CONAKRY, Guinea — Cell-phone snapshots, ugly and hardto refute, are circulating hereand feeding rage: they showthat women were the particulartargets of the Guinean soldierswho suppressed a political dem-onstration at a stadium here lastweek, with victims and witnessesdescribing rapes, beatings andacts of intentional humiliation.“I can’t sleep at night, afterwhat I saw,’’ said one middle-aged woman from an establishedfamily here, who said she hadbeen beaten and sexually molest-ed. “And I am afraid. I saw lots ofwomen raped, and lots of dead.”One photograph shows a nakedwoman lying on muddy ground,her legs up in the air, a man inmilitary fatigues in front of her.In a second picture a soldier ina red beret is pulling the clothesoff a distraught-looking womanhalf-lying, half-sitting on muddyground. In a third a mostly nudewoman lying on the ground ispulling on her trousers.The cellphone pictures are cir-culating anonymously, but mul-tiple witnesses corroborated theevents depicted.The attacks were part of a vio-lent outburst on Sept. 28 in whichsoldiers shot and killed dozens ofunarmed demonstrators at themain stadium here, where per-haps 50,000 had assembled. Localhuman rights organizations sayat least 157 were killed; the gov-ernment puts the figure at 56.But even more than the shoot-ings, the attacks on women — hor-rific anywhere, but viewed withparticular revulsion in Muslimcountries like this one — appearto have traumatized the citizenryand hardened the opposition’sdetermination to force out theleader of the military junta, Capt.Moussa Dadis Camara.Diplomats said the violencehad irreversibly underminedCamara’s standing with othercountries.If internal opposition continuesto grow, Camara may be forcedeither to leave power or to tightenhis grip with an even more au-thoritarian government.Bernard Kouchner, the foreignminister of France, the formercolonial power here, urged “in-ternational intervention.’’The exact number of womenwho were abused is not known.Because of the shame associatedwith sexual violence in this WestAfrican country, victims are re-luctant to speak, and local doctorsrefuse to do so. Victims who toldof the attacks would not providetheir names because they wereafraid of retribution.But the witnesses were ada-mant. “I affirm, in categoricalfashion, that women were raped,not just one woman,’’ said Mama-dou Mouctar Diallo, 34, an opposi-tion leader who said he had beenseverely beaten himself. “I sawmany rapes.’’
ADAM NOSSITER
In Guinea Violence, Soldiers Prey on Women
LUBUK LAWEK, Indonesia —The arrival of heavy machineryin this tiny village on Mondayallowed search teams to reachdeeper into a region devastatedby a series of landslides causedby the earthquake last Wednes-day. But the delicate search forsurvivors gave way to large ma-chines clawing away at wreckedbuildings, twisted trees and mud-covered debris to find the dead.After heavy overnight rain,the Indonesian military andthe police spent the day march-ing through thick mud, placingstakes wherever they could smelldecomposing flesh. Several back-hoes, provided by a local Indone-sian business, managed to maketheir way to some of the mostremote villages in the district ofPadang Pariaman, like this one,about 50 miles from Padang, theprovincial capital of West Suma-tra.In the late morning, one crewhere unearthed the bodies of apregnant woman and her twoyoung daughters. Others begandigging out the bodies of about 40people swept away as they werecelebrating a wedding.The earthquake, with a magni-tude of 7.6, struck the western In-donesian island of Sumatra lastWednesday evening, devastatingPadang, a city of 900,000, and set-ting off landslides to its north.Emergency workers have sofar focused most of their effortson Padang, where hundreds oflarge buildings collapsed, trap-ping many people inside. TheIndonesian government said ithad counted more than 600 bod-ies, and that some 1,000 peoplewere still missing. The death tollis certain to rise as workers pen-etrate the villages.An official with the IndonesianHealth Ministry estimated thatmore than 600 people could havebeen buried by the landslides,raising the potential toll beyondthe United Nations’ estimate of1,100.
PETER GELLING
Search for Survivors Continues in Indonesia Towns
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras— Rosamaria Valeriano Floreswas returning home from a visitto a public health clinic and foundherself in a crowd of people dis-persing from a demonstration insupport of the ousted president,Manuel Zelaya. As she crossedthe central square of the Hondu-ran capital, a group of soldiersand police officers pushed her tothe ground and beat her with theirtruncheons.She said the men kicked outmost of her top teeth, broke herribs and split open her head. “Apoliceman spit in my face andsaid, ‘You will die,’ ” she said.Valeriano, 39, was sitting in theoffice of a Tegucigalpa humanrights group last week, speak-ing about the assault, which tookplace on Aug. 12.Since Zelaya was removed ina June 28 coup, security forceshave tried to halt opposition withbeatings and mass arrests, hu-man rights groups say. Elevenpeople have been killed since thecoup, according to the Committeefor Families of the Disappearedand Detainees in Honduras.The number of violations andtheir intensity has increasedsince Zelaya secretly returned toHonduras two weeks ago, takingrefuge at the Brazilian Embassy,human rights groups say.
ELISABETH MALKIN
State Forces Are Accused of Abuses in Honduras
in brief
Pkisn Bmbing
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Asuicide bomber dressed in theuniform of one of Pakistan’s se-curity forces struck the U.N.World Food Program offices inIslamabad on Monday, killingat least five people in what thepolice said was a serious breachin a building tightly guarded byprivate security officers. Therewas no immediate claim of re-sponsibility for the attack. Thebombing was the first direct at-tack against a U.N. agency herein the Pakistani capital, and theagency immediately closed itsoffices in Pakistan.
(NYT)
Ddy Sm in Indi
NEW DELHI — More than240 people have died, and hun-dreds of thousands have beenleft homeless in southern Indiaafter four days of heavy rainfallat the end of the monsoon sea-son, the government said Mon-day. The sudden rains, com-ing after a severe drought, de-luged villages and caused wide-spread disruption in the statesof Andhra Pradesh and Kar-nataka. Floodwaters are nowthought to be receding, officialssaid.
(NYT)
Dhs in Iq
BAGHDAD — A suicidebomber detonated himselfamong mourners at a funeral inwestern Iraq on Monday, killing6 people and wounding 16 in An-bar Province, a region that hasgrown increasingly violent dur-ing the past few months. The fu-neral’s mourners included po-lice officers, tribal sheiks andmembers of Awakening Coun-cils, the Sunni militias that fightinsurgents.
(NYT)
Fid N. K Ds
North Korea has receivedthe equivalent of about $2.2 bil-lion under deals starting in1994 aimed at persuading it todismantle its nuclear facili-ties, a South Korean lawmakersaid Monday, in what his officesaid was the first accounting ofthe cost of the failed strategy.North Korea abandoned its nu-clear disablement process lastyear.
(AP)
INterNatIoNal
Tuesday, OcTOber 6, 2009
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