SPIEGEL Interview with Iraq's Ayad Allawi

SPIEGEL Interview with Iraq's Ayad Allawi

 

'Every Corner in the Region Is Frightened

 

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-58724.html

In a SPIEGEL interview, Ayad Allawi, Iraq's former and possibly future prime minister, discusses the withdrawal of US troops, the power struggle in Baghdad and the "very high possibility" of a new war in the Middle East.

Three bodyguards are sitting in front of his hotel suite in Kuwait, their guns bulging from beneath their suits. It's Ramadan and the men are fasting. But Ayad Allawi isn't, and he asks for an espresso. Allawi doesn't even create the impression that he lives according to religious rites. And that's also one reason why, nearly six months after the Iraqi election, he still hasn't become prime minister. He is one of the few representatives of a secular and supra-denominational Iraq.

The son of a Shiite businessman, Allawi became a member of the Baath Party as a student, but fell out with Saddam Hussein in the 1970s and then worked with Western intelligence services in the effort to topple the dictator. In 2004, the United States installed him as the first prime minister in postwar Iraq. After a year of governing as interim prime minister, he failed to win a democratic election to remain in the office. But in March 2010, he led in the parliamentary elections, with a two-seat advantage. Despite almost six months of talks, however, he still hasn't managed to form a government.

Allawi is pessimistic about the region. He says that on the night before his interview with SPIEGEL, he conferred with Arab leaders until 1 a.m. With a growing number of conflicts in the region, he says, the situation has grown more serious than most there have ever experienced. "Early today," he explains, "one of the most experienced of us came in and asked: Has the next catrastrophe in the Middle East broken out yet?"

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SPIEGEL: Dr. Allawi, you are a neurologist by profession. How would you describe Iraq's current state in medical terms?

Allawi: Critical. It could go either way. Everything depends on the doctors' management of the patient. If the management is good, Iraq can survive. If not, then God forbid.

SPIEGEL: So your best case prognosis would be …

Allawi: … an Iraq with a balanced and inclusive government, which transcends sectarianism, starts political reconciliation, builds full-blown state institutions and security forces and creates an independent foreign policy.

SPIEGEL: And the pessimistic one?

Allawi: Iraq continues on its downward slide and becomes a failed state. If that happens the Pandora's box will open again and all the violence will reappear.

SPIEGEL: A relapse, in clinical terms, to the bloodiness seen in 2006 and 2007?

Allawi: Yes. But a relapse now would be much more severe, because we do not have multinational forces anymore which could contain a civil war.

SPIEGEL: The combat deployment of the US troops officially ends this week. Will that help Iraq or does it take away the sick patient's life support?

Allawi: It is politically important. But the problem is that we have not established the supportive fixtures for the patient. We have not established the political groundwork; we have not built an army that can really shoulder the responsibility.

SPIEGEL: The Iraqi military chief of staff, General Babakir Zebari, says that Iraq's army will not be fully ready before 2020 and that the Americans must stay.

Allawi: I agree with him. It may well take another 10 years.

SPIEGEL: Are the Americans leaving too early?

Allawi: They have to leave eventually. They have been in Iraq for seven years and we have not achieved anything ourselves. Who can guarantee that this would be different another seven years from now?

SPIEGEL: Does IS US President Barack Obama's administration neglect Iraq to the benefit of Afghanistan?

Allawi: You see what is happening in Afghanistan: It is a total failure. The problem here is not about America leaving Iraq and continuing its fight in Afghanistan. America has to rethink its strategy for the whole region from Central Asia to the Middle East. NATO will have to rethink its strategy, and so will Europe. The West's policy is wrong. Just look around: Somalia is a totally failed state. Yemen faces the most serious of challenges. Palestine? One step forward, three steps back. And somewhere down the line, Lebanon will be on the agenda. God help us when the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon issues its verdicts in the murder case of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

SPIEGEL: That is a very gloomy analysis -- and it does not provide much hope for peace in this region.

