The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 5A
NY Times journalists say
they were abused in Libya
Photographers,
reporter freed after
six days, driver' s
location unknown
NEW YORK (AP) - A team of
New York Times journalists said
in a story published on the news-
paper's website yesterday that
Libyan soldiers physically abused
them and threatened to kill them
during the six days they were
held in captivity.
The journalists said they were
captured when their driver mis-
takenly drove into a checkpoint
manned by Libyan forces on
March15.
The journalists - reporter
Anthony Shadid, videographer
Stephen Farrell and photogra-
phers Lynsey Addario and Tyler
Hicks - say soldiers tied them
up with wire, an electrical cord, a
scarf and shoelaces and hit them
with fists and rifle butts.
"All of us had had close calls
over the years," they wrote in the
nearly 2,700-word story about
their capture while recount-
ing their previous near-fatal
encounters in combat zones. "At
that moment, though, none of us
thought we were going to live."
They say a soldier said, "Shoot
them."
Addario was punched in the
face and groped, they say, and one
soldier stroked her head and told
her she was going to die.
"You might die tonight," they
quoted the soldier as saying to
her. "Maybe, maybe not."
The journalists wondered
whether a body Addario saw in
their car was that of their driver,
who's still missing.
"We still don't know whether
that was Mohammed. We fear it
was, though his body has yet to
be found," they wrote. "If he died,
we will have to bear the burden
for the rest of our lives that an
innocent man died because of us,
because of wrong choices that
we made, for an article that was
never worth dying for."
The journalists were captured
during fighting in the eastern
part of Libya, where rebel forces
are trying to end the four-decade
rule of leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Gadhafi yesterday made his
first public appearance in a week,
promising supporters at his resi-
dential compound in Tripoli, "In
the short term, we'llbeat them. In
the long term, we'll beat them."
A no-fly zone has been put
in place over the North African
nation, and international coali-
tion forces have pounded Libyan
military targets with missiles.
The Times said Libyan soldiers
had threatened to decapitate
Hicks.
Hicks said the soldiers tempo-
rarily put handcuffs on Shadid so
tightly that he lost feeling in his
hands.
The journalists said that after
they were delivered into the
custody of military intelligence,
an official promised their harsh
treatment would end and it did.
For the last four days of their
captivity, they said, they "fought
boredom more than anything
else" as they waited to find out
their fates.
PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP
The Obama family poses for a group photo with El Salvador's Foreign Relations Minister yesterday.
Obama promises to
fight drug trafficking
President visits El
Salvador to discuss
economic, energy,
security initiatives
SAN SALVADOR, El Salva-
dor (AP) - President Barack
Obama vowed closer coopera-
tion yesterday with the Central .
American nations where U.S.
policies on crime, immigra-
tion and other issues have out-
size influence on populations
that depend heavily on their
giant neighbor to the north and
impact U.S. society in turn.
Speaking in El Salvador, the
final stop on his three-country
Latin American tour and the
only one in Central America,
Obama promised attention to
increasing trade and economic
growth, fighting drug traffick-
ing and creating opportunities
so that people can find work in
their home countries and "don't
feel like they have to head north
to provide for their families."
"The United States will do
our part" in combatting the
increasing scourge of drug
trafficking, the president said,
standing next to El Salvador's
president Mauricio Funes, who
welcomed Obama's attention
to the oft-overlooked region.
Obama said $200 million would
be spent as part of a new region-
al security partnership meant
to combat drug wars that have
led to a spike in murders here
and in other Central American
countries.
Yet Obama's five-day visit to
Latin America has been over-
shadowed from the start by the
war he's running in faraway
Libya. Just before his news con-
ference with Funes the White
House said Obama would be
cutting his trip short, depart-
ing El Salvador for the U.S. this
morning instead of in the after-
noon as planned.
The U.S. and international
partners are launching mili-
tary strikes to protect civilians
from attacks by Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi. The White
House said Obama was briefed
on developments there by his
national security team yester-
day during a conference call
from Air Force One. He also
spoke with British Prime Minis-
ter David Cameron and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy
while en route from Chile to El
Salvador, to discuss NATO's roll
in the Libya offensive.
