Page 8 - The Behrend College Collegian -Thursday, January 29, /998 Chechen charged in slaying of 6 red cross workers By Susan Sachs=(c) 1998, Newsday MOSCOW -- Chechen officials Monday named the man they say is responsible for the murder of six foreign Red Cross aid workers 13 months ago -- a Chechen who denied the specific charge but freely admitted he champions restored Russian control over the separatist republic. In a statement issued in the capital of Grozny, Chechen President Asian Maskhadov said 37-year-old Adam Deniyev organized the killings -- the heaviest loss of life ever sustained by the staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross -- at the behest of the Russian security services. "At present, Deniyev is staying in Moscow, where he has been given an office, - said the Chechen statement, as quoted by the Interfax news agency. "All the required conditions have been created for him to carry on his activities." The Chechens demanded that Russia turn over Deniyev to them for trial. But, based on Deniyev's comfortable Moscow surroundings and hisdevotion to the cause of Russian domination of Chechnya, it seems unlikely that he would be so sacrificed. Interviewed in his modern west Moscow office, Deniyev said the separatist government in Grozny has accused him of the Red Cross murders only to discredit his opposition to Maskhadov. Whether his self-proclaimed movement, called "Adamalla," or Santeria sees statue different By Mark FineMan=(c) 1998, Los Angeles Times SANTIAGO, Cuba Pope John Paul II gently placed a tiny, jewel encrusted crown on the 18-inch-high figure before him, then lovingly draped a golden rosary on her hand. And with that simple act in a public square at noon Saturday, tens of thousands of Cubans erupted in uni- "Long live our Virgin of Charity! Long live our patron saint! Love live the queen of Cuba!" It was a moment that electrified Cuba's Roman Catholics, bringing tears of joy to a multitude of believ ers, from this eastern city to the nation's capital, 625 miles to the west. But in the same instant that the pope crowned the beloved saint of Cuba's Catholic believers, his bless ing also swept through the souls of millions of Cubans who have never prayed to Jesus Christ. For them, the small wooden fig ure in Santiago's Antonio Maceo Plaza was not the Virgin Mary who, legend has it, miraculously ap peared to three fishermen just above the waves off the Cuban coast nearly 400 years ago, becoming a singular symbol of faith for Cuba's devout Catholics. For them the followers of the Afro-Cuban religion Santeria the statue is Ochun, the flirtatious deity who was sent by Orofi across the oceans from Central Africa to pro tect the slaves in the copper mines and cane fields of the New World. And for them, the pope had crowned Santeria's goddess of beauty, sexuality, promiscuity and the river, one of the main Orisha dei ties presiding over a religion that guides the lives of millions here. At the moment of coronation, Au rora Ibanez Sanchez, 73, clutched the yellow Santeria beads around her neck and burst out crying. "Ochun is my mother," she said later. "She is also the Virgin of Charity." Humanity, has any clout among Chechens is doubtful, and Deniyev himself is a character of much mystery and self-created myth. He claims to have "the gift of prophecy," to he a descendant of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, and to receive money from unnamed "Chechen businessmen" to distribute videos and leaflets proclaiming himself the savior of Chechnya. Deniyev called Russia "a great country" and dismissed Maskhadov, who was elected last January, as a "terrorist" and a "bandit." He scoffed at the idea of an independent Chechnya, the goal for which tens of thousands of Chechens died in a brutal three-year war with Russia that ended in 1996, and denied he receives any money or support from Russia's intelligence services. "We are trying to revive the spirit of humanism," said Dcniyev, outfitted in a broad-shouldered, double-breasted suit and guarded by at least 10 young men in turtleneck sweaters and boxy sports coats. "I am the plenipotentiary head of the Muslim world. Could such a person as I am have anything to do with harming a human being, an animal or anything in nature?" In an attack that prompted the Red Cross and all other foreign aid organizations to pull out of Chechnya, gunmen entered a Red Cross field hospital in the village of Novye Atagi near Grozny and shot five women -- two Norwegian, one Spanish, one New Zealander and one Canadian -- and a Dutchman in their beds. religion in light The parallel faiths and the oc casional ironies in their juxtaposition arc among the world's most curi ous forms of religious syncretism, a convergence