Allawi: I am not gloomy, I am only realistic. America is the last remaining superpower. We need to have good relations with Washington. But we also have to see the mistakes in the US strategy. We have excellent, professional soldiers in Iraq today but, and I am only quoting the chief of staff here, we do not have an army ready to shoulder its responsibilities. Similar comments come from the interior minister. And our police force is infiltrated by militias.

SPIEGEL: Saddam Hussein's former foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, who is now in prison, accuses America of leaving Iraq "to the wolves." Who does he mean by that?

Allawi: He means the predators that have been unleashed all over the Middle East, the lawless people and the terrorists who want to spill as much blood as possible on as many places as possible. The conflicts between Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and the Maghreb are similar and interconnected in this respect.

SPIEGEL: The leaders of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians will soon start a new round of peace talks in Washington. Do you believe these talks have any chance?

Allawi: I am very skeptical. I do not think it will work. The environment is not right.

SPIEGEL: For the past two years, it seemed as though Iraq had tamed its predators. The al-Qaida terrorists appeared to have been decisively beaten.

Allawi: Yes, but the early warning signs that have accumulated over the past months, the increase in violence, the new wave of assassinations and suicide attacks, should not be read as something superficial and accidental. On one day alone we counted 13 attacks with dozens of people killed. This is a systematic development. The biggest mistake committed by the Iraqi government and the multinational forces was to let down the Sahwa forces -- the tribal movement which was so decisive in the fight against al-Qaida. They have not been integrated; they have been disenfranchised and pushed back into despair and poverty. This will have consequences. Violent groups are already mushrooming in the shadows of al-Qaida.

SPIEGEL: So, the successes of the past few years are highly endangered?

Allawi: Just look at what is happening in Afghanistan: All the pressure, all the bombs have not finished off the Taliban and al-Qaida. They have actually been strengthened beyond the country's borders itself into Pakistan. The overall strategy is wrong.

SPIEGEL: Your rival, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, claims to have established a strong Iraq and to be a strong leader.

Allawi: He is not strong. How do you define strength? Commanding one square kilometer in the center of Baghdad?

SPIEGEL: You mean the Green Zone, the highly secure government and embassy compound by the Tigris.

Allawi: From Basra in the south to Mosul in the north, demonstrations are raging. Services (like electricity, water and trash collection) are almost on standstill. Even the Green Zone is being bombarded on a daily basis again. We have an army without airplanes and without tanks. What sort of strength is this?



Part 2: 'We Have a Constitutional Problem in Iraq'



SPIEGEL: Iraqis do not blame al-Maliki alone for this misery, however. They do blame politicians in general, yourself included. Some voters have risked their lives by participating in the elections, but even after nearly five months of negotiations, you haven't yet succeeded in forming a government.

Allawi: This is democracy. And because of the fact that electoral alliances are formed in Iraq even after the election, and the fact that al-Maliki's list succeeded in pushing for a recount of the votes, we lost three precious months of time.

SPIEGEL: America is now pushing for a power-sharing agreement between your list and al-Maliki's list and for important cabinet posts to be split between the two.

Allawi: It is not the Americans who are pushing. It was me who convinced the US and the United Nations to move forward through a devolution of power.

SPIEGEL: What does that mean? You will become prime minister and al-Maliki will be president? Or vice-versa?

Allawi: No. We have a constitutional problem in Iraq. All the power is focused in the office of the prime minister, no matter whether that person is me or al-Maliki. My list has suggested splitting this power. The idea is to set up a modus according to which I can accept a position, not necessarily that of prime minister, and he can accept a position, not necessarily that of prime minister, because both of us will be part of the decision-making process and hold the important keys in our hands.

SPIEGEL: But three years ago you told us that Iraq needs a strong leader. You said this country cannot even be governed otherwise.

Allawi: Yes, and I stand by this even today. But the results of the election were so close that we cannot practically adhere to this. We have not yet transitioned to democracy. Even in 2007 we thought that we had progressed further than we actually have today. We have reached a point now where nobody trusts anybody and where the future of the country and the entire region is at stake.

