A woman checks the toe tag on the body of a deceased earthquake victim in the parking lot of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital. UN Photo/Logan Abassi

There is no Olympics of tragedy nor is there value in engaging in comparative suffering. Nevertheless, if we were to look at the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, an exercise in triage is underway and the work is undone.

The Feb. 27 Chile earthquake registered 8.8 on the Richter scale and was the eighth largest in recorded history.

The January 12 earthquake in Haiti registered much lower, at 7.0 on the scale, yet the suffering, leave out the numbers, appears to never end. In Chile the government is totaling damage reports and checking the wine crop. In Haiti, international agencies face the rainy season, despair and misery.

The difference of course is development. Haiti needs building, more than rebuilding, rescue not just from the earthquake, but from a tragedy that spans generations – a mostly human-made disaster.

On the human dignity scale, Haiti ranks high. Every day, there’s a story about beauty and grace amid the ruins. There’s the story in the New York Times about Beken, the Haitian musician living in the ruins.

The Boston-based relief group, Partners in Health, is the subject of a video worth watching; it offers a look at how the rescuers are drawn close to the victims as they work to save lives.

The heart of the message is a blog by Lisa Armstrong for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, who says that for the rescuers in Haiti “there is no us and them, only we.”

Armstrong’s phrase is a good mantra for considering Haiti and the aftermath of what Haitians refer to simply as the catastrophe. She reminds us that the suffering cannot be forgotten and the rescue mission should be the responsibility of all governments and all people.

- Peter Eisner

A boy in Cite Soleil carries water. Photo: UN on Flickr

Survivors of the Haitian earthquake need quick solutions that may not come in time for the punishing rainy season that starts in May. They now face the looming threat of disease, misery in makeshift tent camps and a lack of adequate food and water.

Despite all the pledges of rebuilding, there are some basic realities: poor people will suffer and some will die.

Reports from the field show that relief agencies are pushing to make things better, with a deadline from the weather that is almost impossible to meet. Partners in Health, one prominent relief organization, reports that it has to shift priorities “to long-term care and helping the hundreds of thousands of people who urgently need shelter, water, sanitation, and food.

We hear the same concerns from journalists and from relief organizations all around Haiti. The Miami Herald reported on Feb. 24:

The stench of human waste permeates the air around the crude shelters made of sticks and sheets…There are nowhere near enough toilets — portables, latrines or any other kind — for the tens of thousands living in the camps in and around Port-au-Prince.

The squalid conditions have government and relief workers worried about a potential outbreak of deadly diseases, such as diarrhea, spread by unsanitary conditions. And relief agencies scrambling to install toilets are still figuring out how to later dispose of their waste.

Sad to say, but as many people have noted all along, Haiti cannot be handled simply by relief and rescue through normal means. Haiti needs international concerted crisis management –- and Haitians must be empowered to choose the leaders who will allow real, humane, no-nonsense, incorruptible change. Is that happening?

Partners in Health reported this: “With cities destroyed and major roadways and ports obstructed or damaged, food is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. The price of staples, like rice, oil, and beans, has risen dramatically. ‘Prices have skyrocketed – doubling and in some cases tripling,’ says Jesula Pierre, a PIH logistics coordinator currently working in Haiti’s Central Plateau.”

With its Haitian partner, the organization is pushing to plant fallow farmland and ratchet up farm yields. But each organization operating in Haiti can only do a small part to save as many people as possible.
It’s not enough. The list of problems goes on.

This is also from the Miami Herald:

Relief workers blame the shortage of toilets in part on having to deal with more urgent problems — like keeping people alive — immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake…

But now, more than five weeks after the quake, the dangers of inadequate sanitation could amount to the most pressing public health issue.

At best, many Haitians had neither clean water or sanitation before the earthquake. They deserved help even before the earth shook.

Much more suffering is likely when the rains fall.

Election party in Montevideo Uruguay. Photo: Flickr user camerareporter

Is there a new generation of Latin American leaders who have moved beyond traditional labels, rather than isolating themselves in leftist and right-wing camps? Too early to tell, but two new presidents taking office in March, José Mujica of Uruguay and Sebastian Piñera of Chile, will be interesting case studies to follow.

Their backgrounds couldn’t be more different. Mujica, 74, is a former fighter of the Marxist Tupamaro movement and served almost 15 years in jail during military rule in Uruguay. Piñera is a 60-year-old billionaire businessman and holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard University.

But both men talk about consultation and working on sound economic programs rather than promoting radical politics from one side or the other. Mujica’s Broad Front Party—which itself has members from the traditional left and right–has governed since 2005 under President Tabaré Vázquez. Mujica shows every sign of maintaining a policy more in line with Brazil under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, than, say, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Both Mujica and Piñera have praised the Brazilian president as a model for pragmatic governance. Mujica said that he supports, for example, Lula’s decision to invite Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brasilia last year. “The more you fence in Iran, so much harder it will be for the rest of the world,” Mujica said in an interview with the Brazilian newspaper, Folha de Sao Paulo.

Life has taught me that you can’t surround, fence in someone. It’s a mistake. This forces the other side to react, to fight back…The world does not need any more wars. It needs solutions.

In a recent interview with Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald, Piñera said that he was tired of the labels. Ostensibly, he is a conservative, a business leader assuming the Chilean presidency from a more moderate, even left-leaning incumbent, Michelle Bachelet. Piñera was a constant opponent of Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. He said that he rejects being categorized as being to the left or to the right.

Definitely, I will always be on the side of the defense of democracy
and human rights, which by the way, is a commitment that all Latin
American countries have made in the OAS Charter, which specifically
states that it is the responsibility of all countries to defend
democracy and human rights across the hemisphere.

- Peter Eisner

Workers cleaning in Port-au-Prince. Photo: USAID on Flickr

One month after the Haiti earthquake, where are we? The international television units are mostly gone, a smattering of foreign reporters are still in Port-au-Prince, and what’s the situation on the ground?

Dire, virtually overwhelmed, hopelessness and helplessness.

