, Harare, signed affidavits confirming the severity of their injuries.
"Mike was so battered, I hardly recognized him," Campbell said. "I didn't know he was alive until he groaned." The three of them were loaded into the Campbells' truck and driven to a nighttime vigil of youth loyal to the governing party at Moyo's base camp, she said.
It was cold, and men poured freezing water over them. Campbell drifted in and out of consciousness. By the flickering light of bonfires, the youths denounced the Campbells as white pigs, Campbell said, and ordered her to sing revolutionary songs. She remembers singing a children's song instead, which enraged one of her intoxicated tormentors. He charged at her, she said, trying to thrust a burning stick into her mouth.
Later that night, the Campbells and Freeth were again stuffed into the back of the Campbells' truck. Before they were dumped, Campbell said, the kidnappers insisted that she sign a paper promising not to press the tribunal case.
Within days — just as the international outcry mounted over the state-sponsored beatings of thousands of opposition supporters — photographs of the grotesquely battered faces of the Campbells and Freeth circulated on the Internet.
By July 4, the police informed the farmers here who were part of the tribunal case that they could go back to their land. Peter Etheredge speculated that the authorities might have relented because the photographs were spreading online just as Mugabe was meeting with Africa's leaders about his country's political crisis.
On Nov. 28, the farmers gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, to hear the final ruling of five judges of the SADC tribunal. As Justice Luis Antonio Mondlane of Mozambique read the full 60-page decision aloud, it dawned on the farmers that they had won.
The tribunal found that the government had breached its obligations under the trade bloc's treaty, which committed it to respecting human rights, democracy and the rule of law, by denying the farmers compensation for their farms and court review of the government's confiscation of them.
More broadly, it rejected the government's claim that the land redistribution program was meant to right the wrongs of a colonial era when a white minority ruled what was then Rhodesia. Instead, the court found that the government had itself racially discriminated against the white farmers.
In a stinging rebuke, the tribunal, citing an earlier legal case, said it would have reached a different conclusion had the government not awarded "the spoils of expropriation primarily to governing party adherents."
The usually stoic farmers wept. "We burst into tears, the whole lot of us," Freeth said.
The reaction of the government was defiant. Didymus Mutasa, the minister who oversees the distribution of seized land, told the state media that the judges were "daydreaming" if they thought Zimbabwe would heed the ruling.
The government would take over the rest of the white-owned farms, he vowed. And the state has since moved to prosecute four Chegutu farmers, though not yet the Etheredges or the Campbells, for illegally occupying land they owned before the government claimed it, the farmers' lawyer, Dave Drury, said.
Perhaps it was a banner at the recent funeral of a governing party boss that best captured the government's rejection of those who question its righteousness, even a panel of distinguished African jurists.
The banner said: "The Rhodesian Tribunal Can Go to Hell."
More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on December 28, 2008, on page A1 of the New York edition.
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Tainted-milk victims in China to be paid
By Andrew Jacobs
Saturday, December 27, 2008
BEIJING: A group of Chinese dairy companies accused of selling tainted milk that sickened tens of thousands of babies has agreed to compensate the victims, the state media announced on Saturday.
China's Dairy Industry Association, a group of 22 milk producers, said it would provide one-time payments to the families of the children who were sickened or who died after consuming milk tainted with melamine, a chemical compound that is often used in the production of plastics and fertilizers.
"The enterprises offered to shoulder the compensation liability," the association said, according to Xinhua, China's official news agency. "By doing so, they hope to earn understanding and forgiveness of the families of the sickened children."
As part of its promised compensation package, the dairy association said, it would also pay for the long-term health care needs of affected children. "If the babies suffer from relative aftereffects, all medical fees will be covered by the fund," the association said, according to Xinhua. Six children died, and nearly 300,000 were sickened.
The report by Xinhua did not indicate the amount of compensation or when the payments would be made.
It is unclear how the promise of compensation may affect a series of lawsuits brought by the families of the victims. None of the lawsuits have been accepted by the courts.
On Friday, six melamine producers and dealers in Henan Province went on trial on charges that they manufactured or sold the compound to milk producers.
Until the scandal broke in September, melamine was frequently added to dairy products as a means of increasing the protein content of watered-down milk.
Earlier this month, the government said that more than 800 children remained hospitalized with kidney stones and other ailments.
This week the chairwoman of one of China's biggest dairies, Sanlu Group, will face trial in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, on charges that the company knowingly sold adulterated milk. Last week Sanlu was declared bankrupt. Sanlu, which is partly owned by a New Zealand dairy cooperative, stopped all milk production in September.
On Saturday the government took on another delicate issue, shoddy construction, by creating stricter codes to make schools and other public buildings more resistant to earthquakes. An earthquake in May in Sichuan Province killed at least 88,000 people, many of them children who died in the rubble of poorly built schools.
The regulations, passed by the National People's Congress, imposes new requirements on both new and existing schools. They also cover hospitals and shopping centers. The rules, reported by Xinhua, were short on details and, like many national laws, would be carried out largely by local governments. More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on December 28, 2008, on page A9 of the New York edition.
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Italian makers of prosecco seek recognition
By Amy Cortese
Saturday, December 27, 2008
IN 1984, Fabio Zardetto, chief winemaker at his family-run vineyard in northern Italy, leapt at the chance to become one of the first bottlers to export prosecco, the sparkling wine, to the United States.
At first, his efforts on behalf of his bubbly fizzled. "I had to push people to taste the prosecco," recalled Zardetto, now 50. "I would run behind them with a glass saying, 'Please, taste this.' "
When they did try it, he said, they were pleasantly surprised. Sales of Zardetto prosecco grew to 100,000 cases in the United States in 2007, from 50 cases in 1984.
With its fresh flavor, pleasing bubbles and gentle price tag — it typically sells for $10 to $20 a bottle — prosecco has gained many fans worldwide. Global sales have been growing by double-digit percentages for 10 years, to more than 150 million bottles last year. And with consumers in an economizing mood this holiday season, prosecco is an increasingly popular alternative to Champagne, which has been soaring in price.
But prosecco is also encountering some growing pains. From its traditional home in northern Italy, it is now waging a war against outsiders, just as Champagne, its more elite cousin in France, has done for so many years.
A host of producers elsewhere in Italy and as far away as Brazil are trying to cash in on the drink's newfound popularity. Because prosecco is the name of a grape, like chardonnay or cabernet, anyone can use the name.
Today, about 60 percent of all prosecco — some eight million cases — comes from producers outside the traditional prosecco-growing region of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, a cluster of villages about a half-hour's drive north of Venice. The newcomers are not held to the same strict production standards as the traditional producers, which are tightly governed under Italian wine laws.
One product, Rich Prosecco, is made by an Austrian company whose ads feature Paris Hilton. In some, she is naked and spray-painted gold. What's worse to some producers, the product is sold in a 6.8-ounce can, in gas stations as well as stores, for around $3.
"It's absolutely vulgar," says Vittorio Zoppi, marketing manager for the prosecco consortium.