SPIEGEL: And at this critical point of time you decided to break off talks with al-Maliki because he called your group a "Sunni" one? Is this responsible behavior?

Allawi: Absolutely, yes. If we hadn't objected to this lie we would have lost our constituency. Our voters, the still strong group of secular people in Iraq, are steadfast on the issue of sectarianism. A Sunni in our group doesn't want to be seen as a Sunni, a Shia doesn't want to be seen as a Shia.

SPIEGEL: Why is the political class that returned from exile with the help of American tanks, yourself included, so extremely incapable of finding even minimal compromises?

Allawi: Because the political process we have witnessed over the past seven years has been deeply corrupted and riddled by terror and violence. This process has not grown from Iraqi sources. It was a process guarded, even guaranteed by America. After such a process, where should compromise and stability come from? We should have linked our Status of Forces Agreement with the US to political reform.

SPIEGEL: You made headlines when you recently met with the Shia firebrand and former militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, a man whose supporters tried to kill you in December 2005 in Najaf.

Allawi: This meeting happened, almost accidentally, in Damascus. I have always been against militias and will never change this attitude. To tell you the truth, I found this guy very honest, straightforward and uncomplicated. We have known his family of learned men for generations, so I asked him: None of your relatives has ever advocated sectarianism -- how come you have become part of a sectarian set-up? He answered: I am full-heartedly against sectarianism. I am all for an Iraqi solution for our problems, not a Shiite one.

SPIEGEL: Some experts see his mysterious retreat as the real reason behind Iraq's improvement in 2008. He was considered by many Iraqis and Americans to be "the most dangerous man in Iraq."

Allawi: If this was the case then all of us are dangerous. This man has 40 seats in parliament and has a grassroots movement in this country.

SPIEGEL: Do you expect him to return to Iraq and to politics?

Allawi: He should. It would be good for Iraq and his own people.

SPIEGEL: Which foreign power currently wields the most influence in Iraqi politics?

Allawi: Iran.

SPIEGEL: Can you elaborate?

Allawi: No.

SPIEGEL: Why not? Many countries are currently worried about Iran because of its nuclear program.

Allawi: For me, Iran's influence is not positive. I am certainly not an advocate of Iranian policies. I am even sure that they have a red line and a veto on me. But I think the world should engage and talk with Iran and try to see and feel where the fears of Iran lie. The Iranians are logical people. We should try to convince them that proliferation does not serve their purpose in the end.

SPIEGEL: You travel from one Arab capital to the other, you know all the Arab leaders and you also know that they are arming themselves. Allawi: Everybody is frightened. Every corner of the region is frightened. Even America is frightened, even Iran is frightened. We are heading towards a situation which almost compares to the Cuban crisis in 1962. There is an umbrella of fear spreading above us. Everybody should do his utmost to prevent tensions. I am calling for an international conference on the issue of proliferation.

SPIEGEL: Can Iraq live with a nuclear Iran?

Allawi: I don't think so.

SPIEGEL: Do you think that war will break out over Iran's nuclear program?

Allawi: It is a very high possibility.

Interview conducted by Bernhard Zand

Morality: America In Crisis

Morality: America In Crisis

 by Jean-Philippe Gibson

The agony of America’s pain permeates through the still of the air. The eyes of Americans reflect back the same nostalgic cold stare. We all ask ourselves the same question. How could our great nation which has amassed unparallel prestige, wealth, and power find itself in such an abysmal abyss? Maybe words aren’t adequate enough to describe our fall from being the world’s biggest creditor nation to our current standing as the biggest debtor nation in world history. Somewhere along the way “Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness” got lost in the mythical land of Chimerica and replaced with the liberal progressive lie that you can have it all at no cost.