The Haitian government now estimates that 230,000 people died in the Jan. 12 earthquake. Relief agencies say that they are still only providing immediate relief and haven’t been able to even consider rebuilding and long-term housing. Will things get better any time soon?

My former colleague at the Washington Post, Peter Slevin, reported from Port au Prince: “Haiti is tumbling headlong through a crisis that has not begun to abate, with evidence everywhere that current relief efforts are falling short.”

It’s difficult to know what to say. All along, it has been evident that without a massive effort to start over in Haiti – a Marshall plan-like international operation the likes of which has never been seen – that country will be suffering unbelievable, ineffable horrors.

Slevin wrote: “The sadness is sometimes suffocating, yet the agony of last month’s earthquake is being overtaken by the urgency of now. Every day, tens of thousands of Haitians face a grueling quest to find food, any food. A nutritious diet is out of the question.”

This is not an appeal for money. Many of us have given money. Well-meaning artists have given their energy and their names to raising funds. International organizations are there, the U.S. military has been there. It’s not nearly enough.

What can be done? A lot more than naming a commission comprised by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to raise money for the rescue. Clinton by the way was in Haiti recently, and someone asked if he would be taking over as the virtual leader of the country.

He said it was probably in response to several realities — the Haitian government and the president Rene Preval are hardly visible and hardly leading anything. Second, Clinton has been deeply concerned and even before the earthquake was the special U.S. envoy to the country. (It is not known what Bush has contributed to the rescue effort).

And above all, Haitians are looking for rescue, and they don’t trust their institutions, such as they are.

Perhaps, says another long-time colleague, Amy Wilentz, who has one of the clearest understandings of Haiti among Americans, “that with all the misery, you begin to see that Haiti’s soul resides in its people. Out of this horror, maybe they will finally be released. That is, if the rains or another quake doesn’t stop them in their tracks.”

She warns against complacency, even against tacit racism directed toward Haiti, by people who say the situation is hopeless. She says that the story must endure, and we must continue to shout out on behalf of the Haitian people.

Wilentz wrote last week about a form of “genteel racism” that has set in among some commentators about Haiti, as if there was something wrong with Haitians inherently that relegates them to misery. She rightly decries that attitude.

A reading of Haitian history shows marked colonial mistreatment, disregard and neglect: “Armchair commentators who know nothing about Haiti — many never having set toe there…enjoy rebuking suffering Haitians from the comfort of their white bastions in the United States and Europe.”

Wilentz, writing in the Nation, is recommended reading:

“We need constructive answers….Good ideas are coming in from people like Paul Farmer, who’s run Haiti’s Partners in Health for years and who is now Bill Clinton’s deputy at the United Nations. They’re coming in from Haitian survivors in all rubble-strewn walks of life….people like this are trying to find a way toward rebuilding Haiti, and building it better.

“You have a choice in a situation like the one we’re confronting. You can sit back in your chair and fondle your nihilism, or you can try to be original and work toward something creative.” Some people, she says, “will shrug…and turn away. In a moment of such death and destruction, that’s not the reaction one should hope to elicit.”

- Peter Eisner

A man injured by Port-au-Prince’s earthquake observes the Haitian government’s taxation building, reduced to a heap of rubble. Photo: UNPhoto

Visits to Haiti by American television cameras and images of suffering — juxtaposed with dramatic music and fancy logos or sad looks on the faces of U.S. politicians as they extend condolences — are not enough.

Sympathy is not enough.

Response to the earthquake in Haiti must be at a level the world has not seen. It is not clear that the message is getting through. Nor is it clear that Haiti will get what it deserves and needs: a new start and the equivalent of a Marshall Plan, war reparations that create a new reality in Haiti.

Already chaos makes small steps impossible. Correspondents in Port-au-Prince report despair, looting and fear of gangs.

Before the quake, the Haitian government functioned, but only thanks to occasional handouts and loans. But the poverty and squalor before last week was shattering and horrible. Now, the Haitian government is virtually obliterated. Survival for millions is at stake.

Words are not enough. Images are not enough.

The challenge for the world is to respond adequately. Neglectful and far from innocent in the progressive
erosion of institutions in Haiti, will the U.S., France and other countries step up now and bring real change?

The work of nonprofits and our individual contributions — crucial though they are — are not enough. We need to build infrastructure, empowering Haitians who are willing and able to act selflessly for the future of their country. And we need vast quantities of money and builders and planners and teachers and doctors.

Any recovery means starting from the beginning — international police and military units on the streets right away, probably led by the United States, to avoid the spread of violence. Next, infrastructure to rescue and treat people to avoid a crisis in which many more people die of injuries or lack of food and water.

Stability for Haiti will take time and endurance. Everything must now change.

- Peter Eisner

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Images from the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti. Photo: Matthew Marek/American Red Cross

There are those who ask why Haiti has been hopelessly poor for so long. Yes, it is one of the first independent republics, but the Haitian people have suffered just as long, victims of colonial folly. It’s assumed benefactors in France and the United States have hardly been constant. I agree with Paul Farmer, who has long advocated a Marshall Plan for Haiti.

Here is part of what he wrote in the October 6, 2008 edition of The Nation.

Haiti is a veritable graveyard of development projects has less to do with Haitian culture and more to do with the nation’s place in the world. The history that turned the world’s wealthiest slave colony into the hemisphere’s poorest country has been tough, in part because of a lack of respect for democracy both among Haiti’s small elite and in successive French and US governments. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the US simply refused to acknowledge Haiti’s existence. In the latter half, gunboats pre-empted diplomacy. And in 1915 US Marines began a twenty-year military occupation and formed the modern Haitian army (whose only target has been the Haitian people). After the fall of Duvalier in 1986, Washington continued to support unelected, mainly military, governments. Indeed, it was not until after 1990, when Haiti had its first democratic elections, that assistance to the government was cut back and finally cut off. The decay of the public sector–through aid cutoffs and neoliberal policies–is one of the chief reasons Haiti, unlike neighboring Cuba, is unable to respond to hurricanes with effective relief.