Claus Jahnke, a sales and marketing executive at Rich, says he is puzzled by the reaction to the product, which uses Italian grapes. "We have invested a lot of money in advertising and PR to launch Rich and promote prosecco," he says. "We gave this famous grape a helping hand in conquering the world."
The Italian winemakers worry that upstarts will weaken prosecco's image just as it is taking off.
"If everyone around the world plants prosecco, we will lose the value of the name," says Ludovico Giustiniani, vice president of a consortium that represents about 150 wineries in the traditional prosecco-producing region.
Over months of discussions, the consortium, along with a broader group of growers and producers, has hammered out a plan that would create an official prosecco production zone tied exclusively to northern Italy. Only wine produced in that region could be labeled as prosecco. If the plan is approved by the Italian government — a decision is expected by early 2009 — prosecco would then be eligible for "protected designation of origin" status under European laws intended to protect regional products from Champagne and port to Serrano ham.
"It will let prosecco be an Italian product — and nothing else," says Giancarlo Moretti Polegato, the owner of Villa Sandi, one of the area's prominent wineries.
That is the theory, at least. Protection from the European Union would extend only across its 27 member countries, and, as Champagne producers have discovered, a lot of policing is still required.
The Champagne region of France has been officially designated since 1927 as the authentic home of the wine that bears its name, but its trade organization still spends millions of dollars battling producers of items as varied as sparkling wine, bubble bath and bottled water that also use the word.
"We have to spend a lot of money and energy protecting our product," says Sam Heitner, director of the Office of Champagne USA, a trade group that represents the interests of Champagne producers.
That spending is on display in Times Square, where a giant screen flashes an ad by Heitner's group for holiday revelers. A bottle, labeled "American Champagne," is covered by a red, Venetian-style carnival mask. It's part of the group's "Unmask the truth" campaign, which notes its opposition to the name's use by United States producers.
Producers of prosecco may also be in for a long fight.
PROSECCO'S success can be seen in the steep-hilled villages surrounding Conegliano and Valdobbiadene.
The area has grown from a sleepy agricultural area to one of Italy's wealthiest enclaves, dotted with shiny new wineries and farmhouses that have been transformed into rustic inns to support a growing wine tourism trade.
Prosecco sales from this area alone were €370 million, or about $518 million, last year. And a hectare (2.47 acres) of vineyard in the most coveted spots, like Cartizze, sells for more than $1 million. Prosecco from Cartizze, a panettone-shaped hill in Valdobbiadene where 140 growers farm about 250 acres, fetches about $40 a bottle.
The vines are tended and harvested by hand. Machines cannot navigate the vertical angles, although helicopters are occasionally used when a vineyard needs to be sprayed. The soil and the mix of warm days and cool nights make for an especially flavorful prosecco — an affinity given official weight in 1969, when the region was awarded the status of denominazione di origine controllata, or DOC, Italy's version of a wine appellation.
The region's turn of fortunes, though, is relatively recent. Although prosecco grapes have been cultivated here for three centuries, in the early days they were made mostly into still wine for local consumption. The vines shared the steep hillsides with more valuable cows and sheep.
It was only after a new method for producing sparkling wine became widespread in the mid-1900s that things began to change.
Champagne and other sparkling wines typically get their bubbles when they are fermented a second time, with added sugar and yeast. The yeast feeds on the sugar and converts into alcohol and carbon dioxide. When the bottle is opened, the escaping gas gives the wine its bubbles and characteristic "pop."
Champagne re-ferments in bottles, an expensive and labor-intensive process. But the new production methods allowed prosecco makers to re-ferment their wine in large tanks, a process that kept prices down. That, and prosecco's light, delicate flavor and low alcohol content, made it an especially versatile wine.
IN Italy, prosecco is enjoyed year-round — and practically around the clock. "The only moment we don't drink it is for breakfast," Giustiniani says.
That approachability has helped propel the popularity of prosecco — in the 1960s throughout Italy, in the '80s in Germany and neighboring countries and in the '90s in the United States, which today is prosecco's No. 1 market outside of Italy.
Perhaps no one pushed harder to establish prosecco in the United States than Mionetto, a winery founded in Valdobbiadene in 1886 and now one of the area's largest, with sales of €40 million a year.
Seeing the tremendous growth potential in the 1990s, this winery began expanding aggressively. It established Mionetto USA to control distribution in North America and has spent millions of dollars promoting prosecco and the Mionetto brand. Today, the company has the leading market share, roughly 33 percent, in the United States, with 168,000 cases a year of its DOC and non-DOC prosecco.
Still, says Sergio Mionetto, who took over as chief winemaker from his grandfather in 1956, "we believe we're just at the tip of the iceberg."
At the bustling Union Square Cafe in New York, where the house prosecco is Mionetto's top-of-the-line Sergio (named after himself), prosecco by the glass outsells Champagne two to one, says Stephen Paul Mancini, director of wine and spirits at the restaurant. "Prosecco is an extremely popular product for us," he adds. And some retailers report that prosecco is flying off shelves this holiday season.
Prosecco is also catching on in new markets, like China, India and Vietnam, causing producers to think even bigger.
"Prosecco can be the best-selling sparkling wine of the world," says Gianluca Bisol, a 21st-generation winemaker and general manager of the Bisol winery, in Valdobbiadene. He figures that prosecco can overtake Champagne in sales volume in the next 25 years or so.
The problem is that others saw the potential, too. It started with the relative newcomers in the plains of northern Italy. Growers there are less regulated than their DOC kin; they were granted the Italian wine system's least-stringent designation, known as IGT, in 1995. They can produce almost double the volume of wine per hectare, and quality can vary.
In the flatlands, winemakers can use machines to harvest and tend to their vines, at about a tenth of the cost, Bisol and others say. "For these reasons," Bisol says, "this area that didn't exist 25 years ago now accounts for 60 percent of prosecco production."
A more recent worry for the consortium and newer growers is that countries like Brazil, Romania, Argentina and Australia have begun to plant prosecco. Brazil, in particular, has embraced the grape, perhaps not surprisingly, given that its main wine region is populated by northern Italian immigrants.
Close to 2,000 acres of prosecco are planted in Brazil, Bisol says.
"The Brazilians like parties," Bisol says. "They drink a lot of prosecco." The homegrown prosecco could cut into Italian sales there: Brazil is already the fifth-largest export market for Italian prosecco.
Closer to home, German and Austrian producers have taken to buying tanks of Italian prosecco produced in the plains and shipping it to their countries to be bottled. Or canned, in the case of Rich Prosecco.
When Hilton traveled to northern Italy to promote Rich Prosecco two years ago, "it was a big scandal for the area," Bisol says. "The winegrowers were very angry." She has not returned, he says.
Günther Aloys, a hotelier and entrepreneur in the Austrian resort town of Ischgl who introduced Rich Prosecco in 2006, plans to take it to the United States next year. And Jahnke, the sales and marketing executive at Rich, said the company was following the developments with the Italian producers' proposal to the Italian government.
