SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2010


KLMNO


S


The World Haiti waits for word on Wyclef Jean’s candidacy by Mike Melia and Tamara Lush


port-au-prince, haiti — An anxious public waited Friday to hear whether hip-hop artist Wy- clef Jean would be allowed to run for president of Haiti, but one thing was already certain: The singer has brought sizzle to the election, attracting attention the country hasn’t seen since the wake of the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.


Dozens of police were on guard against possible violence outside the electoral commission, which was expected to release its list of eligible candidates. The docu- ment has already been delayed once this week because of un- certainty over candidate qualifi- cations. The Haitian-born musician, who was outside the capital, said his candidacy was being chal- lenged over the requirement that everyone who runs must have lived in the country for five years before the Nov. 28 election. Jean, whose parents brought him to the United States as a child, has lived off and on in Haiti in recent years, like many wealthy Haitians. He says he can’t meet the residency in part because he has been a roving ambassador, ap- pointed by President René Préval in 2007. A Haitian newspaper, Le Nou- velliste, on Thursday cited a mem- ber of the electoral commission as saying that Jean did not make the list. Officials with the agency de- clined to comment on the report and a lawyer for the musician, Jean Tholbert Alexis, insisted it was wrong. “I can confirm to you that Wy-


clef Jean will be on the list of can- didates for president,” Alexis told journalists in the lobby of the commission, located in a former gym since its previous home was


Koreas in war of Twitter words


South tries to block propaganda messages from North


by Chico Harlan


tokyo — The sour state of rela- tions on the Korean Peninsula has led to equally sour relations on the Internet, with North and South Korea now engaged in a micro-battle over micro-blog- ging. It started Aug. 12, when North


Korea opened a Twitter account, using the popular site to spread propaganda. The South this week responded by trying to block its citizens from accessing the con- tent, threatening offenders with jail. The North, in turn, engi- neered ways to bypass some of the censorship. As of Friday, South Korean


PHOTOS BY JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES Singer Wyclef Jean greets his neighbors before meeting with Haitian President René Préval in Port-au-Prince.


destroyed in the quake. “I have my own sources, and based on the meeting Wyclef had with President Préval yesterday, I can tell you that he will be on the list,” Alexis said. Jean, who gained famed as a member of the hip-hop group the Fugees before building a solo ca- reer, has no political organization, not much of a following beyond his fans of his music and only a vague platform. He also has faced persistent criticism over alleged


financial mismanagement at the charity he founded, Yele Haiti. On the other hand, he has gen-


erated global attention to a race in which almost no one outside Hai- ti could even name any of the can- didates.


“If he hadn’t been involved, to-


day, no one would be talking about candidates in the Haitian presidential election,” said Mark Jones, a professor of political sci- ence at Rice University. —Associated Press


Jean is waiting to hear whether he is eligible to run for the Nov. 28 presidential election. Haiti’s electoral


authorities were scheduled to release the list of the presidential candidates Friday.


Internet users who sought out the North’s Twitter page instead received a warning from the Ko- rea Communications Standards Commission saying that the site had been banned because of “ille- gal content.” “The current measure is work-


Karzai will support anti-corruption teams


Kerry, Afghan president has a change of heart


by Joshua Partlow and David Nakamura


kabul — After a series of meet- ings this week with Sen. John F. Kerry, President Hamid Karzai said Friday that he would support the independent work of two anti-corruption law enforcement units that had come under politi- cal pressure from his office after the arrest of one of his aides last month. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made an unsched- uled return visit to Kabul on Thursday to continue discussions he began with Karzai earlier in the week. He had traveled to Af- ghanistan in part to discuss U.S. concerns over Karzai’s decision to exert control over the work of the Major Crimes Task Force and the Special Investigative Unit, two U.S.-backed Afghan law enforce- ment teams that arrested a senior security adviser, Mohammad Zia Salehi, on allegations of corrup-


After meetings with


pearance together after their meeting Friday. Karzai’s office is- sued a separate statement saying the two agreed on the need to re- duce civilian casualties, disband private security firms and accel- erate Afghanistan’s assumption of control over its affairs. Karzai’s statement added that the anti- corruption teams should be free of “foreign interference or politi- cal influence.” Afghan officials familiar with


YURI CORTEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who met this week with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry, agreed to support the independent work of two anti-corruption units.


tion. “President Karzai reiterated


that it was a key national security interest of Afghanistan to ad- dress corruption and its underly- ing causes comprehensively and across the board,” Kerry said in a statement.