Farmer wrote in response to devastation of the 2008 hurricane season. In 2010, structural change has never been more required. Tears must be replaced by an unprecedented international commitment to rescue Haiti for all times.

- Peter Eisner

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

The International Red Cross estimates that three million people have lost their homes. The pictures are devastating, the statistics beyond grim.

Short term and medium term, and systemically, Haiti needs help. Among the many options, is Partners in Health, co-founded by Paul Farmer, the physician and public health advocate. Here’s what Partners in Health has said so far about the situation in Haiti:

A major earthquake centered just 10 miles from Port-au-Prince has devastated sections of the city and knocked out telephone communications throughout the country. Reached via email, Partners In Health staff at our facilities in the Central Plateau report that they experienced a strong shock but no major damage or injuries. We are still attempting to establish contact with other PIH facilities and to locate several staff members who were traveling in and around Port-au-Prince.

The earthquake has destroyed much of the already fragile and overburdened infrastructure in the most densely populated part of the country. A massive and immediate international response is needed to provide food, water, shelter, and medical supplies for tens of thousands of people.

In an urgent email from Port-au-Prince, Louise Ivers, our clinical director in Haiti, appealed for assistance from her colleagues in the Central Plateau: ‘Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS.SOS… Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.’

With our hospitals and our highly trained medical staff in place in Haiti, Partners In Health is already mobilizing resources and preparing plans to bring medical assistance and supplies to areas that have been hardest hit. In Boston, our procurement and development teams are already fielding numerous offers of support and making arrangements to deliver resources as quickly as possible to the places where they are needed most.

Partners for Health,  and any number of health and relief organizations will receive offers of support.

One concern is Haiti’s ability to absorb an influx of financial support and other contributions without adequate infrastructure. The U.S. government, perhaps international organizations like the OAS and
UN should move to create infrastructure and provide lasting solutions to the long-suffering people of Haiti.

Meanwhile, it’s time to get informed and get involved. The tragedy of Haiti is ours.

- Peter Eisner

• Read Peter Eisner’s blog, “U.S. must help break Haiti’s cycle of misery.”
• Watch Benno Schmidt and Ara Ayer’s report on Haitian poverty, “Dirt Poor Haitians eat cookies made of mud.”

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Manuel Noriega’s mug shot.

Twenty years ago this week, at the culmination of the U.S. invasion of Panama, General Manuel Antonio Noriega was seized and taken in shackles to Miami. Eventually, the Panamanian strongman was convicted on federal drug conspiracy charges for supporting the Medellin cocaine cartel’s shipments to the U.S.

Noriega, 75, has served his sentence and is still jailed in Miami, awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court decision on a possible extradition to France.

From today’s vantage point, after a failed war on drugs and the unjustified invasion of Iraq, Noriega, no saint, seems a minor character in a larger game. Panama, along with the Grenada invasion before it,
was a practice run for manipulating the news, selling military action to the public and promoting future military adventures.

Then-President George H.W. Bush justified the U.S. invasion of Panama in various questionable ways, including the charge that Noriega had subverted democracy by faking the 1989 elections — which was true. [Noriega learned all about political forgery from his former American intelligence community teachers, who had pushed through fraudulent elections in Panama five years earlier.]

Bush also claimed that Panama under Noriega represented a threat to American security, that Noriega had declared war on the United States and that Noriega had threatened to block the Panama Canal. These were charges with scant evidence, at best. They emanated from the mouths of U.S. officials — a number of whom would go on to have a role in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, including Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Elliot Abrams and Richard Perle.

The real reason for the decision to invade Panama lies closer to events surrounding the U.S. war in Central America. Noriega, once a U.S. Intelligence asset, had refused to play ball with the Reagan and Bush administrations by offering little assistance in the counterinsurgency against Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. He also neglected to support El Salvador’s right-wing military.

The drug conviction against Noriega was accomplished with the use of two dozen convicted drug dealers, who were freed from jail under plea bargains in return for testifying against Noriega, with whom they had never had any contact.

Placard next to the gate at Manuel Noriega’s house in Panama City. Photo: Flickr user ChuckHolton

Seen now in the light of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Panama invasion and Noriega prosecution make more sense. Noriega and Saddam Hussein were U.S. assets and clients, who fell from grace when their usefulness expired. Once the unsavory leaders had been suitably demonized, policymakers went about molding reality to the charges unleashed against them.

In the case of Panama, Noriega supposedly was shipping cocaine to our shores. That rarely, if ever, happened — though all the while, cocaine was entering the United States through Central America and Mexico.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein became the falsified apostle of mass destruction, allegedly seeking uranium supplies he already had and couldn’t use. [See my introduction and afterward to Noriega's political memoir. America's Prisoner, and my book, The Italian Letter, written with Knut Royce, about the Iraq War, focusing on yellow cake and weapons of mass destruction.]

As for Noriega’s fate, it seems unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court will set him free to return to Panama, as he and the Panamanian government want. The French extradition request for Noriega was little more than an effort by President Nicolas Sarkozy to mend fences at the time with President George W. Bush after France declined support for the Iraq invasion.

The Panama invasion was front-page news for a short while 20 years ago, but it was relegated to the back pages by the first Gulf War less than a year later, and by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There were great differences between the use of force in Panama and the forays into the Middle East. No oil was at stake in Panama, no insurgency developed in the aftermath of that invasion and the loss of life was
relatively low –- 25 American soldiers and an unknown number of Panamanians (estimates range from the hundreds to several thousand.)

But I always recall a comment by a Human Rights Watch official which can be applied to Iraq just as well. “It’s not a question of how many people died, but of why anyone died at all.”

- Peter Eisner

The Honduran President-elect. Photo: Al Jazeera English

I’ve got several comments about the context of last Sunday’s presidential election in Honduras, where Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, a conservative businessman, was declared victor.

The hope is that the election will end a crisis that emerged on June 28, when the Honduran military seized the previously elected President Manuel Zelaya, and sent him into exile.

Zelaya is now back in Tegucigalpa, holed up at the Brazilian embassy, where he issued statements calling on supporters to boycott the national ballot.