THE threat of foreign-brand prosecco has prompted northern Italian producers, of both DOC and IGT prosecco, to work together to protect their turf. They say they believe that their proposal will raise quality and prevent others from calling their products prosecco.
The plan would create a broad new DOC designation to govern the hundreds of IGT prosecco producers that have sprung up across eight northern Italian provinces in the plains from Treviso to Trieste. The producers would have to comply with strict quality controls, including lower yields per hectare and stronger oversight.
The region of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, meanwhile, would be elevated to Italy's highest designation for wine regions, known as DOCG.
The key is to link prosecco to its traditional home.
"We don't want to end up with something like pinot grigio," says Primo Franco, owner of the Nino Franco winery in Valdobbiadene, referring to another white wine grape from the Veneto region that is grown around the world.
Because prosecco is also the name of a northern Italian village where the grape is believed to have originated, the consortium can make an argument, too, that prosecco is a place name that can be protected just like Chianti, Champagne and others.
By bringing all of northern Italy's prosecco makers into the fold, the winemakers hope to do more than give prosecco a territorial identity. They also want the muscle power to meet growing demand and achieve their goal of matching or even besting Champagne, which produces some 300 million bottles a year. About 150 million bottles of Italian prosecco are produced a year.
Prosecco producers say they believe that with the new plan, they can double their output to 300 million or even 400 million bottles a year, while providing consumers with a guarantee of quality.
"Champagne is the king of the bubble," Bisol says. "But prosecco maybe can be considered the small prince."
In recent weeks, the winemakers have been scrambling to nail down a final proposal to the Italian government before a year-end deadline. The producers hope to be eligible for a streamlined European Union system that goes into effect in August. If all goes well, the new prosecco protections will be in place for the 2009 harvest.
But that is just a start. European Union regulations are valid only for members, and deals have to be struck with countries outside of the union, like the United States or Brazil, on an, ahem, case-by-case basis. For now, says Moretti Polegato of Villa Sandi, "everybody involved in prosecco production is happy."
You can almost hear the corks popping.
For migrants in Russia, fear swells after a killing
By Sabrina Tavernise
Saturday, December 27, 2008
KHODZHA-DURBOD, Tajikistan: The men from this village who went to Russia to work all knew the rule: always stay together on the walk home. As Tajiks in an aggressive Russian city, getting caught could mean getting hurt.
But on the eve of the Muslim holiday of sacrifice this month, Salohiddin Azizov broke the rule. It was a fatal mistake.
He was caught, killed and beheaded on Dec. 5, not far from where he worked at the Pokrovskaya vegetable warehouse south of Moscow, his brothers said. A Russian nationalist group claimed responsibility, calling Azizov, 20, part of a "non-Russian occupation." One of his brothers identified his body by the shape of his toes.
"If we are Tajik, does it mean we are cows to be butchered and thrown away?" said the victim's father, Muhabat Azizov, in his small house here a day after his funeral in mid-December.
Though gruesome, the killing was not unprecedented. It was a grim reminder of the vicious daily attacks against ethnic minorities that have become a part of daily life for the millions of migrants from the former Soviet Union who work in Russia.
The collapse of the Soviet Union plunged Russians into poverty and humiliated them, and some young Russians have turned their bitterness on the migrants from the poorer fringes of the empire who poured into Russian cities during an oil boom.
Now, with a sharp economic downturn looming, and Russian officials talking about instituting quotas for migrant workers, Tajiks fear the attacks will only get worse.
The Tajik news agency, Asiaplus, reported that Tajik authorities had counted 324 deaths among migrants as of Dec. 16, and that at least 80 of them had been killed in ethnically motivated attacks.
"They hate us," said Nurali Bashirov, a friend of the Azizov family, who has worked in Russia. "If a week went by without an attack, we would celebrate."
The Azizov family is typical for this village, which has been abandoned by most of its men for manual labor jobs in Russia. Of six brothers, five have worked in Russia, sending small amounts of money home every month for the family to survive the grinding poverty in Tajikistan, where 50 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
Everybody has a story. Bashirov recalled how a group of young Russian men, out of meanness, tore down a wash basin that he had built for migrants at a construction site.
"They were saying to us, 'We're better than you,'" he said. "You could see it on their faces."
Another young villager was walking with Azizov when he was killed that evening, but he managed to escape. One of Azizov's brothers pointed him out last week, as he rode by on a bicycle, a bandage taped to his face.
The last time Azizov heard from his son was when Salohiddin called to tell his father that he had sent him money for the Muslim holiday Id al-Adha on the day he was killed.
For his family, his death has disrupted the flow of Tajik tradition, in which the youngest son takes care of his parents in their old age and settles his family in their house.
"We, who raised him, remember every one of his movements, his conversations," Azizov said. "I want to sleep where he died. I want to find who did this."
The Azizov family was still in shock last week, and had only recently received Salohiddin's body, after days wrangling with the Russian police in Moscow. The brother Salohiddin lived with said he made eight trips to the Tajik Embassy begging for help with the body.
"So many mothers and fathers suffering like me," Azizov said, sitting on the floor of his small house with mats and one wood stove.
After years of ignoring the violence against migrants, the Russian authorities have given the problem some attention recently. The prosecutor's office in the city of Yekaterinburg ordered a local construction company to pay back wages to Tajik workers, Radio Free Liberty reported this month. And on Dec. 15, a court in Moscow convicted a group of teenagers for the murder of 20 migrants, Reuters reported.
For the one Azizov brother who has never been to Russia, that is no consolation.
"No, never I go," he said in English, walking through the mud in the village to a relative's house to repay a debt his dead brother owed. "After what happened, no." More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on December 28, 2008, on page A8 of the New York edition.
By Sabrina Tavernise
Saturday, December 27, 2008
KHODZHA-DURBOD, Tajikistan: The men from this village who went to Russia to work all knew the rule: always stay together on the walk home. As Tajiks in an aggressive Russian city, getting caught could mean getting hurt.
But on the eve of the Muslim holiday of sacrifice this month, Salohiddin Azizov broke the rule. It was a fatal mistake.
He was caught, killed and beheaded on Dec. 5, not far from where he worked at the Pokrovskaya vegetable warehouse south of Moscow, his brothers said. A Russian nationalist group claimed responsibility, calling Azizov, 20, part of a "non-Russian occupation." One of his brothers identified his body by the shape of his toes.
"If we are Tajik, does it mean we are cows to be butchered and thrown away?" said the victim's father, Muhabat Azizov, in his small house here a day after his funeral in mid-December.
Though gruesome, the killing was not unprecedented. It was a grim reminder of the vicious daily attacks against ethnic minorities that have become a part of daily life for the millions of migrants from the former Soviet Union who work in Russia.
The collapse of the Soviet Union plunged Russians into poverty and humiliated them, and some young Russians have turned their bitterness on the migrants from the poorer fringes of the empire who poured into Russian cities during an oil boom.
Now, with a sharp economic downturn looming, and Russian officials talking about instituting quotas for migrant workers, Tajiks fear the attacks will only get worse.