“The president and I agreed


that the work of these entities must be allowed to continue free from outside interference or po- litical influence, including with respect to ongoing cases,” he add- ed.


Kerry and Karzai made an ap-


Salehi’s case said Karzai person- ally intervened to release him from jail the day he was arrested. The president’s criticism of the anti-corruption teams has ham- pered investigators’ ability to pursue cases against Karzai’s al- lies, the officials said. Karzai has accused the teams of violating human rights and operating without regard to the constitu- tion.


Salehi, who works with Af- ghanistan’s national security council, was arrested on allega- tions of soliciting a bribe to help shut down an investigation into a politically connected money transfer business. He was also under investigation for allegedly doling out cash and vehicles from a palace fund, the officials said. Kerry said both sides “recog-


nized the necessity of ensuring that these organizations respect human rights and the Afghan constitution,” as well as the need to establish a new legal frame- work for their work. Some Afghans were skeptical of Karzai’s renewed commitment to fighting corruption. “These statements are a bit too


late for the situation we are in. In Afghanistan, we are suffering from larger problems,” said Mo- hammad Daud Sultanzoy, a mem- ber of parliament representing Ghazni province. “These state- ments are good when a problem is beginning, but when we are nose-deep in problems, we need action. The government of Af- ghanistan needs to fix problems yesterday; we cannot afford semi- nars.” Fawzia Koofi, another lawmak-


er, said: “When it comes to Presi- dent Karzai’s commitment to cor- ruption and rule of law, I’m not very hopeful. There’s very little sense of accountability. There’s no checks and balances. . . . Their efforts against corruption don’t prevent corruption. It is just words to make it look like they are doing something.” partlowj@washpost.com nakamurad@washpost.com


U.S., Afghanistan to count currency at Kabul airport afghanistan from A1


It is legal to carry large sums of cash out of Afghanistan, as long as the transfers are declared. But authorities have grown increas- ingly convinced that much of the money is being siphoned from U.S.-backed aid projects and is swelling secret accounts being set up by Afghan elite in other countries, including the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.


Source of contention


Concern over corruption in Af- ghanistan — where the United States is spending tens of billions of dollars as part of the war effort — has become a major source of contention between Washington and Kabul.


Karzai has lashed out against


investigations that have implicat- ed members of his inner circle and has moved to limit the pow- ers of U.S.-backed anti-corrup- tion teams. On Friday, Karzai pledged to support the units, but he also said in a statement that the teams should be free of “for- eign interference or political in- fluence.”


Obama administration offi- cials describe the issue as an emerging crisis, with a key con- gressional panel threatening to withhold $4 billion in aid until it


is clear that the money won’t be squandered in a country regard- ed as among the most corrupt in the world. “Hundreds of millions of dol- lars leave the country every month in cash,” said a senior U.S. official involved in anti-corrup- tion probes. Much of that money “was meant to be spent in Af- ghanistan. When it’s being si- phoned off or diverted, then there’s no benefit to the Afghan economy or public.” A spokeswoman for the U.S.


Department of Homeland Securi- ty, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, de- clined to comment on the plan to install currency counters in Ka- bul. “The U.S. government is working very closely with our Af- ghan partners to detect and end bulk cash smuggling,” said the spokeswoman, Amy Kudwa. “We are not in a position to discuss specific new tools or methods we may be developing to track fi- nances.”


Afghan and U.S. officials, speaking about the plan on the condition of anonymity, said it calls for the installation of three or four counting machines at the airport in the next several months. “Everybody has to be screened” under new rules being


drawn up, said a senior Afghan official. “Everybody has to be checked. Everybody has to make a declaration.”


Staggering flow Declarations filed over the past


year, which almost certainly un- derstate the amount of money being transferred, nevertheless indicate a staggering flow. Docu- ments reviewed by The Washing- ton Post this year showed that passengers took more than $180 million to Dubai during a two-month period in 2009. At that rate, the amount of money being carried out over the course of the year would have exceeded the country’s annual tax revenue of $875 million. On a single day this year, seven couriers declared $8 million in U.S. dollars, according to a sec- ond U.S. official familiar with ef- forts to track the money. In April, officials encountered a courier for a financial transfer firm who reported that he was carrying $700,000 on a flight to Dubai, but when customs officials in- spected the courier’s luggage, they found an additional $600,000. The volume of money, much of which is legitimate, was tempo- rarily tracked by Global Strat- egies Group, a British company