Obama said during his news
conference with Funes that he
was confident the U.S. would
transfer control of Libya opera-
tion to an international coali-
tion in days.
And despite Libya's shadow,
Obama sought to make clear
that El Salvador is a criti-
cal partner on immigration
and narcotics wars, issues of
increasing concern to the Unit-
ed States.
Among the issues he and
Funes addressed was the rising
crime south of the U.S. border.
El Salvador has seen murder
rates rise amid an influx of
drugs and displaced traffickers
from crackdowns in Colombia
and Mexico. Obama said a new
partnership to combat nar-
co-trafficking could focus on
strengthening courts and civil
society groups in order to keep
young people from turning to
drugs and crime.
Obama said he was confident
that Funes would show "great
leadership" in using the money
properly.
El Salvador also has one of
Central America's highest rates
of emigration, especially to the
United States. About 2.8 million
Salvadoran immigrants living
in the United States sent home
$3.5 billion last year, so laws
that crack down on immigrants
can significantly affect the
Salvadoran economy. But con-
gressional politics have made
it difficult to restart talks about
overhauling the nation's immi-
gration laws.
Nonetheless Obama recom-
mitted himself to the effort
yesterday in response to a ques-
tion from a Salvadoran reporter.
He said Republicans who now
exert greater control in Wash-
ington were more reluctant
than in the past to engage in
comprehensive reform, but "My
hope is that they begin to recog-
nize over the next year that we
can't solve this problem without
taking a broad comprehensive
approach."
Obama said immigration
reform in the U.S. would also
benefit Latin America, and
would "ensure that relations
between neighbors, and trade
and economic relationsbetween
neighbors is more orderly and
secure."
Obama, along with wife
Michelle Obama and their two
daughters, arrived in the capi-
tal of San Salvador yesterday
afternoon under a blistering
sun following stops in Brazil
and Chile.
After his meeting and
appearance with Funes, Obama
was headed to visit the tomb of
slain Roman Catholic Archbish-
op Oscar Arnulfo Romero at San
Salvador's Metropolitan Cathe-
dral. Romero spoke out against
repression by the U.S.-backed
Salvadoran army during El Sal-
vador's 12-year civil war and
was gunned down March 24,
1980, as he celebrated Mass in
a hospital chapel. Rights activ-
ists and others were welcoming
Obama's decision to visit the
tomb as a gesture of recognition
of Romero's cause.
In a broad-ranging speech in
Chile on Monday that spelled
out his policy in Latin America,
Obama called on the region's
rising economies to take more
responsibility and play a larg-
er role both in the region and
around the globe.
He also described U.S. initia-
tives in Latin America to help
curb the proliferation of drugs.
Congress approved $1.8 billion
for the so-called Merida Initia-
tive to fight drugs in Mexico.
After complaints that Central
America was shortchanged,
Congress created a separate
Central America Regional
Security Initiative with a total
of $248 million so far. Central
American leaders say that has
not been enough.
Anti-government protestors shout slogans during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali
Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa,Yemen yesterday.
Yemeni president warns of civil war
Protesters swell in
capital as president
refuses to step down
SANAA, Yemen (AP) -
Yemen's U.S.-backed president,
his support crumbling among
political allies and the army,
warned that the country could
slide into a "bloody" civil war
yesterday as the opposition
rejected his offer to step down by
the end of the year. Tens of thou-
sands protested in the capital
demanding his immediate oust-
er, emboldened by top military
commanders who joined their
cause.
Ali Abdullah Saleh's apparent
determination to cling to power
raised fears that Yemen could be
pushed into even greater insta-
bility. In a potentially explo-
sive split, rival factions of the
military have deployed tanks in
the capital Sanaa - with units
commanded by Saleh's son pro-
tecting the president's palace,
and units loyal to a top dissident
commander protecting the pro-
testers.
The defection on Monday of
that commander, Maj. Gen. Ali
Mohsen al-Ahmar, a powerful
regime insider who commands
the army's 1st Armored Division,
has been seen by many as a major
turning point toward a poten-
tially rapid end for Saleh's nearly
32-year rule.
