New York Times
Responding wisely to a rapidly deteriorating situation in the Middle East, President Bush announced yesterday that he was sending his envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region next week to try to bring about a lasting cease-fire. On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney is also departing for the Middle East on a mission originally designed to discuss possible American actions against Iraq but now amended to include efforts to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr. Bush was right to drop his previous insistence on a halt to Palestinian violence as a precondition for a new American initiative. Arresting the cycle of Palestinian attacks and Israeli reprisals is still Washington's most urgent Mideast goal. The alarming trend of recent bloodletting, however, persuaded the administration that it could no longer watch from the sidelines.
After sounding out Israeli and Arab leaders, it concluded that a new Zinni mission might save lives and check the current slide toward all-out war. General Zinni's main task will be to work for a cease-fire and an eventual resumption of peace talks. Earlier efforts were thwarted by violence, for which the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, bears primary responsibility.
The administration has, however, also grown rightly concerned by the increasingly militarized approach of the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The other important new element in Mideast diplomacy is the peace initiative begun by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, offering Arab recognition and security guarantees to Israel in return for withdrawals from most of the Arab territory Israel has occupied since 1967.
The Saudi plan is gaining momentum. This weekend Arab foreign ministers gather in Cairo to prepare for the Arab League summit meeting at the end of this month at which Crown Prince Abdullah is expected to present his plan. Syria has given crucial support to the Saudi proposal. An unambiguous offer by the Arab world of security and recognition for Israel would fundamentally transform the equation that has brought more than half a century of bloodshed and tension to the Mideast.
Washington Times
Israeli leader Ariel Sharon calls it war. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat calls it the intifada. The grief and rage experienced by those who watched their loved ones killed this week in Israel and the Palestinian territories knows no language. For the six Israeli children killed among the crowd of Orthodox Jews returning from prayers over the weekend, for the more than 30 Palestinian students injured in two bombings on Palestinian schools this week, there is little justice that can be done on this Earth.
Into this violence, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi's Crown Prince Abdullah have injected proposals for new peace talks. The way forward will not be found at the peace table, however, until both sides are able to stop the violence. The measuring stick for the Arab League's intentions for peace will be found in how much pressure it puts on Palestinians to stop their attacks. For now, such a cease-fire seems far away. ...
Before the Israelis sit at anyone's peace table, it is not unreasonable for them to demand a week's cease-fire. Nor is it unreasonable for the Israelis to see if Prince Abdullah's proposal was more than a way to flatter the New York Times' Thomas Friedman, who broke the story on the crown prince's plan. The test will be Prince Abdullah's address to the Arab League on March 27, in which he will ask Arab countries to second his proposal. Only if the Arab world is behind the deal and successfully pressures the Palestinians to hold their fire will it be time for the Israelis to come to the peace table.
Los Angeles Times
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe used to wait until after he won an election to turn his thugs loose on political opponents. This time his party's criminals have been torturing and killing their foes even though the balloting isn't until this weekend. One difference is that when Mugabe won in the 1980s, the elections were generally fair contests. Now the economy is so bad, his regime's corruption so widespread, foreign assistance so diminished, that he would be in trouble if he let the nation vote as it chooses. His solution? Terrorize the opponents.
Mugabe secured his place in history by fighting to free Zimbabwe from British colonial rule. The struggle made him a hero, a beacon for all African nations battling for independence. But he has fiercely held power for more than two decades, with his rule tarnishing his earlier accomplishments. He was a better freedom fighter than governor. Mugabe's rival in the presidential elections Saturday and Sunday is Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader. Violence against members of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has killed well over 100 people in the last two years by the party's count. But the persecution doesn't stop there. Last week the government charged Tsvangirai with treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe. The government claimed to have a videotape on which Tsvangirai spoke of having the president "eliminated," but the charge has been discredited by all but Mugabe's supporters. ...
If Mugabe steals the election, the more than 50 British Commonwealth countries -- Australia, Lesotho, Nigeria and South Africa among them -- should suspend Zimbabwe's membership. But damage will already have been done. The president's thuggery could stoke violence among those who find it impossible to express their dissent peacefully at the voting booth. The ensuing mayhem would further disillusion a West that has only belatedly and reluctantly recognized the urgent need to help Africa battle AIDS and build its economies.
Houston Chronicle
There's plenty to be alarmed about these days in Venezuela, where democracy seems to be losing critical ground in the regime of strongman Hugo Chávez.
Perhaps there is nothing more symbolic of this trend than the lack of basic freedoms, especially freedom of the press, which was highlighted this week at the 19th National Forum on the Declaration of Chapultepec held in Caracas.
A panel including officers of the Inter American Press Association and Venezuelan jurists declared that there is no real press freedom in Venezuela because of failure to comply with the 10 principles of the declaration.
The declaration was drafted at an IAPA-sponsored hemisphere conference in Mexico in 1994 and since then has been signed by 22 heads of state and government. Its 10 principles state the guarantees required to ensure a climate of press freedom and to uphold democracy.
Chapultepec Committee Chairman Alejandro Miró Quesada, publisher of El Comercio, Lima, Peru, said at the forum that there were many similarities between the tactics of exerting pressure on and intimidation of the press employed by the ousted government of Alberto Fujimori in Peru and those used by the Chávez administration in Venezuela.
"The interesting thing is that in both countries it was publicly proclaimed that press freedom existed, while in fact there was ongoing harassment of the media and individual journalists by judges and officials," Miró Quesada said.
Why does it matter? Because Venezuela is one of the United States' leading suppliers of petroleum, for one thing.
But more importantly, because such freedoms are so fundamental to the stability of democracy. When that is threatened anywhere in the hemisphere, for obvious and important reasons we all should be alarmed.
(Compiled by United Press International)