These days King George III is in Washington, D.C. levying taxes with the illusion of representation. The American people say nay on an issue and the U.S. Congress says yea. The American people say yea on an issue and the U.S. Congress says nay. It is almost as if the U.S. Congress has forgotten the part of the constitution that reads:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a
more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and
our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.”

It is almost as if “We the People” don’t matter anymore. Our elected officials have forgotten that they are elected officials elected to represent and execute our wishes while in Washington, D.C.

We have foreclosed on our homes and mortgaged our children’s future to the Chinese. As I write, the U.S. National debt is $13 trillion and rising by the second. According to the Congressional Budget Office, there are 28 million Americans on food stamps.

We have immense problems. I would venture to say that the very infrastructure of our nation is under siege. We are spending billions fighting two wars simultaneously, facing an inflationary depression, cutting education costs, nobody has a job, and an insane messianic regime in Tehran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. We find ourselves at the epicenter of the perfect storm. We must hold on to the ideal, that hope based upon hope is within our reach. We must remember that there is indeed hope beyond despair.

Tonight I implore every American to pray. Pray that we find the inner resolve to overcome as we have as a people so many times in history before. Liberal progressives has sought to take God out of the public square, but try as they might, we are still one nation under God.

Just like Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream today. I have a dream that my beloved Americans unite to defeat the dark forces of moral relativism, islamofascism, Cloward & Piven, and Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

“‎Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Write to Jean-Philippe Gibson at jpg527@gmail.com

Ciara feat. The Dream - "Speechless"

Ciara feat. The Dream - "Speechless"

To be featured on her Basic Instinct album

**The smooth romantic love ballad was most likely produced and written by The-Dream & also features Terius Youngdell Nash doing background vocals.





The song was originally some kind of a duet but The-Dream has been removed for undisclosed reasons.**

John F. Kennedy Secret Society Speech (Part 1/2)

John F. Kennedy

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association

Secret Society Speech Part 1

President John F. Kennedy

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

New York City, April 27, 1961

John F. Kennedy Secret Society Speech (Part 2/2)

John F. Kennedy

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association

Secret Society Speech Part 2

President John F. Kennedy

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

New York City, April 27, 1961

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association

John F. Kennedy

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

New York City, April 27, 1961

 

 

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.

You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.

We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."

But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.

If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.

I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.

It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.

Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.

Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.

If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.

On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.

It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.

I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.

This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.

III

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

The Mexican Massacre That Shook All of Latin America

The Mexican Massacre That Shook All of Latin America

by Ioan Grillo / Mexico City

The alleged site where 72 bodies were found in San Fernando, Mexico

Mexicans have come to be numbed by the relentless reports of gruesome violence this year, but the brutal scene revealed to the public on Wednesday was enough to stun them anew. Seventy-two corpses were piled up haphazardly around the edge of a breeze-block barn, arms and legs twisted over one another, waists and backs contorted into unnatural shapes. There were teenagers, middle-aged men, young girls, a pregnant woman. They had left countries including Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras, making the hard trek north on trains, buses and foot in search of the American dream. And then in a ranch in northeast Mexico just 100 miles from the Texas border, they finished their days, with their hands bound and bullets in their heads.

How, newspapers asked, had the situation gotten so out of control that a heavily armed gang could commit such a massacre, comparable to some of the worst atrocities in wars, in one of the country's most developed regions? And how would other Latin American countries now look at what Mexicans had done to their citizens? Throughout the debate that has taken place since the discovery, one telling word has been repeated again and again: vergüenza, or shame. "National Shame and Anger," said an editorial of Mexico City's El Universal newspaper. "With what face can Mexico condemn the violation of migrant rights in the United States when here Latin Americans are killed with impunity and their bodies buried in clandestine graves?"