The Tajik news agency, Asiaplus, reported that Tajik authorities had counted 324 deaths among migrants as of Dec. 16, and that at least 80 of them had been killed in ethnically motivated attacks.
"They hate us," said Nurali Bashirov, a friend of the Azizov family, who has worked in Russia. "If a week went by without an attack, we would celebrate."
The Azizov family is typical for this village, which has been abandoned by most of its men for manual labor jobs in Russia. Of six brothers, five have worked in Russia, sending small amounts of money home every month for the family to survive the grinding poverty in Tajikistan, where 50 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
Everybody has a story. Bashirov recalled how a group of young Russian men, out of meanness, tore down a wash basin that he had built for migrants at a construction site.
"They were saying to us, 'We're better than you,'" he said. "You could see it on their faces."
Another young villager was walking with Azizov when he was killed that evening, but he managed to escape. One of Azizov's brothers pointed him out last week, as he rode by on a bicycle, a bandage taped to his face.
The last time Azizov heard from his son was when Salohiddin called to tell his father that he had sent him money for the Muslim holiday Id al-Adha on the day he was killed.
For his family, his death has disrupted the flow of Tajik tradition, in which the youngest son takes care of his parents in their old age and settles his family in their house.
"We, who raised him, remember every one of his movements, his conversations," Azizov said. "I want to sleep where he died. I want to find who did this."
The Azizov family was still in shock last week, and had only recently received Salohiddin's body, after days wrangling with the Russian police in Moscow. The brother Salohiddin lived with said he made eight trips to the Tajik Embassy begging for help with the body.
"So many mothers and fathers suffering like me," Azizov said, sitting on the floor of his small house with mats and one wood stove.
After years of ignoring the violence against migrants, the Russian authorities have given the problem some attention recently. The prosecutor's office in the city of Yekaterinburg ordered a local construction company to pay back wages to Tajik workers, Radio Free Liberty reported this month. And on Dec. 15, a court in Moscow convicted a group of teenagers for the murder of 20 migrants, Reuters reported.
For the one Azizov brother who has never been to Russia, that is no consolation.
"No, never I go," he said in English, walking through the mud in the village to a relative's house to repay a debt his dead brother owed. "After what happened, no." More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on December 28, 2008, on page A8 of the New York edition.
In land scarred by violence, dogfighting makes a comeback
By Kirk Semple
Saturday, December 27, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan: In a dingy butcher's shop reeking of slaughter, a half-dozen sheep's carcasses dangled from hooks, and two men spoke of dogs.
"My dog is younger than his dog, I have the advantage," said one of the men, known as Abdul Sabour, 49. "And my dog is more energetic than his dog."
"He's lying," grumbled the other man, Kefayatullah, 50. "His dog is old. He's just here wasting his time. How many dogs has my dog beaten? Sixty! My dog has been a champion for three years!"
The men were arranging a dogfight, largely in the international language of trash-talking. They represented two groups of bettors. The purse, they said, was $50,000, a fortune in this impoverished country and one of the biggest prizes here in recent memory.
Afghans like to fight. They will boast about this. They will say that fighting is in their blood. And for all the horrors of three decades of war, they still find room to fight for fun, most often through proxies: cocks, rams, goats, camels, kites.
And dogs. Dogfighting was banned under the Taliban, who considered it un-Islamic. But since the Taliban's ouster in 2001, the sport has regained its earlier popularity, with dogfighters entering their charges in informal weekly tournaments on dusty lots in the country's major cities.
The sport has even experienced a resurgence in the south, where the influence of the Taliban is strongest, though the crowds have thinned somewhat since February, when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a dogfighting match. About 80 people were killed and more were wounded.
Here in the capital, there are two tournaments every week, both on Friday, the day of prayer. The bigger one unfolds in the morning in a natural dirt amphitheater at the bottom of a craggy slope on the city's outskirts. It draws thousands of men and boys as spectators — like most sports and sporting events in Afghanistan, it is almost exclusively a male pursuit.
"It's something from our ancestors," said Ghulam Yahya Amirzadah, 21, whose family owns 17 dogs in Kabul and in their hometown in the northwest province of Badghis.
Amirzadah, who is known in dogfighting circles as Lala Herati, said he inherited the pastime from his father, who ran fighting dogs in his youth.
"It's not about money," Amirzadah said. "If my dog beats another dog, it makes me feel like I've won $100,000. I can survive just from the happiness."
On a recent Friday, Amirzadah was at the dogfighting amphitheater, though without his dogs. He was watching the fights and arranging future matches for his stable.
More than 2,000 people were there — poor men who had arrived on foot as well as former warlords in sport utility vehicles accompanied by Kalashnikov-toting guards. And there were dozens of dogs — hulking, big-headed mastiff breeds that, in the right light and the wrong setting, might be mistaken for small bears. Some were so big that they had to be restrained by two men. A few owners, their arms tired, had lashed their dogs to the wheels of cars.
An informal committee of arbiters, including Kefayatullah and Abdul Sabour, was selecting the fights and matching up the dogs. Some fights had been organized days in advance, with hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands, riding on each.
The event was presided over by a ringmaster, a toothless old man with a turban and a limp. He carried a wooden staff that he used to beat spectators who crowded the pitch and members of the dogfighters' entourages who blocked the spectators' view.
Though dogfighting is again popular here, it is far from universally embraced. The country's elite disparage it as the domain of the uncultured and the criminal.
"In my personal view, it's not a good thing," said Ghulam Nabi Farahi, deputy minister of information and culture. "In today's world, these animals should be treated well. But unfortunately, there's a lot of fighting."
But dogfighters generally shrug at these sorts of remarks. In modern Afghan society, there are not many sources of entertainment, they argue. In addition, they say, the dogs are well fed and well treated.
"The interest of the people is increasing day by day," said Sher Mohammad Sheywaki, 50, who was standing on the edge of the fighting pitch. "Even if people are starving, they'll still keep dogfighting."
A fight was about to begin. Two dogs were brought close by their owners, then released. They lunged at each other, thrusting upward on hind legs and clamping their jaws onto each other's face. They tugged and twisted each other, looking for leverage, each trying to knock the other off balance.
Their handlers pressed in, shouting encouragement and slapping the dogs on their haunches, as a jockey would a racehorse. A cameraman crouched nearby, recording the fight for collectors' DVDs. A large cloud of dust enveloped the scrum.
This fight, like most others, was over in a few minutes when one dog had pinned the other to the ground and held him there. They were pulled apart and hauled out of the ring.
In some countries, dogfighters will fight their dogs to the death. But Afghan dogfighting is more akin to Greco-Roman wrestling. A dog is declared the victor when he clearly establishes his dominance over the other, or when the weaker dog displays one of the telltale signs of submission, including backing off from the fight or putting its tail between its legs. They are usually pulled apart before they can inflict serious damage on each other.
The stakes for dogfighters are too high to risk their charges any further. Dogs may be a costly investment for the average Afghan, but they can also make their owners money.