That didn’t happen, or at least not on any mass scale. An independent Honduran civic group said that the turnout was down only 7.4 percent from the previous presidential election, to 47.6 percent. Government tallies placed the turnout much higher.

By itself, the turnout is not an issue, but legitimacy is. If 47.6 percent sounds like a low turnout, Americans should remember that U.S. presidential elections in recent history haven’t been much higher than that, sometimes lower than 50 percent. In the contested 2000 Gore-Bush election, 54.2 percent of eligible voters turned out.

The difference is, well, the United States is the United States. Americans didn’t take to the barricades after the Supreme Court chose Bush as the winner along political lines; Democrats and the news media
shied away from controversy and swallowed the result.

Honduras, on the other hand, is Honduras. At first, the United States, which played a controversial role in trying to end the dispute between Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti, the man installed as president by the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court. Complicating matters was Zelaya’s friendship and growing affinity with Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, hardly a U.S. ally.

The United States immediately recognized Lobo’s victory on Sunday, but other countries, notably Brazil, rejected the balloting, which took place in a climate of protest. Micheletti has been widely criticized internationally for human rights violations and suspension of civil liberties during the election campaign.

Significantly, former President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center declined to monitor the election, having supported a national unity government prior to the election. The Center explained its position, thus: “We noted that restrictions on press, protest, and movement have occurred since the presidential coup on June 28, 2009, and into the formal campaign period, impinging on the electoral rights of Hondurans.”

While the ball is in the hands of Hondurans, as it always has been, it’s clear that international support and a healing process are required. Successive U.S. governments have often failed to recognize — even as they rightly speak out for representative democracy around the world — that elections are never an end unto themselves.

An old man in Chinchero, Peru. Photo: Flickr user VautrinBaires

One of the more surprising outcomes of the Asia-Pacific summit meeting in Singapore this past week had nothing to do, as might have been expected, with Barack Obama or his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

Instead, Peruvian President Alan Garcia raised tensions with neighboring Chile by choosing to complain publicly about an espionage case in which a Peruvian intelligence officer has been charged with sending military secrets to Chile.

Historically, relations between Chile and Peru have had their ups and downs (they’ve gone to war or have been on the brink more than once).

Recently, the countries have an ongoing disagreement about their maritime borders - a case that was brought to the International Court of Justice. Part of the disagreement is whether or not they have a dispute in the first place.

Peru filed the complaint at the world court, but Chile says it has no problem and accepts international treaties on the boundary. That’s a little like the confusion that came up after Garcia’s comments at the Asia-Pacific summit.

Peru has arrested a Peruvian Air Force intelligence officer, Victor Ariza, saying that Chile gave him a monthly stipend over the last five years for passing along military secrets.

Garcia raised the issue with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet during the Singapore summit; Bachelet denied the spy charge and complained about Garcia having raised the issue in the first place.

The implication was that Peru wanted to embarrass Chile at the world meeting - especially since Ariza had been arrested two weeks earlier.

Garcia stormed out of Singapore a day earlier than planned, canceling meetings there, while Bachelet’s spokesperson declared “Chile doesn’t spy.” Garcia, for his part, has described the espionage case as “repugnant.”

Ordinarily, a good person to calm tempers and mediate would be the head of the Organization of American States. But the OAS secretary general, Jose Miguel Insulza, is Chilean.

Insulza was in Santiago over the weekend, on the campaign trail with his friend Eduardo Frei, a candidate in Chile’s upcoming presidential election. In any case, it’s not clear that the Chilean government will be able to turn down the temperature on its own.

Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez reiterated Monday that his country was not conducting espionage against Peru. “Chile has nothing to do with this case,” he said, implying it was an internal Peruvian problem.

“We ask above all that the Peruvian authorities get to the bottom of this and stay calm so that the public can be told the truth about what has happened, as I say, among officials of the Peruvian Armed Forces.”

- Peter Eisner

Argentinian man views the daily newspapers in La Cumbre. Photo: flickr user Adam Jones, phD.

The Kirchner era in Argentina has been characterized by mixed signals. First there was Néstor Carlos Kirchner Ostoić, little-known as governor of Santa Cruz until he vaulted into the Argentine presidency in 2003. In a country that endured military coups, an economic collapse and a lack of confidence in institutions, the fact that he completed his term of office in 2007 – unlike others before him – was an accomplishment.

He was succeeded by his wife, Cristina Elizabet Fernández de Kirchner, in December of 2007. Both Kirchners have faced rising criticism since then, along with defections and demands that she resign or be stripped of the office before her four-year term ends.

The confusion about the Kirchners is trying to figure out what they are up to and what they stand for. They are members of the Justice Party, successors to Juan Domingo Perón , the dictatorial leader who governed on and off in the 1940s and 1950s with a reprise in 1973.

They have staunchly supported human rights and accountability for crimes during the military dictatorship after Peron’s death. But they have also been accused of arrogance, of an unwillingness to consider opposing views and of railroading their policies into law without debate.

Now President Cristina Kirchner (with Nestor just off stage) has promulgated a new national media law. Supporters say that it ends the practice of media monopolies and democratizes the news media; detractors say that it is an attack on freedom of the press.

One thing for certain—the Kirchners have no love lost for the news media. By happenstance, I, along with several colleagues at the Washington Post conducted the first interview with Nestor Kirchner after he took office in 2003. After that, I fielded calls from reporters in Buenos Aires asking for my impressions, since they hadn’t had the chance to talk to him.

All I could say was that he had spoken passionately about bringing justice to the country after the Dirty War, in which 20,000 to 30,000 people were killed by the right-wing military.

I was in Argentina during Cristina’s non-campaign for election in 2007 – she gallivanted around South America and beyond, with photo appearances in Brazil, Europe and the United States, while avoiding interviews and the campaign trail at home. All along, the polls had showed her way ahead and her handlers probably didn’t want to ruin a good thing by campaigning.

So there are reasons to suspect the context in which the new media law takes effect.