But the other overarching question was more basic, and pressing. What could the perpetrators possibly gain from slaying so many innocent people? Important clues to answer this were held by a 19-year-old Ecuadorian identified only by the name Luis, who, against all odds, survived the massacre. When the gunmen fired, a bullet went through his neck and out of his jaw. He fell down as if dead but was still conscious, and after waiting patiently for hours, he got up and stumbled miles on foot until he reached an army checkpoint. Mexican marines say that Luis made contact with them on the night of Aug. 23. But suspicious that they might be the targets of a trap, they waited until Aug. 24 to gather reinforcements and make the raid in the community of San Fernando. When they went in, a gun battle left three suspects and a marine dead before they discovered an arsenal of automatic rifles and the piles of bodies. One teenager from southern Mexico was detained, but many other gunmen apparently escaped.

(See pictures of a mass quinceañera in Ciudad Juárez.)

Luis was taken to a hospital in the city of Matamoros and then onto a Marine base, where he has been treated and interviewed by investigators. Police released a photo with his face blacked out, showing a skinny teenager, bandages across his chest and neck and tubes feeding his body. Parts of Luis' testimony have been related by Mexican officials, but journalists have not yet been able to interview him. According to the officials' account, the migrants were traveling north on a bus on the night of Aug. 21 when a group of gunmen stopped them and identified themselves as the Zetas — a gang of feared drug traffickers and extortionists. The Zetas blindfolded the victims and took them to the ranch looking to rob them. However, when the migrants did not have enough to give, the Zetas said the migrants would have to work as hit men, for a salary of $500 per week. When they refused the offer, according to this testimony, they were massacred.

(See how Mexican officials are targeting the gangs' top guns.)

While more facts about the massacre need to be established, the testimony fits many accounts of previous Zetas kidnappings and extortion of migrants. The gang was originally formed in the late 1990s out of defectors from the Mexican special forces to work as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel of drug smugglers. However, they have since spread across Mexico, recruiting thousands of young thugs into their ranks and becoming a separate drug cartel as well as branching out into a range of criminal activities. Their power is concentrated across the east of Mexico, in the path taken by many Central and South American migrants heading to the U.S.

Human-rights workers have gathered accounts of hundreds of migrants kidnapped by the Zetas since 2007. In one video of such testimony shown to TIME, a man described how he was held and tortured until his family in Central America sent $2,000. "I thought I was going to die. They suffocated me with a black plastic bag. They were saying I should give them a phone number or some kind of contact with my family," he said. He then watched them torture his friend. "They were kicking him in the pants. Or one of them was holding him, as the other was hitting him with a bat." In another instance, in 2009, the Zetas allegedly kidnapped a group of 53 immigrants traveling on a train through the southern state of Chiapas and held them on a ranch. When two people tried to escape, the Zetas shot them dead in front of the rest, according to the accounts of survivors.

(See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.)

Migrants and residents close to the sites of such atrocities are terrified to condemn them because of fear of repercussions. The government also concedes that the Zetas have a network of corrupt police working for them. They even paid six police to help kill their own mayor in the northeast town of Santiago last week, according to prosecutors. As well as shaking down migrants, Zetas leaders arrested in border cities have also confessed to "taxing" the so-called coyotes who guide migrants through the deserts and rivers into the U.S.

President Felipe Calderón issued a statement condemning the attack and saying that gangs had taken to extortion out of desperation because they were hit so hard. "This is the result of the activity of the state against them, which has significantly weakened the operational capacity of criminal groups," he said in the statement. Calderón did not mention any extra resources against the Zetas, who are already the key target of several battalions of the Mexican army stationed in the northeast.

Governments across Latin America and international human-rights groups sent out messages on Aug. 26, demanding justice for the massacre victims. "This case once again demonstrates the extreme dangers faced by migrants and the apparent inability of both federal and state authorities to reduce the attacks that migrants face," said London-based Amnesty International, which released a recent report documenting kidnapping, rape and robbery of migrants throughout Mexico. "The response of the authorities to this case will be a test."

See how Mexican police were arrested over a mayor's murder.

See pictures of a Mexican meth gang waging a holy drug war.

