Fighting flared again in Dagestan, two weeks after the Russian military claimed victory over forces fighting for independence in this area, which lies between the Caucasus mountains and the Caspian sea. In the first week of September rebel troops in the west killed 14 Russian soldiers and captured six villages. A September 4 bomb attack on a military complex claimed at least 50 lives. More rebels are reportedly gathering on Dagestan's border with Chechnya, where the Russian army was defeated five years ago in a drive against pro-independence forces.
Air strikes against villages in central Dagestan have boosted support and recruitment for the rebel troops. In response to the latest setbacks suffered by the Russian military, warplanes are also pounding targets along the Dagestan-Chechen border and inside Chechnya. President Boris Yeltsin is being pressed by parliament to explain Moscow's expanding military moves in the region.
Twenty farmers in the West African country of Benin were arrested as they took action to recover their land, according to reports in early September. More than 300 armed federal policemen surrounded the town of Ze, near the capital city Cotonou, and fired on the farmers, wounding three.
The protesters are demanding the return of land taken by the government in the 1960s for the production of palm oil. The government said the land would be returned, but the state-owned company managing the plantations announced that it would offer new renewable 50-year leases. "To us this is an attempt to perpetuate our unbridled exploitation," said a farmers' spokesperson, explaining that they have organized an occupation of the land.
On September 7 the Spanish government announced plans to move 105 imprisoned supporters of Basque independence to jails closer to their homes. Hundreds of Basque political prisoners are held in Spain and France, whose borders are straddled by the Basque homeland. Some prisoners are held hundreds of miles from their families.
Madrid's statement preceded by one week the first anniversary of a cease-fire by the independence group Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA). Last October the Basque nationalist movement reinforced ETA's initiative with street demonstrations protesting the Spanish government's negative response to the cease-fire. In May of this year talks between Basque representatives and Madrid began. Further negotiations were scheduled for August, but ETA withdrew, explaining that Madrid was demanding further concessions.
Violently shaking detainees, shackling them in contorted positions, and depriving them of sleep are illegal methods of interrogation, stated the Israeli Supreme Court September 6. The court ruled on a petition by civil rights groups against the official methods of "physical force" used by the Shin Bet security service when questioning "terrorism suspects" —that is, those fighting Tel Aviv's denial of the national rights of the Palestinian people. The decision broke with the past refusal of the court to outlaw torture. But according to the New York Times, the judges noted that Israeli courts may choose not to enforce the new ruling in "emergency situations."
The two largest French retail chains have merged in a bid to stave off competition from the U.S. giant Wal Mart. The Carrefour and Promodes firms agreed in August to form a new company that will have 9,000 stores in 26 countries and sales of more than $49 billion.
Mergers in the aluminum, oil, and banking industries are also under way, often accompanied by nationalist rhetoric. When a recent banking merger failed, the French interior minister lamented, "the national interest ... required the largest possible grouping to promote and defend our economic interests in the face of globalization."
In a conflict with Washington, a consortium headed by British-based oil giant BP Amoco is threatening to delay work on expanding the pipelines that carry oil from the Caspian Sea. The 11-company consortium Azerbaijan International Operating Co. plans to extend an existing pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, through the territories of the former Soviet Union, ending at Georgia's Black Sea port of Supsa. U.S. officials instead want the oil to be pumped along a longer, more expensive route to Ceyhan, Turkey. John Wolf, the U.S. ambassador to the Caspian Basin, demanded the Baku-Supsa line be extended only as part of building the Baku-Ceyhan line.
A group of Cuban health workers have gone to Iraq, where they will serve at the Baghdad emergency hospital for at least a year. The contingent consists of orthopedists, pediatricians, physiotherapists, nurses, and other professionals. The embargo imposed by Washington and its allies against Iraq has had a deep impact on the country's health services. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, the mortality rate for babies younger than one year rose from 47 per 1,000 before the embargo was imposed in 1990, to 108 per 1,000 at the time of the most recent survey.
Frank Smith, a former prisoner at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York State, suffered a setback on August 3 in his fight for compensation. Smith was awarded $4 million in 1997, when a Manhattan appeals court ruled in favor of a class action suit against New York state police and correction officials, and the then governor Nelson Rockefeller.
Smith and other prisoners were tortured and brutalized in the aftermath of a rebellion at Attica in September 1971. Prisoners took hostages and engaged in negotiations for several days. The governor then ordered an assault on D Yard, which was under prisoners' control. At the end of this attack, 29 inmates and 10 hostages lay dead.
The new ruling, by a federal appeals court, overturned the lower court's monetary award and other aspects of the decision on technical grounds. At the same time, the new decision notes that "there is very substantial evidence that ... some and perhaps most or even all, of the D Yard inmates were the victims of brutal acts of retaliation." The ruling "just makes me feel more energized" to fight, responded Smith.
On September 10 a federal judge ordered an end to busing, and all other means of "assigning children to schools," in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, school district. The ruling on a case filed by seven white parents was the latest in a series of similar judgements, including in Denver, Cleveland, and Norfolk, Virginia.
In 1969 Charlotte became the "birthplace of busing," after the District Court found that the district's schools were deliberately segregated. Describing the inferior resources granted the schools attended by Black children, one former student recalled wearing hand-me-down uniforms received from a white school.
In this latest case, the judge did not deny that "racial imbalances" still exist, but denied that they are "vestiges of the dual system." School officials who defended the antidiscrimination programs say that facilities at majority-Black schools are still inferior. Two Black families who joined the legal defense of the programs say they will appeal the decision if the school district does not.
— FRANK EVANS
Indians demand land back in Chile
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"Respect and autonomy" reads the banner held by the indigenous Mapuche people as they hold a protest, reported in September, in front of the presidential palace in Santiago, Chile. The Mapuches demand the return of half the 1.2 million acres of land in southern Chile taken by timber companies for export plantations. Mapuches have occupied land and blocked roads, often facing attack by timber company security guards or Chilean police. More than 400 have been imprisoned this year.