Eduardo Bertoni, an Argentine attorney and prominent advocate of press freedoms, says that the law has its merits. The previous law “suffered from illegitimacy from the outset – it was a law created during the military dictatorship,” he said. Bertoni is director of the Center on Freedom of Expression Studies at the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires. He also served at the Organization of American States as the special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

But he also understands the concerns of critics, who say that the government could have given itself too much power in deciding which media companies are allowed to grow, and how they operate. He says the
government “could do much to take any suspicion of bad faith off the table,” if it were to promote open debate about the measure.

So the question is: will the Kirchners use the law to promote democracy, or will they use their power to punish their critics?

- Peter Eisner

A young woman in Minas de Oro. Photo: Flickr user lonqueta

The United States has been actively engaged lately in solving the Honduran presidential crisis. The U.S. State Department officials have helped broker a deal to end the sometimes violent dispute between Mel Zelaya, the deposed Honduran president, and Roberto Micheletti, designated as president when the Honduran military escorted Zelaya out of town in his nightclothes. Let’s hope the crisis is resolved once and for all today.

Consider me an idealist, but I’m thinking beyond that — about steps that might solve the underlying social issues that plague Honduras.

As the months-long battle between the two presidents in Honduras moves toward a rational resolution, what about the abjectly poor Honduran majority?

Honduras needs financial support, economic relief, and definitely social help - why can’t the U.S. and other nations increase their involvement? Fifty percent of Honduras’ 7.7 million people are below the poverty line, and almost 40 percent are children. There is talk of a national unity government by the end of the year. Will that government be able to change the paradigm without international aid?

Inevitably, the U.S. has a role. It has characteristically abandoned social concerns once it finishes with its little wars and interventions. Don’t we have an ongoing responsibility in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the rest of the region?

Twenty-five years ago, probably the only positive part of turning Honduras into a U.S. staging base for American adventurism in Central America was that American military field hospitals scheduled regular health clinics in the countryside.

I remember seeing poor people waiting in line weekly medical screening, checkups and even surgeries that otherwise would not have taken place. I’m positive that thousands of Hondurans who rarely otherwise had seen a doctor benefited from American military largesse, even though the ulterior motives were not crystalline. It was part of the “hearts and minds” doctrine.

But development aid and social support are more than a handout. Stability in the Hemisphere is good for everyone.

First things first: Solve the political problem and then deal with underlying issues.

Honduras has taken a step backward during this crisis, according to Human Rights Watch.

“Honduras urgently needs to address the serious damage to human rights since the coup,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director at Human Rights Watch. “Honduras needs to roll back repressive legislation and give unequivocal orders to security forces to end their abuses and cooperate with the investigations of the human rights unit of the Attorney General’s office.”

- Peter Eisner

Valijagate threatens to embroil at least one South American leader. Photo: Flickr user quecomunismo

There’s a story in Argentina that has become widely known under a simple title: La Valija (the suitcase). It should be destined to become that country’s version of Watergate. “Valijagate” refers to the discovery in August 2007 that Guido Antonini, a Venezuelan-born American, was carrying a suitcase containing $800,000 in U.S. currency when he arrived on a private plane at the Buenos Aires city airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newberry.

A new book, Los Secretos de la Valija (The Secrets of the Suitcase), is just out in Argentina, written by an Argentine colleague, Hugo Alconada, a journalist with La Nacion and the newspaper’s former Washington correspondent. (Full disclosure: Hugo is a friend, and he mentions me in the acknowledgments of the book, but I didn’t work on the investigation itself).

Alconada’s story percolates with intrigue and new revelations about the suitcase and Antonini, who ultimately said in a Miami trial that he was carrying the loot on behalf of a top Argentine official and that the money was from the Venezuelan oil monopoly, PDVSA.

But that came only after he wore a wire and became a cooperating witness with the U.S. Government. In resulting tapes, Venezuelan handlers promised him protection for claiming the suitcase was his, and not revealing that the suitcase was sent to the presidential campaign of the now-president of Argentina, Christina Kirchner.

Argentinian officials have denied involvement and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has charged Antonini was employed by the Bush administration in a campaign to malign his government.

Alconada’s book, so far only in Spanish, deserves publication in English in the United States. His extensive investigation reveals:

• The plane carrying Antonini and the suitcase that was transporting much more than the $800,000 — a total of $5 million.

• Despite government denials, Antonini went to the Argentina presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, after the money was seized at the airport. Moreover, the book details a plan in which Argentine and Venezuelan officials coordinated a cover-up of the case.

• It also notes that Antonini had a history of working for Chavez. He helped organize trips to 24 countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and Pacific islands in a 2006 vanity campaign by the Chavez government to promote Venezuela’s appointment to a temporary slot on the UN Security Council.

There’s an interesting sidelight to the cloak and dagger story. A funny thing happened earlier this month as Alconada answered questions at a bookstore to promote his story. At some point, possibly when a questioner approached him as a distraction, his briefcase, which contained notes about three of his current investigations, disappeared.

A similar black briefcase was left in its place.

Alconada doesn’t get it and jumps to no conclusions. “My newspaper wrote a small piece about it, and it became a big deal. I don’t know how to explain what happened.”

- Peter Eisner

I was at Heathrow Airport last week when the news came along that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The award made sense there. The buzz in Europe is hopeful, and people are asking any American they can find: “Will Obama be able to make a difference?”

The Nobel Prize choice is more sensible than the analysis spread forth even by so-called middle-of-the-road news media, let alone the explosive rants on the cable-news-right, where some bloviating big mouths seemed likely to explode in the gross, gluttonous style of a Mike Myers character in Wayne’s World.

A lot of people in Europe are troubled by strident ignorance on the extreme right in the U.S.

Yes, of course, the award is political. The Nobel committee and millions of others outside the United States think that Barack Obama embodies their optimism in what they think the United States is all about.

The prize also applies pressure at a time when the president has big decisions to make – think Afghanistan, where the choices of troop involvement and fighting terrorism are monumental. It’s a call to the U.S. – find the peaceful solution.