On the eve of the fight between Kefayatullah's dog, Palang (meaning tiger), and Abdul Sabour's dog, Zambur (bee), the planned $50,000 purse dropped to $10,000, according to Kefayatullah.
The fight took place on a sunny and chilly Friday morning this month. It was heavily anticipated, and the crowd was large. For more than 10 minutes, Palang and Zambur tore against each other, drawing blood. Kefayatullah, Abdul Sabour and others with money riding on the fight stayed close and yelled encouragement, according to Amirzadah, who attended.
Eventually, Zambur, Abdul Sabour's dog, ran out of steam and Palang overwhelmed him, prompting the men to call a halt to the fight. In celebration, friends of Kefayatullah swarmed Palang, whose fur was wet with blood, and showered him with Afghani bills.
Except for deep wounds on a leg and an ear, Palang was O.K. But his owner was not. Minutes after the fight, Kefayatullah collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. He had suffered a heart attack.
"It was a stroke of joy and happiness!" he joked a week later, as he lay in a ward in the Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul. His wife and daughter sat at his bedside. "I'll be up in no time," he said, "and everything will be back to normal, like before."
His wife's face visibly tensed. "No you won't!" she said, glaring. She was serious. He was smiling. The daughter looked embarrassed.
"It's over," Kefayatullah's wife continued. "I will kill the dogs! I will give them some pills."
Kefayatullah shrugged and smiled again, trying to defuse the situation. "She says a lot, but I don't listen," he said, and he vowed to be back at the Friday dogfights — with his champion dogs — soon enough.
By Kirk Semple
Saturday, December 27, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan: In a dingy butcher's shop reeking of slaughter, a half-dozen sheep's carcasses dangled from hooks, and two men spoke of dogs.
"My dog is younger than his dog, I have the advantage," said one of the men, known as Abdul Sabour, 49. "And my dog is more energetic than his dog."
"He's lying," grumbled the other man, Kefayatullah, 50. "His dog is old. He's just here wasting his time. How many dogs has my dog beaten? Sixty! My dog has been a champion for three years!"
The men were arranging a dogfight, largely in the international language of trash-talking. They represented two groups of bettors. The purse, they said, was $50,000, a fortune in this impoverished country and one of the biggest prizes here in recent memory.
Afghans like to fight. They will boast about this. They will say that fighting is in their blood. And for all the horrors of three decades of war, they still find room to fight for fun, most often through proxies: cocks, rams, goats, camels, kites.
And dogs. Dogfighting was banned under the Taliban, who considered it un-Islamic. But since the Taliban's ouster in 2001, the sport has regained its earlier popularity, with dogfighters entering their charges in informal weekly tournaments on dusty lots in the country's major cities.
The sport has even experienced a resurgence in the south, where the influence of the Taliban is strongest, though the crowds have thinned somewhat since February, when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a dogfighting match. About 80 people were killed and more were wounded.
Here in the capital, there are two tournaments every week, both on Friday, the day of prayer. The bigger one unfolds in the morning in a natural dirt amphitheater at the bottom of a craggy slope on the city's outskirts. It draws thousands of men and boys as spectators — like most sports and sporting events in Afghanistan, it is almost exclusively a male pursuit.
"It's something from our ancestors," said Ghulam Yahya Amirzadah, 21, whose family owns 17 dogs in Kabul and in their hometown in the northwest province of Badghis.
Amirzadah, who is known in dogfighting circles as Lala Herati, said he inherited the pastime from his father, who ran fighting dogs in his youth.
"It's not about money," Amirzadah said. "If my dog beats another dog, it makes me feel like I've won $100,000. I can survive just from the happiness."
On a recent Friday, Amirzadah was at the dogfighting amphitheater, though without his dogs. He was watching the fights and arranging future matches for his stable.
More than 2,000 people were there — poor men who had arrived on foot as well as former warlords in sport utility vehicles accompanied by Kalashnikov-toting guards. And there were dozens of dogs — hulking, big-headed mastiff breeds that, in the right light and the wrong setting, might be mistaken for small bears. Some were so big that they had to be restrained by two men. A few owners, their arms tired, had lashed their dogs to the wheels of cars.
An informal committee of arbiters, including Kefayatullah and Abdul Sabour, was selecting the fights and matching up the dogs. Some fights had been organized days in advance, with hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands, riding on each.
The event was presided over by a ringmaster, a toothless old man with a turban and a limp. He carried a wooden staff that he used to beat spectators who crowded the pitch and members of the dogfighters' entourages who blocked the spectators' view.
Though dogfighting is again popular here, it is far from universally embraced. The country's elite disparage it as the domain of the uncultured and the criminal.
"In my personal view, it's not a good thing," said Ghulam Nabi Farahi, deputy minister of information and culture. "In today's world, these animals should be treated well. But unfortunately, there's a lot of fighting."
But dogfighters generally shrug at these sorts of remarks. In modern Afghan society, there are not many sources of entertainment, they argue. In addition, they say, the dogs are well fed and well treated.
"The interest of the people is increasing day by day," said Sher Mohammad Sheywaki, 50, who was standing on the edge of the fighting pitch. "Even if people are starving, they'll still keep dogfighting."
A fight was about to begin. Two dogs were brought close by their owners, then released. They lunged at each other, thrusting upward on hind legs and clamping their jaws onto each other's face. They tugged and twisted each other, looking for leverage, each trying to knock the other off balance.
Their handlers pressed in, shouting encouragement and slapping the dogs on their haunches, as a jockey would a racehorse. A cameraman crouched nearby, recording the fight for collectors' DVDs. A large cloud of dust enveloped the scrum.
This fight, like most others, was over in a few minutes when one dog had pinned the other to the ground and held him there. They were pulled apart and hauled out of the ring.
In some countries, dogfighters will fight their dogs to the death. But Afghan dogfighting is more akin to Greco-Roman wrestling. A dog is declared the victor when he clearly establishes his dominance over the other, or when the weaker dog displays one of the telltale signs of submission, including backing off from the fight or putting its tail between its legs. They are usually pulled apart before they can inflict serious damage on each other.
The stakes for dogfighters are too high to risk their charges any further. Dogs may be a costly investment for the average Afghan, but they can also make their owners money.
On the eve of the fight between Kefayatullah's dog, Palang (meaning tiger), and Abdul Sabour's dog, Zambur (bee), the planned $50,000 purse dropped to $10,000, according to Kefayatullah.
The fight took place on a sunny and chilly Friday morning this month. It was heavily anticipated, and the crowd was large. For more than 10 minutes, Palang and Zambur tore against each other, drawing blood. Kefayatullah, Abdul Sabour and others with money riding on the fight stayed close and yelled encouragement, according to Amirzadah, who attended.
Eventually, Zambur, Abdul Sabour's dog, ran out of steam and Palang overwhelmed him, prompting the men to call a halt to the fight. In celebration, friends of Kefayatullah swarmed Palang, whose fur was wet with blood, and showered him with Afghani bills.
