Germany dedicates Holocaust site
■ The same day, Elie
Wiesel used personal
experiences to relay the
realities of the Holocaust.
BERLIN (AP) - In a direct and
emotional speech to parliament
Thursday, Nobel Peace laureate Elie
Wiesel held Germans accountable for
the murder of 6 million Jews — includ
ing his 8-year-old sister.
Wiesel evoked personal memories
to confront Germans with their history
on a day set aside to remember
Holocaust victims. Speaking before
Germany dedicated the site of a
Holocaust memorial planned as an eter
nal reminder of Nazi evils, he empha
sized that the Nazis were Germans -
and the very mention of “Germans”
once inspired darkest fears.
“No nation, no ideology, no system
has ever inflicted brutality, suffering and
humiliation on such a scale, on any peo
ple, as yours has on mine in such a short
period,” Wiesel said.
With German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder and other leaders sitting
directly in front of his podium, Wiesel
repeatedly used the word “you” when he
referred to the perpetrators - the
German people - who set out to annihi
late Europe’s Jews.
“I know it’s difficult for you - and
painful to think in those terms,” he said.
The worst crime, he said, were the
murders of Jewish children. His own
sister, he told lawmakers, was killed
along with his mother at Auschwitz.
“She was 8 years old, and believe
me, she had done nothing to harm your
people. Why did she have to die such an
atrocious death?”
However, Wiesel rejected the idea of
collective guilt and praised Germany for
its annual remembrance of Holocaust
victims on the anniversary of liberation
55 years ago of the Auschwitz death
camp, which he too survived. He also
honored postwar German democracies
for “valiantly and honorably trying to
build a new destiny.”
Former chancellor Helmut Kohl,
who has withdrawn from official life
amid a campaign financing scandal,
was notably absent from commemora
tions, despite his role as one of the
Holocaust memorial’s most ardent
backers.
Just two blocks from the Reichstag
building where Wiesel gave his speech
beneath its new glass dome, officials
** She was 8 years old, and believe me,
she had done nothing to harm your
people. Why did she have to die such
an atrocious death?"
Elie Wiesel
Nobel Peace laureate
dedicated the plot for the memorial dur
ing a brief ceremony intended to give
impetus to the controversial project.
The ceremony was symbolic, with
the unveiling of signs announcing that
the vacant plot as big as two football
fields will be turned into Germany’s
first memorial specifically for Jewish
victims of the Holocaust. Work is not
expected to begin for another 18
months, and the project will take two
years to complete.
One of the project’s most vocal crit
ics, Mayor Eberhard Diepgen, refused
to attend the ceremony in protest. He
has complained the design is too monu
mental and the decision to locate the
memorial^ the heart of Berlin is an
invitation to vandals.
Parliament president Wolfgang
Thierse, however, defended parlia
ment’s vote last summer to approve a
design by American architect Peter
Eisenman.
The project will be a vast field of
2,700 close-set concrete slabs resem
bling stones in a graveyard. Approval
was contingent on the addition of a doc
ument center.
“It’s the right decision to build this
memorial. We owe it to the victims to
demonstrate that we have not forgotten
the suffering that the Germans caused
them,” Thierse said. “We owe it also to
ourselves because the process of com
ing to terms with 12 years of inhumani
ty, contempt for humankind and geno
cide remain a part of our society.”
Man s bomb plot linked to Saudi terrorist
■ Bin Laden associate’s
brother-in-law fled Canada
after being detained in
Senegal, officials say.
MONTREAL (AP) - A man
reportedly detained in Senegal on
suspicion of planning a bomb attack
was under investigation in Canada
before he fled the country, an intelli
gence spokesman said Thursday.
Dan Lambert of the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service con
firmed that Mohambedou Ould Slahi
was a subject of an investigation by
Canadian authorities in cooperation
with the FBI.
The New York Times reported
Thursday that Slahi is the brother-in
law of one of Osama bin Laden’s top
lieutenants.
Bin Laden, a millionaire Saudi
exile, is one of 18 people indicted in
the United States on charges of con
spiracy to attack Americans in the
1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224
people, including 12 Americans.
Bin Laden is believed to be in
Afghanistan.
Slahi has not been charged, but
the United States requested his arrest,
and federal prosecutors in New York
are preparing formal charges that can
be used to seek his extradition,
according to the Times.
In Washington, a law enforcement
official who requested anonymity
said investigators were not sure
whether the man in Senegal was in
control of the operation or merely a
messenger, and, if he was just a mes
senger, they do not know for whom.
U.S. officials also do not know
whether the man’s brother-in-law is a
key Bin Laden aide or not, the official
added.
Canadian authorities started their
investigation after the Dec. 14 arrest
in Port Angeles, Wash., of Ahmed
Ressam, an Algerian living in
Montreal.
Ressam, in a brief appearance
Thursday in federal court in Seattle,
pleaded innocent to charges he tried
to smuggle bomb-making compo
nents across the border into
Washington state and conspired to
blow up buildings and other struc
tures. A trial date was set for Feb. 28.
After Ressam’s arrest, Slahi left
Canada “due, in part, to the investiga
tion that was ongoing,” Lambert said.
He refused to provide any details of
the case.
No specific evidence has been
released that shows that bin Laden
was behind the alleged Algerian plot,
and authorities have not suggested
possible U.S. targets.
A senior government official in
Senegal and an officer at the central
police station in Dakar told The
Associated Press Thursday they knew
nothing of Slahi’s detention.