Sure, as one cartoonist joked, it’s the No-Bush Prize; another said that in one way it’s like giving a gold medal to a runner at the starting line. And of course, President Obama could have refused the award with a “thanks anyway,” saying he hadn’t done anything yet.

But that all would be missing the point. First of all, you can’t separate the award from the context. President Obama, in part, said this:

…throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I’ve said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

World opinion supports President Obama’s move toward changing the world order – something simple, like saying that sometimes, we have to speak to countries identified as “our enemies,” instead of just threatening to invade and bomb them. Now, the Nobel Committee reminds him that the world is watching – on Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East, above all.

Less than a year after his election, the U.S. has grown vastly in international public esteem.

Suddenly, people admire the U.S. once more.

President Obama might have refused the award, but it would have been wrong. The peace committee, to the extent that singling out any person for any award makes a difference, recognizes this particular person in this case who has the power in hand to change course and make profound decisions on war and peace.

The timing was just right.

- Peter Eisner

Political advertisements ahead of the parliamentary election in Greece.

ATHENS — On my trips overseas, I often find myself sizing up the country I happen to be visiting, and looking back by comparison at things going on at home.

Greece is in the final days before a Sunday parliamentary election, with the possibility that George Papandreou, the son and grandson of former prime ministers, may replace Kostas Karamanlis, nephew of a former prime minister.

I was chatting about the state of politics the other day with a Greek friend, and he was wondering out loud why his countrymen couldn’t find candidates besides those named Karamanlis and Papandreou, out of 12 million Greeks. “It’s a little bit like the Republicans and the Democrats,” said my friend, Kostas, trained as an economist. “I don’t think these guys would even be in politics at all if it weren’t for their famous last names.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

And the conversation turned to what was happening in the United States. I reminded Kostas that the big item on the table in Washington was the question of universal health care.

He just doesn’t get it. And neither do I. By sheer coincidence, the day after I arrived in Athens last week, I found myself taking my mother-in-law to the hospital at 4:00 a.m. after she’d fallen and sustained a cut on the side of her head. We arrived at the Hippocrates hospital clinic, about 10 minutes by car from our hotel, where we were able to communicate well enough with triage clerks and nurses. The wound was not serious, so they told us to have a seat and wait for a little while. The waiting room was modern, and we were given a number out of a series of priorities which were displayed on a large computer readout at one end of the room. “Don’t worry,” a nurse said. “It won’t take long.”

I saw people coming in with more serious injuries and a couple of older people that might have had heart attacks or similar ailments. They were brought in by efficient ambulances, and were quickly dispatched on gurneys to examination rooms.

My mother-in-law’s number came up after about 15 minutes, and she was ushered in. A friendly, Italian-trained doctor had a quick look, gave her two stitches and a tetanus shot, and told her to stop by his office for a checkup a few days later. “Oh, by the way,” he added, “let me write down your name.” He took notes on what he’d done and gave a copy to us.

That was it. We looked around, waiting, wondering, and the doctor smiled. We smiled. The nurses smiled.

“Nice to meet you,” they said.

What was missing from the picture? The hospital didn’t have an intake desk, didn’t have a pay window, and no billing procedures that we could see. It was free.

“Of course,” my friend Kostas said, “the vast majority of our hospitals are public hospitals. Maybe it’s not the best system in the world, but it’s quite efficient, and we’re happy.”

I told Kostas that a late night emergency room visit to a hospital back home probably –- ball park estimate -– would have cost $1,000.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, a lot of Americans seem to think that universal health care is socialist. Americans don’t like the word socialist. And powerful people are fighting the idea of free health care.”

Kostas had generally heard of the issue, but couldn’t believe my description of the uninsured, of high insurance rates, and of people being kicked off the roles of insurance when they lose their jobs or get really sick.

“That wouldn’t be a campaign issue here,” Kostas said. Neither the present Prime Minister Kourmanlis, who belongs to a center-right political party, nor his possible successor, Papandreou, a center-left candidate, would ever question the right of citizens to receive quality health care from the government.

“It sounds crazy,” said Kostas.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ggia under a Creative Commons license.

Protesters at the Brazilian embassy in Honduras.

Peter Eisner describes the political climate in Honduras and shares the observations of a Worldfocus contributing blogger.

There was word of negotiations on Wednesday, but no sign of a quick resolution in the standoff between the de facto Honduran government and the deposed Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya. Zelaya remained holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa for a second day in a stalemate with Roberto Micheletti, the man who took office after Zelaya’s ouster on June 28.

Zelaya seeks a return to power. Micheletti says that is out of the question.

News reports from Honduras and Brazil said that a curfew was imposed in the Honduran capital, with soldiers on rooftops and helicopters hovering around at times.

On Tuesday, the reports said police used truncheons and tear gas to disperse crowds surrounding the embassy. AP reported 18 people were treated for injuries and that authorities had denied local reports that three people had died.

For a time, Honduran officials cut off power and access to the embassy. Finally, United Nations workers were allowed to deliver food to Zelaya, his family and as many as 85 people inside the compound.

There were several interviews with Zelaya and Micheletti published in newspapers and on international news wires. The Washington Post characterized the situation as “a battle of wills,” and and said that representatives of the two men had opened contacts to seek a resolution. The Post also said that U.S. diplomats and others were trying to negotiate an end to the impasse.

Why the Brazilian embassy? Zelaya told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo that Brazilian officials had no advance word that he would seek refuge there when he snuck back into Honduras over the weekend.

He told the newspaper that he valued Brazil’s stature in international affairs, but did not consult with its Foreign Ministry before going to the embassy. In fact, the Brazilian newspaper said, there was only one Brazilian diplomat in Tegucigalpa at the time, and that person ranked as minister-counselor, not ambassador.

“Brazil didn’t know about my plans. I took the decision to come directly to the embassy as a matter of strategy, a reserve position, so that the plan would not run a risk.”

Meanwhile, the people of Honduras wait. You can get a glimpse of the tension in the country from one of Worldfocus’ contributing bloggers, a religious volunteer in Santa Rosa de Copán. He wrote last night:

I spent most of today in the house – washing clothes, cleaning the house, reading, checking out the internet, because there has been a curfew. If you are out you could be arrested. But this is very much like a house arrest of about seven million people here in Honduras.