If Sweden Worries About U.S. Recovery, We Should All Do So

If Sweden Worries About U.S. Recovery, We Should All Do So

by TERENCE ROTH

A tense week in world financial markets now rolls up to two scheduled events with the potential to turn the latest bout of risk aversion into a rout.

The first will be Friday's news of a possible revision of U.S. second-quarter output, with a cut in the preliminary reading of 2.4% growth seen by some as a very real possibility. Then Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak at an economic symposium at Jackson Hole. In their sum, the outcomes likely will frame market analysis and policy debate for the weeks ahead.

On Aug. 10 the Fed decided the U.S. economy needed another nudge and moved to reinvest expiring mortgage-backed securities into U.S. Treasury bills, a sign that the Fed was concerned about a soft jobs market and low inflation. That eye-opener was followed in the interim by still more signs of a deteriorating recovery.

Does the state of the U.S. economic recovery still really matter that much for the rest of the world? Sweden's Riksbank thinks so. And if the central bank of the country enjoying a near 4% economic growth rate and Europe's soundest government finances is worried, so should be the rest of us.

Svante Oberg, a Riksbank deputy governor, noted in a speech after the Fed's August decision that the U.S. economy was weakening and highlighted the significance of the U.S. central bank's postponing its exit from monetary stimulus, a process that already has begun in parts of Europe. Mr. Oberg introduced slowing U.S. and Asian trends as a caveat to the Riksbank's own economic outlook.

News of a fall in the number of U.S. workers claiming jobless benefits last week was offset by another rise in the longer-term average. That explains falling home sales and slowing growth in purchases of durable goods. U.S. businesses remain retrenched on hiring.

After seesawing between hope and doomsday theories, markets animated mostly by foreboding will watch Washington and Jackson Hole for their next heading.

Stress in Athens

Greece's long-suffering treasury just isn't getting any relief; nor is speculation that the country will be forced to restructure its debt unless market sentiment turns around. The reason is that treasury officials in Athens hadn't reckoned on having to pay breathtaking interest on Greek government debt.

After the EU and IMF bailout for a Greek government faced with insolvency in May, the government agreed to painful cost-cutting plans and promised good behavior. Surely, they thought, the combined rescue and fiscal overhaul would be rewarded in capital markets with lower premiums demanded for its debt.

To a certain, but hardly celebrated, extent this did in fact happen. The interest that the Greek government has to pay on its 10-year government bonds over what the German has to pay for equivalent debt slipped from an asphyxiating nine percentage points near a high but endurable 4.6.

That was just about the level that Greek officials deemed affordable. Anything more was unsustainable over time and risked forcing the government to endure the unendurable and open talks to restructure its sovereign debt, an event that would shake Europe's banking system, the euro and even the integrity of the euro zone itself.

All those fears were revived again in the latest dose of global risk aversion. Greek news of a deepening recession and speculation of missed tax targets has brought it all back.

Greece's spreads by this week had blown back out to more than nine percentage points over their German counterparts, bringing the total yield on Greek bonds to 11.6%. The cost of insuring Greek debt against default also has shot up to crisis levels.

It's a bad time for Greek officials, who are frustrated that they haven't been able to secure market confidence in its determination to reform and regain solvency. As demanded by the IMF and the EU, fiscal cuts have dutifully hauled down its deficit enough to earn the second installment of its €110 billion ($140 billion) rescue package.

Yet the Greek government bond market is near-dead, with precious few buying in and those who have left staying out. The short-date treasury bills Greece is selling are small in volume and high in price to the public purse.

What's going to snap the spell? Greece would welcome suggestions, knowing the likely outcome of slipping deeper into a hole carrying unaffordable debt services costs. Greece's creditors see that too and worry how deeply a restructuring will carve into their holdings.

The European Commission's economics and monetary czar, Olli Rehn argued in a letter to this newspaper this week that Greece needs to press ahead with reforms that will open "huge potential" for economic growth in the future.

Down in the Greek treasury they'll be wondering if they can hold out that long.

Write to Terence Roth at terence.roth@dowjones.com