Except for deep wounds on a leg and an ear, Palang was O.K. But his owner was not. Minutes after the fight, Kefayatullah collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. He had suffered a heart attack.
"It was a stroke of joy and happiness!" he joked a week later, as he lay in a ward in the Wazir Akhbar Khan Hospital in Kabul. His wife and daughter sat at his bedside. "I'll be up in no time," he said, "and everything will be back to normal, like before."
His wife's face visibly tensed. "No you won't!" she said, glaring. She was serious. He was smiling. The daughter looked embarrassed.
"It's over," Kefayatullah's wife continued. "I will kill the dogs! I will give them some pills."
Kefayatullah shrugged and smiled again, trying to defuse the situation. "She says a lot, but I don't listen," he said, and he vowed to be back at the Friday dogfights — with his champion dogs — soon enough.
******************
Israeli Gaza strike kills more than 200
By Taghreed El-Khodary and Ethan Bronner
Saturday, December 27, 2008
GAZA: Waves of Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas security facilities in Gaza on Saturday in a crushing response to the group's rocket fire, killing more than 200 — the highest one-day toll in an Israeli military operation against Palestinians in decades.
Israeli military officials said the airstrikes, which went on into the night, were the start of what could be days or even months of an effort to force Hamas to end its rocket barrages into southern Israel. The operation could ultimately include ground forces, a senior Israeli security official said.
After the initial airstrikes, which Palestinian officials said also wounded at least 600, dozens of rockets struck southern Israel, where an emergency was declared. Thousands of Israelis hurried into bomb shelters amid the hail of rockets, including some longer-range models that reached farther north than ever before. One man was killed in the town of Netivot and four were wounded, one seriously.
A military operation against Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, had been forecast and demanded by Israeli officials for weeks, ever since a rocky cease-fire between Israel and Hamas fully collapsed a week ago, leading again to rocket attacks in large numbers against Israel and isolated Israeli operations here.
Still, there was a shocking quality to Saturday's attacks that began in broad daylight, as police cadets were graduating, women were shopping at the outdoor market and children were emerging from school.
The center of Gaza City was a scene of chaotic horror, with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. Most of those killed were Hamas police officers and security men, including two senior commanders, according to Palestinian officials. But the dead included at least a dozen civilians, including several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms.
The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said in a statement that "Palestine has never witnessed an uglier massacre." Later, in a televised speech, he vowed to fight Israel. "We say in all confidence that even if we are hung on the gallows or they make our blood flow in the streets or they tear our bodies apart, we will bow only before God and we will not abandon Palestine," he said.
By afternoon, shops were shuttered, funerals began and mourning tents were visible on nearly every major street of this densely populated city.
"We wanted to attack military targets while the terrorists were inside the facilities and before Hamas was able to get its rockets out that were stored in some of the targets," said the top Israeli security official, briefing a group of reporters by telephone on condition of anonymity.
"Right now, we have to hit Hamas hard to stop the launching," he added. "I don't see any other way for Hamas to change its behavior. Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. It actually rules Gaza and is well supported by Iran with some of its leadership in Syria."
A number of governments and international officials, including leaders of Russia, Egypt, the European Union and the United Nations, condemned Israel's use of force and also called on Hamas to end the rocket fire.
The Bush administration blamed Hamas for the end to the cease-fire and demanded that it stop firing rockets, but called on Israel only to avoid hitting civilians as it attacked Hamas.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli military minister and chairman of the Labor Party, said the military operation would expand and deepen as necessary, adding, "There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and this is the time for fighting." He said he was withdrawing from campaigning for Israel's February elections to focus on the operation.
Hamas had in recent weeks let it be known that because of the coming elections it doubted Israel would engage in a major military undertaking. But in some ways the elections have made it impossible for officials like Barak not to react, because the public has grown anxious and angry over the rocket fire, which while causing no recent deaths and few injuries is deeply disturbing for those living near the Gaza border.
Israeli officials said that anyone linked to the Hamas security structure or government was fair game since Hamas was a terrorist group that sought Israel's destruction. But with work here increasingly scarce because of an international embargo on Hamas, young men are tempted by the steady work of the police force without necessarily fully accepting the Hamas ideology. One of the biggest tolls on Saturday was at a police cadet graduation ceremony in which 15 were killed.
Spokesmen for Hamas officials, who have mostly gone underground, called on militants to seek revenge and fight to the last drop of blood. Several compared what was happening to the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, when Israel reacted to the capture and killing of several soldiers along its northern border with air raids, followed by a ground attack. Hezbollah is widely viewed as having withstood those assaults and emerged much stronger politically.
The Arab League called an emergency meeting for Sunday in Cairo with all the foreign ministers from the member states.
Governments that dislike Hamas, like Egypt's, Jordan's and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, are in a delicate position. They blame Hamas for having taken over Gaza by force 18 months ago and oppose its rocket fire on Israeli towns and communities. But the sight of scores of Palestinians killed by Israeli warplanes outraged their citizens, and anti-Israel demonstrations broke out across the region. Egypt, worried about possible efforts by Palestinians to enter the country, has set up machine guns along the Gaza border.
In the West Bank and in some Arab parts of Jerusalem and Israel, Palestinians threw stones, causing some injuries. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority angrily condemned the Israeli airstrikes.
Hamas is officially committed to Israel's destruction, and when it won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and then forcibly took over Gaza in 2007, it said it would not recognize Israel, honor previous Palestinian Authority commitments to it or end its violence against Israelis.
Israel, backed by the United States, Europe, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, has sought to isolate Hamas by squeezing Gaza economically, a policy that human rights groups condemn as collective punishment. Israel and Egypt, which control routes into and out of Gaza, have blocked nearly all but humanitarian aid from going in.
The result has been the near death of the Gazan economy. While enough food has gone in to avoid starvation, the level of suffering is very high and getting worse each week, especially in recent weeks as Israel closed the routes entirely for about 10 days in reaction to daily rocket fire.
Opening the routes to commerce was Hamas's main goal in its cease-fire with Israel, just as ending the rocket fire was Israel's central aim. But while rocket fire did go down drastically in the fall to 15 to 20 a month from hundreds a month, Israel said it would not permit trade to begin again because the rocket fire had not completely stopped and because Hamas continued to smuggle weapons from Egypt through desert tunnels. Hamas said this was a violation of the agreement, a sign of Israel's real intentions and cause for further rocket fire.
On Wednesday, some 70 rockets hit Israel over 24 hours, in a distinct upsurge of intensity.
The rockets that flew into southern Israel on Saturday left the streets of cities like Netivot, a hardscrabble town of immigrants, nearly deserted. Inside a public shelter, parents worked to keep restless children occupied. The man killed by a rocket was hit by shrapnel as he stood in the entrance to his building, next door to where the rocket hit.
By Taghreed El-Khodary and Ethan Bronner
Saturday, December 27, 2008
GAZA: Waves of Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas security facilities in Gaza on Saturday in a crushing response to the group's rocket fire, killing more than 200 — the highest one-day toll in an Israeli military operation against Palestinians in decades.
Israeli military officials said the airstrikes, which went on into the night, were the start of what could be days or even months of an effort to force Hamas to end its rocket barrages into southern Israel. The operation could ultimately include ground forces, a senior Israeli security official said.
After the initial airstrikes, which Palestinian officials said also wounded at least 600, dozens of rockets struck southern Israel, where an emergency was declared. Thousands of Israelis hurried into bomb shelters amid the hail of rockets, including some longer-range models that reached farther north than ever before. One man was killed in the town of Netivot and four were wounded, one seriously.
A military operation against Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, had been forecast and demanded by Israeli officials for weeks, ever since a rocky cease-fire between Israel and Hamas fully collapsed a week ago, leading again to rocket attacks in large numbers against Israel and isolated Israeli operations here.
Still, there was a shocking quality to Saturday's attacks that began in broad daylight, as police cadets were graduating, women were shopping at the outdoor market and children were emerging from school.
The center of Gaza City was a scene of chaotic horror, with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. Most of those killed were Hamas police officers and security men, including two senior commanders, according to Palestinian officials. But the dead included at least a dozen civilians, including several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms.
The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said in a statement that "Palestine has never witnessed an uglier massacre." Later, in a televised speech, he vowed to fight Israel. "We say in all confidence that even if we are hung on the gallows or they make our blood flow in the streets or they tear our bodies apart, we will bow only before God and we will not abandon Palestine," he said.
By afternoon, shops were shuttered, funerals began and mourning tents were visible on nearly every major street of this densely populated city.
"We wanted to attack military targets while the terrorists were inside the facilities and before Hamas was able to get its rockets out that were stored in some of the targets," said the top Israeli security official, briefing a group of reporters by telephone on condition of anonymity.
"Right now, we have to hit Hamas hard to stop the launching," he added. "I don't see any other way for Hamas to change its behavior. Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. It actually rules Gaza and is well supported by Iran with some of its leadership in Syria."
A number of governments and international officials, including leaders of Russia, Egypt, the European Union and the United Nations, condemned Israel's use of force and also called on Hamas to end the rocket fire.
The Bush administration blamed Hamas for the end to the cease-fire and demanded that it stop firing rockets, but called on Israel only to avoid hitting civilians as it attacked Hamas.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli military minister and chairman of the Labor Party, said the military operation would expand and deepen as necessary, adding, "There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and this is the time for fighting." He said he was withdrawing from campaigning for Israel's February elections to focus on the operation.
Hamas had in recent weeks let it be known that because of the coming elections it doubted Israel would engage in a major military undertaking. But in some ways the elections have made it impossible for officials like Barak not to react, because the public has grown anxious and angry over the rocket fire, which while causing no recent deaths and few injuries is deeply disturbing for those living near the Gaza border.
Israeli officials said that anyone linked to the Hamas security structure or government was fair game since Hamas was a terrorist group that sought Israel's destruction. But with work here increasingly scarce because of an international embargo on Hamas, young men are tempted by the steady work of the police force without necessarily fully accepting the Hamas ideology. One of the biggest tolls on Saturday was at a police cadet graduation ceremony in which 15 were killed.
Spokesmen for Hamas officials, who have mostly gone underground, called on militants to seek revenge and fight to the last drop of blood. Several compared what was happening to the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, when Israel reacted to the capture and killing of several soldiers along its northern border with air raids, followed by a ground attack. Hezbollah is widely viewed as having withstood those assaults and emerged much stronger politically.
The Arab League called an emergency meeting for Sunday in Cairo with all the foreign ministers from the member states.
Governments that dislike Hamas, like Egypt's, Jordan's and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, are in a delicate position. They blame Hamas for having taken over Gaza by force 18 months ago and oppose its rocket fire on Israeli towns and communities. But the sight of scores of Palestinians killed by Israeli warplanes outraged their citizens, and anti-Israel demonstrations broke out across the region. Egypt, worried about possible efforts by Palestinians to enter the country, has set up machine guns along the Gaza border.
In the West Bank and in some Arab parts of Jerusalem and Israel, Palestinians threw stones, causing some injuries. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority angrily condemned the Israeli airstrikes.
Hamas is officially committed to Israel's destruction, and when it won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and then forcibly took over Gaza in 2007, it said it would not recognize Israel, honor previous Palestinian Authority commitments to it or end its violence against Israelis.
Israel, backed by the United States, Europe, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, has sought to isolate Hamas by squeezing Gaza economically, a policy that human rights groups condemn as collective punishment. Israel and Egypt, which control routes into and out of Gaza, have blocked nearly all but humanitarian aid from going in.
The result has been the near death of the Gazan economy. While enough food has gone in to avoid starvation, the level of suffering is very high and getting worse each week, especially in recent weeks as Israel closed the routes entirely for about 10 days in reaction to daily rocket fire.
Opening the routes to commerce was Hamas's main goal in its cease-fire with Israel, just as ending the rocket fire was Israel's central aim. But while rocket fire did go down drastically in the fall to 15 to 20 a month from hundreds a month, Israel said it would not permit trade to begin again because the rocket fire had not completely stopped and because Hamas continued to smuggle weapons from Egypt through desert tunnels. Hamas said this was a violation of the agreement, a sign of Israel's real intentions and cause for further rocket fire.
On Wednesday, some 70 rockets hit Israel over 24 hours, in a distinct upsurge of intensity.
The rockets that flew into southern Israel on Saturday left the streets of cities like Netivot, a hardscrabble town of immigrants, nearly deserted. Inside a public shelter, parents worked to keep restless children occupied. The man killed by a rocket was hit by shrapnel as he stood in the entrance to his building, next door to where the rocket hit.
**********************
Car bomb in Baghdad kills at least 24
By Sam Dagher
Saturday, December 27, 2008
BAGHDAD: A car bomb killed at least 24 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims, and wounded 46 others when it exploded Saturday on a busy road in Baghdad that leads to the revered shrine of Kadhimiya, according to the Ministry of Interior.
That bombing, along with several others in recent weeks, was a stark reminder that even as violence has sharply fallen, insurgents still have the power to carry out deadly strikes in the heart of the capital. The attack's timing and location appeared to be intended to reignite sectarian passions.
Millions of Shiites are preparing to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The observance falls during Muharram, the holiest month of the Shiite religious calendar, which begins Monday. Shiite families from across Iraq traditionally visit the shrine, with its shimmering twin golden domes, on Saturdays.
The explosion occurred at midday about 100 yards from Bab al-Dirwaza, one of the main gates to the shrine and the Kadhimiya district's bustling market, which has been a pedestrian-only area for several years because of a spate of deadly attacks in the area. According to several witnesses, the car that exploded was parked outside the fence of one of the nearby parking lots.
Jalal Hussein, 56, had just parked his car, after dropping off his wife and daughter at the gate, when the bomb exploded a few yards away, creating a huge ball of fire that consumed several vehicles and many pedestrians. He said the bodies and limbs of victims, including many children and women, were scattered everywhere.
"It was an unexpected massacre of simple people going to visit the shrine," said Hussein, who was wounded in the shoulder.
On the street in front of the lot, which was cordoned off by American and Iraqi forces, the chassis of a car lay amid the wreckage of a minibus and five other vehicles in one lane. A woman's shoe and shreds of the black head-to-toe cloak commonly worn by Iraqi women mixed with blood, broken glass and metal. A smashed bus was in the other lane.
"My son," screamed a distraught mother who had rushed there with her husband.
Rescuers tried to force open the doors of vehicles to remove the dead and wounded, witnesses said. Many badly burned bodies were simply piled up on wooden market pushcarts.
Muhammad Hamdan, 58, who narrowly escaped the blast, had come to the shrine with his wife and six children to pray to be cured of a heart ailment. "Those who perished are martyrs, God willing," he said.
Residents and visitors expressed shock and anger that the bombing occurred in what is considered one of the city's most secure enclaves. The neighborhood is ringed with Iraqi Army and police checkpoints, where each entering vehicle is scanned with a hand-held bomb detection device.
The area receives special attention because it is home to the shrine and the base of Ayatollah Hussein Ismail al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric close to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The tight security led several residents to lash out at what they assumed to be incompetence or corruption that had allowed the bombing to happen. "This area is highly protected," Hussein said. "Not even a rat could come in. The terror is from within."
A Kadhimiya resident, Fawzia Qazzaz, standing on her porch overlooking the scene, screamed at security personnel as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Either their bomb detection equipment is faulty or they are implicated in the terror," she said.
In another bombing on Saturday, in Jurf al-Sakher, south of Baghdad in Babil Province, an Iraqi Army officer and two members of a local Awakening Council were killed when a bomb attached to their vehicle exploded, according to a police official in Hilla, the provincial capital.
While the sectarian bloodshed that had ripped Iraq apart as recently as last year has eased, devastating attacks continue to crop up. The last major attack in the capital, a suicide bombing at a police training academy on Dec. 1 , killed at least 15 people.
A new report released Saturday by the nongovernmental group Iraq Body Count placed at 8,955 the number of civilians killed by acts of violence in Iraq so far in 2008. The figures, while far below those of 2006 and 2007, when a total of 51,894 civilians were killed, were only slightly below those for 2003 and 2004, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the police in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killed an escaped prisoner who was believed to be an insurgent leader. The prisoner, Emad Ahmed Ferhan, was among three who escaped Friday from a police station after a shootout that killed six policemen and seven prisoners.
The police received a tip on Saturday that he was hiding at a house in central Ramadi and sent a force to arrest him, said the police chief, Major General Tareq al-Youssef. He said the force had surrounded the house and a gun battle had ensued with Ferhan, who was described as a leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is led by foreigners.
He was killed as he fled. A machine gun, passport and fake beard were in his possession, Youssef said.
By Sam Dagher
Saturday, December 27, 2008
BAGHDAD: A car bomb killed at least 24 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims, and wounded 46 others when it exploded Saturday on a busy road in Baghdad that leads to the revered shrine of Kadhimiya, according to the Ministry of Interior.
That bombing, along with several others in recent weeks, was a stark reminder that even as violence has sharply fallen, insurgents still have the power to carry out deadly strikes in the heart of the capital. The attack's timing and location appeared to be intended to reignite sectarian passions.
Millions of Shiites are preparing to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The observance falls during Muharram, the holiest month of the Shiite religious calendar, which begins Monday. Shiite families from across Iraq traditionally visit the shrine, with its shimmering twin golden domes, on Saturdays.
The explosion occurred at midday about 100 yards from Bab al-Dirwaza, one of the main gates to the shrine and the Kadhimiya district's bustling market, which has been a pedestrian-only area for several years because of a spate of deadly attacks in the area. According to several witnesses, the car that exploded was parked outside the fence of one of the nearby parking lots.
Jalal Hussein, 56, had just parked his car, after dropping off his wife and daughter at the gate, when the bomb exploded a few yards away, creating a huge ball of fire that consumed several vehicles and many pedestrians. He said the bodies and limbs of victims, including many children and women, were scattered everywhere.
"It was an unexpected massacre of simple people going to visit the shrine," said Hussein, who was wounded in the shoulder.
On the street in front of the lot, which was cordoned off by American and Iraqi forces, the chassis of a car lay amid the wreckage of a minibus and five other vehicles in one lane. A woman's shoe and shreds of the black head-to-toe cloak commonly worn by Iraqi women mixed with blood, broken glass and metal. A smashed bus was in the other lane.
"My son," screamed a distraught mother who had rushed there with her husband.
Rescuers tried to force open the doors of vehicles to remove the dead and wounded, witnesses said. Many badly burned bodies were simply piled up on wooden market pushcarts.
Muhammad Hamdan, 58, who narrowly escaped the blast, had come to the shrine with his wife and six children to pray to be cured of a heart ailment. "Those who perished are martyrs, God willing," he said.
Residents and visitors expressed shock and anger that the bombing occurred in what is considered one of the city's most secure enclaves. The neighborhood is ringed with Iraqi Army and police checkpoints, where each entering vehicle is scanned with a hand-held bomb detection device.
The area receives special attention because it is home to the shrine and the base of Ayatollah Hussein Ismail al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric close to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The tight security led several residents to lash out at what they assumed to be incompetence or corruption that had allowed the bombing to happen. "This area is highly protected," Hussein said. "Not even a rat could come in. The terror is from within."
A Kadhimiya resident, Fawzia Qazzaz, standing on her porch overlooking the scene, screamed at security personnel as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Either their bomb detection equipment is faulty or they are implicated in the terror," she said.
In another bombing on Saturday, in Jurf al-Sakher, south of Baghdad in Babil Province, an Iraqi Army officer and two members of a local Awakening Council were killed when a bomb attached to their vehicle exploded, according to a police official in Hilla, the provincial capital.
While the sectarian bloodshed that had ripped Iraq apart as recently as last year has eased, devastating attacks continue to crop up. The last major attack in the capital, a suicide bombing at a police training academy on Dec. 1 , killed at least 15 people.
A new report released Saturday by the nongovernmental group Iraq Body Count placed at 8,955 the number of civilians killed by acts of violence in Iraq so far in 2008. The figures, while far below those of 2006 and 2007, when a total of 51,894 civilians were killed, were only slightly below those for 2003 and 2004, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the police in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killed an escaped prisoner who was believed to be an insurgent leader. The prisoner, Emad Ahmed Ferhan, was among three who escaped Friday from a police station after a shootout that killed six policemen and seven prisoners.
The police received a tip on Saturday that he was hiding at a house in central Ramadi and sent a force to arrest him, said the police chief, Major General Tareq al-Youssef. He said the force had surrounded the house and a gun battle had ensued with Ferhan, who was described as a leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is led by foreigners.
He was killed as he fled. A machine gun, passport and fake beard were in his possession, Youssef said.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT IAN WALTHEW 2008
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