New York Times
It has been seven months since the anthrax attacks claimed their first victims, yet investigators seem no closer to finding the culprit than they were at the beginning. There was encouraging news this week that genetic analysis of the anthrax might prove a useful investigative tool, but for now the goal of identifying where the anthrax came from and who might have sent it through the mails remains as elusive as ever.
The slow progress by the Federal Bureau of Investigation may be due in part to bureaucratic bungling. The F.B.I. has held information tightly to its vest, making it difficult for outside experts to fathom why its forensic analyses have progressed so slowly or suggest ways to speed the process. But it is extraordinarily difficult to analyze tiny samples of highly volatile material without seeing it vanish into the air or damaging its usefulness as potential evidence in court. The job is made all the more difficult by the dearth of experts on the intricacies of germ weapons. Work on offensive biological warfare has been banned in this country for decades, so few American researchers understand its subtleties. ...
Researchers continue to hope that the magic of genetic analysis will come to the rescue by finding biological markers that would pinpoint the source of the anthrax, much as DNA testing can identify the perpetrator of an assault. On Thursday, scientists reported evidence that a genetic comparison should be able to narrow down the number of laboratories that could have produced the anthrax. But it remains unclear whether such analysis will ever provide incontrovertible proof of the precise source of the anthrax.
The F.B.I. remains convinced that the attacks were carried out by an American with scientific training, not by Al Qaeda or a rogue nation, but critics fear the bureau is so wedded to this theory that it has become blind to other possibilities. What investigators could most use now is a tip that would crack the case open, as it did in the Unabomber case. But Americans who worry about further biological terrorism cannot find much comfort in the fact that after seven months of intense investigation, the best chance of finding the anthrax terrorist is still for someone to simply turn him in.
Washington Times
To the people of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi symbolizes democracy and freedom. Her release last week from house arrest by the drug-trafficking, human-rights-violating, military government of Burma will allow the forces of liberty to gain some traction.
But the military is allowing democracy to gain only so much momentum. No date for elections has even been set. Although the military junta has released about 600 political detainees in recent months, more than 1,000 are still imprisoned. And in 1995, the junta had freed Mrs. Suu Kyi from confinement, only to arrest her again, solely because she tried to leave Burma's capital, Rangoon. In 1991, Mrs. Suu Kyi wasn't even able to collect her Noble Peace Prize, awarded for her courage in confronting the thuggish regime.
The junta claims it is merely serving as the guardian of Burma's stability until the country is ready for democracy. The junta's claim is clearly self-serving, and its 14-year rule clearly exposes its duplicity. The people of Burma have demonstrated they are quite ready for democracy. In 1988, the year the junta took power, the generals crushed mass pro-democracy demonstrations. Mrs. Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won 82 percent of the seats in parliament in a 1990 election, which the junta promptly nullified.
But perhaps more significant than the sanctions is the people's unwavering desire for democracy. Mrs. Suu Kyi's resilience and graciousness is also difficult for the junta to counter through brute force. She will surely, some day, set Burma on the path to freedom.
Chicago Tribune
The fumbling American response to Venezuela's recent flip-flop coup revealed that, despite hopes early on in the Bush administration, a coherent -- much less, new -- policy toward Latin America has yet to materialize.
President Hugo Chavez, a high-octane demagogue and fan of Fidel Castro, is an easy man to dislike. He alienated many powerful sectors in Venezuelan society and the U.S. The initial "good riddance" in Washington, seconded by a number of American newspapers, including this one, was not completely unjustified.
Yet Chavez was duly elected and his attempted ouster signals another crack in the edifice of Latin American democracy that seemed so solid during the 1980s. Argentina's president-for-a-day follies, Peru's palace intrigues, Colombia's eternal wars, the resurgence of army thugs in Guatemala, wholesale banditry by Nicaragua's leaders and Haiti's political and economic coma add up to a picture of a region in growing disarray.
What happened in Venezuela ought to be a signal that it's time for the United States to pay more attention to Latin America. Strategically and economically, the nation's immediate neighbors ought to remain at, or very near, the top of the list of foreign policy preoccupations.
The Bush administration and Congress ought to continue working toward free-trade agreements, leading to a hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas.
This is an ambitious agenda that will require decades to implement. But unless the Bush administration starts moving in that direction, American strategy in Latin America will never get past the image of Uncle Sam running around with a bucket, putting out the latest blaze.
Boston Herald
The United States, Israel and Europe may be profoundly sorry that they agreed to exile for 13 men who were among the occupiers of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Israel had singled them out as terrorists, and terrorists never give up their vile calling.
The men are to be moved to Italy, Spain, Greece, Luxembourg, Austria, Ireland and perhaps Canada. Nine are members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the homicide bombing group affiliated with Yasser Arafat's own Fatah organization; three are with Hamas, which claimed responsibility for this week's pool hall bombing that killed 16 Israeli civilians; and one is an official of the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem.
It is astonishing that conditions of exile were not specified. Italy says for those it takes, that will depend on details of their alleged offenses. The European Union has scheduled meetings to decide the legal status of the exiles in its countries.
As far as anybody knew when the church was evacuated, the exiles in Spain, for example, would be under no special prohibition or restrictions to keep them from cooperating with the assassins of the Basque separatist movement. There was nothing to prevent these men from acting as agents for their organizations back in Palestine. And no one had addressed the question of how to enforce their exile.
Given the disturbing anti-Semitism evident in Europe these days, European governments may have difficulty keeping the exiles under whatever restrictions - if any - the European Union comes up with, even if they try. It may fall to Israel to take protective action on its own. It is to be hoped that the exiles know that after Arafat's Fatah organization killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israeli agents over the next few years tracked down and killed every single Fatah operative involved who was still at large.
(Compiled by United Press International)