that compiled reports on the transfers at the request of Af- ghanistan’s domestic spy service, the National Directorate of Secu- rity. But the effort did not include recording serial numbers, and, after objections from Afghani- stan’s police force, Global Strat- egies ceased compiling the re- ports altogether in September. The senior Afghan official said


the new devices would allow for a more accurate tally of how much money is being carried out and help uncover whether donor funding is being diverted from reconstruction projects or other foreign aid. Tracking serial numbers would enable authorities to trace mon- ey to where it had been issued, deposited and withdrawn. A senior U.S. official said that serial numbers on U.S. currency were used to develop the corrup- tion case against Afghanistan’s former minister of Islamic affairs this year. The minister, Moham- mad Siddiq Chakari, has been ac- cused of extorting millions of dollars from companies seeking contracts to take pilgrims to the Muslim holy land in Saudi Ara- bia, a trip known as the hajj. Chakari, who left Kabul for


London, has repeatedly denied the allegations. But the U.S. offi- cial said associates of Chakari


were caught bringing stacks of cash into Afghanistan and claimed that they were simply re- turning with money they had car- ried with them to Saudi Arabia to pay for travel and hotels. Using serial numbers, the official said, investigators were able to show that the bank notes were new and had gone from a U.S. print- ing facility to Saudi Arabia. “In fact, it was money that had


never been in Afghanistan,” the official said. Installing currency counters in Kabul, the official said, “will let you tell a history of where the money came from.” U.S. officials declined to pro-


vide details on the machines. The Department of Homeland Securi- ty has a directorate of science and technology that conducts and funds research into devices that have security applications, such as sensors that can be de- ployed to detect explosive liquids at airports or airborne toxins in subways. But Kudwa, the depart- ment spokeswoman, would not acknowledge that the currency counters existed, let alone whether the department’s re- search directorate had played a role in their development. millergreg@washpost.com partlowj@washpost.com


Partlow reported from Kabul.


ing effectively enough,” said Han Myeong Ho of the agency’s ille- gal-information review division. “But various ways need to be re- viewed to completely block ac- cess to North Korean accounts.” Using the Twitter name uri- minzok, Pyongyang has ventured into the social-media world, mostly by tweeting links to a Web site that vilifies South Korean and U.S. policies, provides official state news accounts and occa- sionally details modernization work at factories. One Twitter- linked story Thursday mentioned that Kim Jong Il had sent food to two women celebrating their 100th birthdays. On Friday, in another twist,


North Korea used a link on its Twitter account to redirect Inter- net users to an apparently related Facebook page. The Facebook ac- count, Uriminzokkiri — roughly “our nation” — has prompted South Korea to investigate it; if it is confirmed as a North Korean account, it will be blocked. Seoul has confirmed that the


Twitter account, which now has more than 9,000 followers, is op- erated by an official arm of the Korean Workers’ Party. The South Korean government’s response to Pyongyang’s propaganda feed contrasts sharply with U.S. recep- tiveness. On Tuesday, State De- partment spokesman P.J. Crow- ley wrote on his own Twitter page, “We use Twitter to connect, to inform, and to debate. We wel- come North #Korea to Twitter and the networked world.” He also wrote, “The North Korean government has joined Twitter, but is it prepared to allow its citi- zens to be connected as well?” In Pyongyang, only the most


privileged citizens have access to the Internet. “For most North Ko- reans, ‘Twitter’ is a word from the moon or Venus,” said Young How- ard, president of Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based group with contacts in the North. But North Korea is also be-


lieved to maintain a group of master programmers and hack- ers. South Korea has a cyber de- fense team that monitors hacking threats from the North. Under its stringent National


Security Law, the South Korean government gives itself the right to ban access to pro-communist information. Already, Seoul blocks several dozen pro-North Korean or North Korean-run Web sites, though that does not apply to the North Korean YouTube channel, which launched about a month ago. According to the As- sociated Press, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification warned earlier this week that South Ko- rean citizens could face punish- ment for “retweeting” or replying to North Korea’s Twitter messag- es.


“Personally, I am very skeptical of South Korean policy to block all Web sites of North Korea,” Howard said. “We are a democ- racy. We don’t have to do this.” North Korea has conducted its social media propaganda strictly in Korean. This week, Pyong- yang’s Twitter persona also spawned a parody — Fake_Uri- minzok. On Friday, Fake_Uriminzok


wrote, “the dear leader has decid- ed to challenge US devil-leader #Barack Obama to a game of 1-1 basketball at his palace in Pyong- yang.”


harlanc@washpost.com


Special correspondent Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.


A7


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76