of religious iconogra phy, born out of colonial repression, that flourished through 400 years of Spanish rule and 30 years when Communist Cuba was officially an atheist state But Saturday's simultaneous pa pal coronation of patron saint and pagan goddess came amid a broad and growing political debate within Cuba's Catholic Church about whether or how to separate Catholicism from Afro-Cuban reli gions that have a powerful hold on Cuba's deeply spiritual culture. At a time when the pope's visit al ready has galvanized and emboldened the church. the debate is a critical one for the Cuban clergy and the future of their church after the pope leaves Cuba Sunday.. For the church, separating the faiths or trying to co-opt Santeria risks alienating millions of Cubans. But Cuba's prelate, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, appears to be running that risk. Adopting a distinctly conservative line toward Santeria and several other Afro-Cuban sects, which in clude Yoruba, Palo Mayombe and the secret Society of Abakua, Ortega has sought to play down Santeria's influence and power. "Journalists ask us whether 'Afri can cults' constitute the biggest reli gion in Cuba," the cardinal said in a homily in July. "Setting apart the confusion between beliefs and folk lore on the one hand and true reli gious faith on the other, if they will ask us which is the strongest religion in Cuba, I would not hesitate in say ing that it is the church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, that of Peter and Paul." At a news conference last week, the cardinal took a more conciliatory tone. He stressed that he views ad herents of Santeria and other sects as an integral part of Cuba's Catho- Brawl erupts over war crimes photo exhibit By Mary Williams Walsh , (c) 1998, Los Angeles Times BERLIN Hundreds of neo-Na zis and left-wing protesters battled one another with stones and fists on a train in eastern Germany on Satur day, in a brawl connected with a trav eling photo exhibit documenting war crimes committed by the German army during World War 11. Police said that eight people were hurt in the clash and that the train full of unsuspecting passengers when it was beset by neo-Nazis throwing rocks was damaged but able to keep rolling after about 100 officers were called in to break up the fight. The controversial photo exhibition, which has been touring Germany for more than two years, has triggered protests before. The criticism often lic Church The country's Catholic churches contain the religious statues that are worshiped daily by both faiths. Many Catholic saints, in fact, have mirror-image counterparts in Santeria. But the devotees who flock to churches to worship Ochun, Obbatala, Chango, Babalu Aye and dozens of other deities ignore most of Catholicism's morality, values, doctrine and prayer. Santeria requires that its priests and priestesses be baptized as Catho lics. Santeria also includes its own brand of spiritual Masses. But there are few other liturgical similarities. "What happened was the slaves brought their own deities from Af rica, but they had to hide them from the dominant class," said Natalia Bolivar, a prominent Cuban anthro pologist and author of eight books on the subject. "So the people be gan to mask their deities within the images of the Catholic saints. "But they only masked them. It was a self-defense of their gods. It was not true syncretism." Bolivar is especially critical of the cardinal and the daily practices of the church, in which parish priests and nuns in the sanctuaries that hold the most sacred icons of Santeria have been advised to discourage Afro-Cuban worship. For example, at Havana's sanctu ary of Santa Barbara, whose mirror image is the god Chango. Father Os car Perez was compelled by official church policy to raise half a dozen saints from floor shrines onto wall platforms to make it more diffi cult for adherents of Santeria to prac tice rites that require offerings to be placed at the feet of their gods. And nuns at Havana's Church of San Lazard, whose twin is Babalu Aye, accompany each blessing of water taken from the church's holy spring with strict instructions that it not be used for Santeria rites. Critics of the cardinal's conserva tive line say that any attempt to di minish Santeria's sway here is fraught with disaster. Bolivar said: "These two religions are not incompatible. But the Catho lic Church is trying to make them incompatible. By saying such things, Cardinal Ortega is destroying an im portant balance." At the grass roots, however, many of Cuba's clergy have taken a far more lenient stance. Father Perez maintains a second Santa Barbara shrine alongside the principal statue in the church, con ceding that many people come