But I went out and talked with some neighbors and went to the pulpería (corner store) up the street. It appears that the police are not overly strict here. A neighbor who went out beyond the neighborhood was turned back gently by the police.

But in the main cities people are not permitted to go out, even to buy basic foodstuffs. This hasn’t stopped hundreds of demonstrators from going out on the streets, especially in Tegucigalpa. But think of the old woman who needs food or the mother of five kids who has no tortillas.

About 6 pm I went across the street (it’s a dirt road) to talk with my neighbors who were outside eating oranges. I guess we were violating the curfew. We talked and then amused ourselves with the silly dog tricks of their dog, Dinky. We laughed heartily - our way of snubbing the fear, insecurity, and sense of isolation that the curfew is supposed to instill in our hearts.

Final note: I hear kids shouting in the street “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido.” - “The people united will not be defeated.”

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user vredeseilanden under a Creative Commons license.

Manuel Zelaya’s ouster has fueled passions in Honduras and beyond.

The stealthy return to Honduras by deposed President Manuel Zelaya this week highlights unusual alliances that make it hard to game the outcome. In the old days, there would have been late-night conniving and arm-twisting by a U.S. proconsul who happened to also be the ambassador or a top American diplomat. This time, the United States has not been a leader in solving the problem.

In diplomatic-speak, U.S. officials continue to reject the June 28 ouster of Zelaya and demand his peaceful return to power. At the same time, the Obama administration has seemed to undercut the role of the Organization of American States in performing a meaningful role. You get the feeling that the U.S. position is: Supporting democracy is one thing, but doing anything that might be beneficial to the interests and alliances of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is another.

Zelaya, a businessman, had been taking an increasingly populist, socially conscious stance and his detractors say he was seeking to usurp the constitution in the style of Chavez’ Bolivarian revolution. Zelaya, seized by the military in his pajamas and deposited in Costa Rica, says he sneaked back to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, over the weekend after a half day of trekking over hill and dale, without saying which border he had crossed. [El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua -- where he had taken refuge -- are the choices]

Meanwhile, of all places, Zelaya has taken refuge in the embassy of Brazil, a country which until recently had been loathe to play too high a profile in contentious international affairs. Increasingly, however, Brazil has filled in as a mediator and even player — consider President Lula’s ongoing attempts to encourage calm relations between the United States and Venezuela. Brazil also plays an ongoing, difficult role — not given enough credit in the United States — in keeping the peace with a military contingent in Haiti.

Especially under the absentee Latin American policies of former president George W. Bush, Lula’s role was important. And Brazil’s role is significant, especially since the United States has not been clear on what it wants for Honduras.

The Brazilian government agrees with the United States that whatever the outcome in Honduras, the process must be peaceful. But Brazil has allowed Zelaya to raise the animus of supporters from the balcony of the embassy, surrounded by police and demonstrators.

Don’t worry though, the United States is involved in its fashion. The interim (or de facto, acting or temporary, depending on the political connotation) Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti, published an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Tuesday, in which he repeated his claim that the ouster of Zelaya was a perfectly constitutional exercise and not a coup at all. The article had the look and feel of airbrushing and massaging by lawyers at a K St. public relations firm.

The international community has wrongfully condemned the events of June 28 and mistakenly labeled our country as undemocratic. I must respectfully disagree. As the true story slowly emerges, there is a growing sense that what happened in Honduras that day was not without merit. On June 28, the Honduran Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya for his blatant violations of our constitution, which marked the end of his presidency. To this day, an overwhelming majority of Hondurans support the actions that ensured the respect of the rule of law in our country.

Underlying all the rhetoric about a military overthrow are facts. Simply put, coups do not leave civilians in control over the armed forces, as is the case in Honduras today. Neither do they allow the independent functioning of democratic institutions — the courts, the attorney general’s office, the electoral tribunal. Nor do they maintain a respect for the separation of powers. In Honduras, the judicial, legislative and executive branches are all fully functioning and led by civilian authorities.

Pay no attention to that man on the balcony of the Brazilian embassy who pretends to be the president, Micheletti tells us. Let us look toward November elections, when, he says, he and his friends will prove that Honduras has been democratic all along.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user YamilGonzales under a Creative Commons license.

It was the Argentine military dictatorship’s organized terror campaign to seize young people, old people, their children, teachers, unionists, students — anyone on the their dread list of names — in the guise of fighting communism.

Some were lucky enough to escape, but suffered the loss of children, mothers, fathers, brothers, grandparents, grandchildren and friends. The wounds never heal.

Argentinians have been increasingly engaged in chronicling those years of atrocities. Stories that relive the past appear almost daily. A recent example is in the Buenos Aires Herald, which describes a new book about its former editor, Robert Cox, and his courageous efforts to publish the truth about the official terror policy of the military dictatorship.

The book, Dirty Secrets, Dirty War, was written by Cox’s son, David Cox. Robert Cox was a lonely voice during the dictatorship: One of the few journalists who dared to tell the story, before he was forced to flee Argentina, facing death threats.

The book is the latest effort by writers and others who feel compelled to chronicle those days. Commemorating 30 years since the Dirty War, there are new films, lectures and plays about that period, all with the aim of never forgetting the crimes, or the victims.

I’ve just come across one poignant example of the remembrance program, first produced two years ago by photojournalist, Gustavo Germano.

Germano produced a series of side-by-side photographs entitled Ausencias, “Absences.”  In each paired set, we see people at the beach,  in snapshots or family portraits — alongside the same scene years later missing those who were snatched from life. The result is ghostly and harrowing; profound.

In one paired set, the first photo is labeled 1975: Clara Altelman de Fink stands at a dining table looking over the shoulder of her son, Claudio Marcelo Fink. In 2006, the mother stands in the exact same place, hand on empty chair, looking at the camera. Claudio is not there.

In another, brothers Omar Dario Amestoy and Mario Alfredo Amestoy are charging down a grassy hill, filled with youth and vigor. Thirty one years later, we see Mario Alfredo running down the same hill alone.