A U.S. official in Senegal
declined to comment. Another U.S.
official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said the situation was sen
sitive.
At least four Algerian nationals
and one woman married to an
Algerian face charges in connection
with the alleged plot.
Little was revealed about Slahi, a
citizen of Mauritania, but investiga
tors told the Times he was in constant
contact with a construction company
in Sudan that was owned by bin
Laden and was a front for bin Laden’s
international organization, al Qaeda.
Last fall, Slahi traveled to
Montreal, where he worked closely
with Mokhtar Haouri, one of the
Algerians charged with helping
Ressam.
Following Ressam’s arrest, Slahi
fled to a Montreal mosque and then
left the country, the Times reported.
American officials said there are
other emerging links between the
bomb plot and bin Laden.
One involves Hamid Aich, an
Algerian who lived for three years in
a Vancouver suburb where he shared
an apartment with Abdelmajid
Dahoumane, the Times said.
Dahoumane, accused of being
Ressam’s accomplice, remains at
large.
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Criminal inquiry could
threaten peace process
JERUSALEM (AP) - A criminal
inquiry launched Thursday into Prime
Minister Ehud Barak’s campaign
finances threatened to erupt into a
scandal that could hinder his efforts to
secure a comprehensive peace by
year’s end.
The investigation, based on rec
ommendations in one of the toughest
comptroller reports ever released in
Israel, led opposition lawmakers
opposed to Barak’s revived peace
efforts to call on police to investigate
the prime minister himself.
The comptroller, Eliezer
Goldberg, fined Barak’s party $3.2
million. Barak denied any wrongdo
ing and said he would appeal the fine.
Goldberg’s report details transfers
from overseas sources into nonprofit
groups set up to back Barak’s election
bid last May.
In some cases, the overseas donors
apparently did not know where the
money was headed. The Camilla fund
was set up by Swiss millionaire Oktav
Buettner to relieve poverty and pro
mote education in Israel. Instead, one
of the alleged beneficiaries was “The
Association to Advance Taxi Drivers,”
which printed pro-Barak bumper
stickers.
Buettner died in 1998, and the
fund has since been administered by
Yitzhak Herzog, a lawyer who led
Barak’s campaign and is now the
Cabinet’s secretary. According to
Goldberg, Herzog similarly trans
ferred funds from a Canadian charity
that employed him into Barak’s cam
paign. Goldberg did not name the
charity.
It is the first major breach in
Barak’s credibility and has discomfit
ing echoes of the scandals that
plagued - and helped Barak defeat -
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under
police investigation for bribery and
theft allegations.
“He knew about the system,” Ariel
Sharon, the leader of the opposition
Likud party, said of Barak. “Perhaps
not all the details, but he knew about
the system.”
That remark drew derision from
government ministers, who noted
Likud’s repeated brushes with scan
dal. -
| World and Nati
m Datelines :
■ Florida
Air Force security man runs
into jet fighter with patrol car
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla.
(AP) - An Air Force security man
crashed his patrol car into a parked
$39 million jet fighter while fum
bling for his cell phone, investigators
say.
The Nov. 5 crash totaled the
patrol car and caused more than
$62,000 in damage to the F-15’s
landing gear, according to an Air
Force report released Wednesday.
The driver, Airman Raymone
Sydnor, was patrolling the flight line
at the Florida Panhandle base when
he dropped his personal phone and
leaned down to search for it, investi
gators said.
Sydnor suffered a concussion.
He received an undisclosed punish
ment. As a result of the accident,
security personnel have been ordered
to get out of their cars every half-hour
fora 10-minute break.
■Thailand
Bomb threats prompt
evacuations in store, school
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -
Schoolchildren and shoppers fled
into the streets after bomb threats
forced evacuations Thursday in a
Thai town where earlier this week
Myanmar insurgents took hundreds
of people hostage in a hospital.
Police said anonymous callers
had made the threats against a differ
ent hospital, a school and a depart
ment store in Ratchaburi, 60 miles
west of Bangkok, since the hostage
drama ended Tuesday.
Thai officials and civilians have
feared revenge attacks after the com
mando raid that ended the standoff
and killed all 10 captors.
■ Cuba
Cuban boy’s father says U.S.
treated grandmothers poorly
HAVANA (AP) - Elian
Gonzalez’s father expressed rage
Thursday at the perceived treatment
his boy’s grandmothers received dur
ing their reunion with the child,
blaming Cuban exiles for difficulties
during the meeting.
Gonzalez complained that dur
ing Wednesday’s meeting in Miami
Beach, the grandmothers’ cellular
phones were confiscated, making it
impossible for him to speak freely
with his son.
Gonzalez and his family have
accused Elian’s Miami relatives of
listening in and cutting short tele
phone calls between father and son.
He also believed the relatives had
tried to tell the 6-year-old what to say
- and not say.
■ Tanzania
Rwandan man convicted of
genocide-related crimes
ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) - A
former Rwandan tea factory manag
er was convicted Thursday by a U.N.
tribunal for three genocide-related
charges, including raping a Tutsi
woman and encouraging four of his
employees to rape her as well.
Alfred Musema was the second
defendant to come before the
International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda to be convicted of rape.
His was the seventh verdict hand
ed down by the tribunal, which was
created in 1994 to prosecute chief
architects and perpetrators of the
1994 genocide of more than 500,000
minority Tutsis and politically mod
erate Hutus.