only to worship Chango. Other clergy men acknowledge that many pil grims worship only Ochun at the Vir gin of Charity's permanent shrine in the village of El Cobre near Santiago from which it was removed for only the fourth time in 400 years when it journeyed to Santiago for Saturday's papal coronation. Among the most compelling illus trations of Cuban syncretism is the sanctuary of San Lazaro, next to the leper colony that John Paul also vis ited Saturday, 15 miles southwest of World comes from elderly German veterans who argue that the Wehrmacht was, on the whole, a "clean" and "honor able" army and that the mass mur ders of Jews, Gypsies and other non combatants on the Eastern Front dur ing World War II were the work of Hitler's fanatical SS forces. Some of the biggest protests took place in March, when the photos ar rived in Munich, the capital of Ba varia, Germany's conservative heart land. Neo-Nazis staged one of their largest rallies ever, veterans charged that the photos were faked, and even mainstream conservative politicians denounced the show. After that, officials elsewhere in Germany debated whether to cancel the show's stops in their cities. But it has kept traveling with notably few disturbances until its arrival in the Protestant terrorist group ends campaign reprisal shootings By John Burgess=(c) 1998, The Washington Post LONDON An outlawed Prot estant terrorist group said Friday it had ended a campaign of reprisal shootings in Northern Ireland. That announcement was followed a few hours later by another shooting death in thz. capital city of Belfast. The Ulster Freedom Fighters had not previously admitted taking part in an almost month-long string of shootings that have threatened the province's all-party peace negotia tions. But in statements faxed to news organizations Friday, the group said it had been mounting a "measured military response" to attacks by Catholic groups. "That response is now concluded," the statement said. It was not immediately clear who carried out the subsequent attack in which police said a man was shot and killed. Local press reports identified Havana. There, Maria Elena Garcia Castro, a Spanish Cuban nun, has lived with the convergence of the faiths every day for eight years. San Lazaro the saint and Babalu Aye the deity present themselves to believers through similar statues in separate shrines in the church. Both help the suffering, the pained, the handicapped and the infirm. The San Lazaro figure in the center of the church draws the Catholics; an al most identical image to the left draws the devotees of Babalu Aye. "People offer hair, fingernails, ci gars, rum, even goats. Last year, I received four goats in one day," Sis ter Maria Elena said of the Babalu Aye shrine as she stood beside its al tar. "This religion, Santeria, implies fear, superstition and animosity," she said as hundreds of pilgrims who had traveled from throughout Cuba prayed at the shrine to San Lazaro- Babalu Aye recently. At least a dozen times a day, devo tees of both faiths approach the nun to bless plastic or glass bottles filled with water from the spring behind the church. She follows each bless ing with orders that the water is to be placed in wounds, not drunk or sprinkled about as it is in Santeria. "This is a sanctuary to San Lazaro, the friend of the sick. Our mission is to centralize the Christian faith," she said. "The idea is to help them understand that the saints are inter mediaries between the people and God. They are not gods in and of themselves." stately old city of Dresden. Saturday's clash appears to have stemmed from recent calls issued by right-wing leaders urging their fol lowers to converge on the city. One of the most resounding battle cries came from Manfred Roeder, an eld erly neo-Nazi leader who was con victed in 1982 on terrorism charges for involvement in a firebombing that led to the deaths of two Vietnamese. His latest rallying cry directed at neo-Nazis, along with the other ap peals like it, attracted about 1,400 skinheads and other far-right demon strators to Dresden on Saturday. Car rying Iron Cross banners and other German-nationalist paraphernalia, they rallied in front of the city's or nate opera house, railing that the photo exhibition "defamed the honor of German soldiers." the man as a Catholic The Loyalist Volunteer Force, an other Protestant group which has claimed responsibility for some of the recent shootings, has not announced a halt to the violence. The Ulster Democratic Party, which represents the Ulster Freedom Fighters at the peace talks, has faced possible expulsion from the negotia tions because the rules admit only parties whose armed allies are main- taining a cease-fire. Party official John White told