The question is whether the
Yemeni chapter of the uprisings
sweeping the Middle East will
read more like Egypt - where
the resignation of President
Hosni Mubarak set the coun-
try on a relatively stable, if still
uncertain, move toward democ-
racy - or like Libya, which has
seen brutal fighting between
armed camps.
Already, clashes broke out late
Monday between Saleh's Repub-
lican Guard and dissident army
units in the far eastern corner of
the country. On Tuesday, Repub-
lican Guard tanks surrounded a
key air base in the western Red
Sea coastal city of Hodeida after
its commander - Col. Ahmed
al-Sanhani, a member of Saleh's
own clan - announced he was
joining the opposition.
The turmoil raised alarm in
Washington, which has heavily
backed Saleh to wage a campaign
against a major Yemen-based al-
Qaida wing that plotted attacks
in the United States.
U.S. Defense Secretary Rob-
ert Gates, on a trip to Russia,
said yesterday that "instability
and diversion of attention" from
dealing with al-Qaida is a "pri-
mary concern about the situa-
tion." He refused to weigh in on
whether Saleh should step down.
After a month of street pro-
tests - led mainly by students
and pro-democracy advocates -
against his nearly 32-year rule,
Saleh became dramatically more
isolated after security forces
opened fatally shot more than 40
demonstrators on Friday.
The killings set off an ava-
lanche of defections by top
figures in his ruling party, influ-
ential tribal leaders and, most
damagingly, al-Ahmar and a
string of other top generals.
In a meeting yesterday with
his still-loyalist military com-
manders, Saleh railed against the
dissidents, calling them "weak"
and saying they "dropped away
like autumn leaves."
* Egypt's Interior Ministry burns
as police officers protest outside
Interior Ministry's
security forces
associated with
Mubarak regime
CAIRO (AP) - Fire swept the
upper floors of Egypt's Interior
Ministry building yesterday as
policemen protested outside to
demand higher pay. A security
official accused demonstrators
of starting the blaze in down-
town Cairo.
TV footage showed flames
climbing the top floors of the
building and a huge plume of
black smoke filling the sky.
Later, firefighters on tall ladders
sprayed water to extinguish the
fire.
One protester denied they had
lit the fire and accused those
inside of setting if off by burn-
ing security files to get rid of evi-
dence of police abuses.
Many Egyptians still asso-
ciate the Interior Ministry's
security forces with the worst
excesses of the regime of oust-
ed President Hosni Mubarak.
Earlier this month, protesters
rallied outside State Security
offices across the nation, storm-
ing some of them in a search of
evidence of human rights viola-
tions.
Yesterday's protest outside
the ministry, however, was held
by policemen themselves. They
want a minimum salary of $200
a month - much more than
many get now - and other ben-
efits, including improved health
care. The mass demonstrations
that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11
have set off frequent protests by
laborers, including police offi-
cers, seeking to improve their
lot.
The security official said pro-
testers lit the fire in the build-
ing housing in the ministry's
personnel department. It then
spread to an adjacent communi-
cations building.
One protester who arrived
to see fires burning in the two
buildings said it couldn't have
been started by the crowd
because they had no way of
entering the heavily guarded
compound. He accused workers
inside of burning security files
and starting the blaze.
"It is as if light just started to
arrive and they want to bring
back the darkness," he said, giv-
ing only his first name, Amil,
because he feared government
retribution.
About 15 central security
trucks cordoned off the complex
to prevent demonstrators from
storming it. It remained unclear
how the fire started, though
onlookers said it appeared to
begin in the six-story building's
middle floors, then spread to the
top.
Thousands of people collect-
ed in nearby streets to watch as
four fire trucks extinguished the
blaze. Military police in khaki
uniforms and red berets pre-
vented them from approaching
the building.
Yesterday's demonstration
also called for the return of for-
mer Interior Minister Mahmoud
Wagdi, whom Egypt's military
rulers replaced in a Cabinet
shake-up this month aimed at
removing stalwarts of the
Mubarak regime.
Wagdi, who held the post for
less than a month, was replaced
by Maj. Gen. Mansour el-
Essawy, a former Cairo security
chief who has pledged to restore
security and reduce the role of
the hated State Security agency.
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