A portion of Gustavo Germano’s photo series as seen on his Web site.

In a third, a young man, Orlando Rene Mendez, and a woman, Leticia Margarita Oliva, are at Happy Turtle Beach in Concordia, Entre Rios. In 2006, the beach is empty.

We absorb the anguish, the years and the injustice with hardly a word.

Germano’s exhibit was accompanied with a preface written by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina’s most renowned journalists.

More than criminal trials, or journalistic investigations, or philosophical essays, art accounts for the emptiness that unexplained absence provokes….The photos  of Gustavo Germano….evoke that deep trauma of contemporary Argentine identity, and introduce us to the mystery of time with the mute violence of a frozen gesture.

- Peter Eisner

Even with the embargo, the United States is Cuba’s fifth largest trading partner — there are exemptions on food sales to the island. Photo: USDA

There’s no reason to be surprised by President Obama’s decision this week to renew the U.S. embargo with Cuba — he was sticking the script followed by presidents since John F. Kennedy.

Not doing so would throw a wrench into his efforts in Congress on universal health care. Without even arguing pro or con on the issue, let’s just state the obvious — the president is dealing with pressing matters that take front-burner attention right now. Cuba and Latin America are way down on the list of problems to deal with.

All this despite the emptiness and loneliness of the embargo. Many Americans don’t realize the oddities of the U.S. stance — it can’t be called a policy. Something like 178 other countries have normal diplomatic relations with Cuba. Even with the embargo, the United States is Cuba’s fifth largest trading partner — there are exemptions on food sales to the island.

A majority of Cuban Americans now support an end to the embargo. Some of the most vociferous supporters of a change are midwestern Republicans, who want to open new markets for their constituents. And it should be made clear: Those suffering the most are the Cuban people, not the Cuban government.

President Obama’s decision therefore may be disappointing to the coalition of Americans who think it’s time to acknowledge the failure of the 50-year economic embargo of Cuba. But they won’t scream as hard as the other side would if the president endorsed a new policy. Obama can’t stand potential defections of support for the health care bill.

Cubans in Cuba and Miami tend to see their own issue as the only issue. But even they know the reality.

The Cuban government has expressed doubt for some time that Obama would strike up a new, close friendship with the Communist country. Ricardo Alarcon, the president of Cuba’s National assembly, told me in Havana this year that he hoped, but didn’t think the new president would live up to his billing as an agent of change.

Watch: Cuba embraces Obama and clamors to end the embargo.

Any idea of quick change comes from an early flurry of talk that Obama might be willing to drop a travel ban to Cuba affecting most U.S. citizens. There was a lot of noise in the spring when Obama suggested changes in U.S. Cuban policy. But he’s taken minor steps other than to eliminate restrictions imposed by George W. Bush on Cuban Americans traveling and sending more to relatives on the island.

Actually, there were two small changes that are worth mentioning. One is that the United States and Cuba have begun holding regular occasional meetings on immigration and other matters. So there is some level of official contact between the countries. There was also an odd contact point recently when Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico paid a visit to Havana and said he held unofficial meetings with high-ranking Cuban officials. It’s not clear whether he was carrying water for the president or not, and it’s also not clear who he really met with, besides Alarcon.

The real point person on Cuba and Latin America should be Arturo Valenzuela, who President Obama has designated as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs. He’s not on the job yet — Congress is stalling on confirmation hearings.

Latin America, as usual, is an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy planning.

- Peter Eisner

Baltasar Garzón, Spain’s most prominent jurist. Photo: Presidencia Argentina

A right-wing organization in Spain has tried to turn the tables on Baltasar Garzón, the country’s most prominent jurist. Garzón found himself in the dock this week in Madrid, charged by a group calling itself “Clean Hands,” for allegedly overstepping his authority by investigating atrocities during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco three-quarters of a century ago.

Garzón never faced such scrutiny on his other prominent campaigns: He had the freedom and temerity to indict Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, file charges against Argentine military officers for their role during that country’s “Dirty War” of the 1970s and 1980s, and criticize and consider indictments against U.S. officials during the Bush administration for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo.

Garzón testified for more than three hours on Wednesday in Spain’s Supreme Court. He has said his responsibility was no more and no less than to apply the law “to investigate the facts, to ferret out responsibility for the protection of the victims.”

The matter at hand is unfinished business: Charges of mass graves, kangaroo courts and barbaric human rights violations committed by the Franco regime. The challenge to his authority makes it clear: the Spanish Civil War still roils emotion and divides political sentiment. The conservative opposition Popular Party, which was in power and closely allied with the Bush administration during the Iraq invasion, virulently opposes Garzón’s investigation. So does the Catholic Church in Spain, which warns that an investigation would “open old wounds.”

Thirty-four years after Franco’s death, the children and grandchildren of those who defended the Spanish republic against Franco -– who was supported by Hitler and Mussolini in a dress rehearsal for World War II –- seek a full accounting of the past. There are numerous stories around the country of mass graves still undiscovered, atrocities not documented. For some, it is a matter of conscience; for others, like those who challenge Garzón, it is dangerous to cast light on the violence of the Franco period.

Garzón, by the way, is not considered a left-wing ideologue. In the course of his career, he has faced criticism from both sides of the spectrum. In the matter at hand, he is defended by the governing Social Democratic Party and supported by significant editorial comment.

The influential Madrid daily El Pais, for example, expressed outrage that “ultra-rightwing” political groups could influence the Supreme Court.  “There is no explanation, unless it has to do with pure repression based on ideology,” El Pais said in an editorial. “One cannot cease to be astonished that, in effect, the judge that brought Pinochet to justice and who investigated crimes against  humanity in the Southern Cone during the 1970s, should be pursued criminally for trying to do the same thing in his own country. If this doesn’t stop in time, the case will turn grotesque and cause enormous international shock.”

The battle brings to mind the wise old words of George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Garzón has sought to hold international leaders to a simple test of justice under civilized law. It is a lesson of all.

- Peter Eisner