Sky News television Friday that the group's statement had "averted a major disaster," adding that "the Ul ster Democratic Party has always been opposed to violence and I hope that this will create a situation where there will be no opposition to our in volvement in the talks process." Talks are due to resume Monday in London. Officials hope that the change from Belfast will inject some Suicide attempts fuel virginity-test debate By Kelly Couturier=Special to The Washington Post ANKARA, Turkey -- The impor tance of the virginity of an unmar ried girl to a family's honor goes to the heart of Turkey's traditional moral code. But recent suicide at tempts by five girls seeking to avoid a forced virginity examination -- and a strong defense of the practice by the government's women's affairs minister -- has sparked a public out cry. Women's rights activists were in furiated when Isilay Saygin, state minister in charge of female and fam ily affairs, defended mandated medi cal examinations to verify the virgin ity of girls in state-run foster homes. That Saygin, a woman, is prepared to uphold the state's involvement in a practice that has caused much an guish to some young women is par ticularly offensive, in the view of sev eral women's groups. The case of the five girls who at tempted suicide after the director of their state foster home ordered them to undergo virginity tests when they returned late to their dormitories one night has fueled a campaign else where in the government, led by Hu man Rights Minister Hikmet Sami Turk, to ban such tests, except in court cases involving sex crimes. "Being a virgin bride signifies a woman's purity and her loyalty to the family," said sociologist Dilek Cindoglu, who has researched virgin Their presence, in turn, attracted hundreds of left-wing counterdemonstrators to protest neo- Nazism and xenophobia in front of City Hall. About 3,000 police were deployed in the city to keep the two groups apart. But the authorities couldn't he everywhere, and about 60 neo-Nazis were able to stake out the train sta tion in the nearby town of Wurzen and intercept the train from Lcipzi;: , as it made a stop. loaded with about 300 left-wing counterdemonstrators. When the neo-Nazis began ston ing the train, the driver tried to pull out of the station, police said, but someone pulled the emergency brake. The train stopped again, and the left-wing protesters jumped down and began battling the neo-Nazis on the tracks and in the passenger cars. new life into meetings. which arc op erating under a May deadline. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, meanwhile, again pressed Britain Friday for an independent judicial inquiry into the "Bloody Sunday'' killings of Jan. 30. 1972, in which British paratroopers shot and killed 13 people during a demonstration in Londonderry. Northern Ireland's sec ond-largest city. A 14th person died later. An inquiry is necessary "so that we do see justice and fairness and that these issues can he laid to rest once and for all," Ahern said after laying a wreath at a memorial to the Londonderry victims. The British government, which has contended the troops tired in self-- defense, has been preparing an ex pression of remorse over the killings. Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons Wednesday that it would he issued soon. ity testing in Turkey. In Turkish soci ety, "patriarchal control over women's bodies has been reproduced through honor and shame codes," she has written. The phenomenon of virginity test ing and the social norms behind it exist, paradoxically, in a country where women were granted the right to vote before many of their Western European counterparts; have equal legal rights to men in the areas of mar riage, child custody, inheritance and property ownership; and have reached high offices, including that of prime minister. Physicians interviewed in one study said many young women seek the tests themselves. Some interpret this as an indication of the pressure many women feel in a society in which an unmarried woman discovered not to be a virgin risks being ostracized by her family or losing a chance to get married. In more-conservative corn munities, she risks being beaten or killed. Human Rights Watch reported find ing that virginity exams are forced on female political prisoners as well as common criminal suspects, and said it found evidence of such exams be ing performed on hospital patients and state foster-home residents. The five girls involved in the sui cide attempts, ages 12-16, took rat poison and then jumped into a water tank rather than face the tests. They survived and the virginity tests were carried out in their hospital beds.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers