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Ecuador president issues pardons in libel cases BY JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
BOGOTA — Amid mounting global criticism, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said he will drop two controversial lawsuits against the authors of a book and El Universo newspaper. The criminal libel suits brought by the president had been condemned by human rights groups and free-speech advocates that accused his administration of trying to muzzle the press. On Monday, Correa said he was issuing a pardon because he had made his point: that the media was not above the law. “We have shown that you can sue and beat the abusive media,” he said. Ecuador’s courts recently ordered three EL Universo executives and one columnist to pay $42 million and serve 3-year prison terms, for an editorial they published that focused on the events of September 2010, when Correa was briefly taken hostage by protesting policemen. Four security officers died when they raided the hospital to free the president. A fifth person died at a separate location. In a February 2011 editorial, columnist Emilio Palacio suggested that a future president might press charges, including crimes against humanity, against Correa for ordering troops to attack a hospital full of innocent civilians. Correa took the newspaper to court and said he would withdraw the suit if it apologized or provided evidence backing the editorial. The newspaper did neither, but said it had a constitutional right to question the president’s actions that day. The columnist, Palacio, has sought political asylum in South Florida. On Monday, he said the presidential pardon was a direct response to international pressure. But Palacio said he still can’t go home. He’s also facing a three-year prison sentence for calling a staterun television station “fascist” and he’s being investigated over the source of a videotape he cited in one of his articles. “I saw today’s speech as a defensive reaction against the national and international pressure he was facing,” Palacio said from his home in South Florida. “But he was quite clear that his fight against the media would continue.”
INTERNATIONAL EDITION
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2012 109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
Israel won’t warn U.S. on Iran strike, officials say BY KIMBERLY DOZIER Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Israeli officials say they won’t warn the United States if they decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, toplevel conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill. Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the
United States in the dark to decrease the likelihood that Washington would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel’s potential attack. The United States has been working with the Israelis for months to convince them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran’s nuclear program. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of highlevel U.S. visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security advisor,
the director of national intelligence and top U.S. lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the United States over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu delivered the same message to all the U.S. officials who have traveled to Israel for talks, the U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic negotiations. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon and Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, as did the
Israeli Embassy. Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the International Atomic Energy Agency has raised alarms that its uranium enrichment program might be a precursor to building nuclear weapons. The United States has said it does not know whether the government has decided to weaponize its nuclear material and put it on a missile or other delivery device. The secret warning is likely to worry U.S. officials and begin the high-level meetings with Israel • TURN TO ISRAEL, 2A
DAVID CHESKIN/GETTY IMAGES
Alex Salmond, chief of the Scottish National Party, left, meets with Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron during talks in St. Andrews House in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Scotland nationalists embracing tartan pride BY ANTHONY FAIOLA
Washington Post Service
EDINBURGH, Scotland — After centuries of war with England, politicians in this stately city signed away Scotland’s sovereignty in the early 1700s for the promise of riches and the glory of empire. Three hundred years later, resurgent nationalists here are plotting a new rebellion to win it back. Appealing to the force of tar-
tan pride, the Scottish National Party won surprise control of the regional Parliament last year, which thrust the separatist fantasy of hearing Scots Wha Hae on the bagpipes as the national anthem into the realm of distinct possibility. The British government, boxed into a precarious corner, has opened formal negotiations with the Scots to set a date for an independence referendum.
Scotland’s independence crusade is emerging as the greatest threat to the cohesion of the United Kingdom since Ireland achieved independence — a three-decade process that culminated in 1949, when Ireland left the Commonwealth. Scotland won the right to a “devolved” Parliament in the late 1990s and has sweeping powers over, for example, its judicial system and government
spending. But full independence would give the SNP the authority to fulfill a wide array of pledges, including expelling the British nuclear fleet from Scottish waters, withdrawing from NATO and unwinding Scottish regiments from Britain’s military forces overseas. It would also give politicians in Edinburgh the freedom to vote • TURN TO SCOTLAND, 2A
Iran’s ‘Separation:’ Oscar glow and slap at Israel
U.S. won’t alter Afghan strategy
BY NASSER KARIMI AND BRIAN MURPHY
BY CRAIG WHITLOCK
TEHRAN — Iran has hailed the country’s first Oscar-winning film as a triumph over arch-foe Israel after an Academy Award race with its own subplots: Iranian officials giving a grudging nod to cinema and Israeli audiences flocking to see a made-in-Tehran drama. On Monday, Iran’s state-spun praise for A Separation, which beat out an Israeli film and three others in the foreign language category, was mostly wrapped in patriotic boasting as a conquest for Iranian culture and a blow for Israel’s perceived outsized influence in the United States. Yet the high-profile attention by the Islamic leadership also represented a rare stamp of approval for Iran’s movie industry. Iranian filmmakers have collected awards and accolades worldwide for decades, but Iranian hard-liners often denounce domestic cinema as dominated by Western-tainted liberals and polit-
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said that it will not change its “fundamental strategy” in Afghanistan despite a week of crises that have worsened the strained partnership between the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO forces. U.S. officials acknowledge that tensions remain high in Kabul and that distrust has not dissipated since last weekend’s killing of two U.S. military officers inside the Afghan Interior Ministry, apparently by a rogue Afghan security officer. The killings, which prompted Marine Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander, to pull service members from the ministries, has forced NATO advisors in Kabul to limit communication with Afghan government ministries to telephone and e-mail. U.S. officials said Monday that, although the measure is temporary, no date has been set for the advisors to return to work. • TURN TO STRATEGY, 2A
Associated Press
SPANISH JUDGE CLEARED OF ABUSE OF POWER CHARGES, 3A
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Washington Post Service
JOEL RYAN/AP
Asghar Farhadi poses with his Oscar for best foreign language film, A Separation, during the 84th Academy Awards. ical dissenters. Some directors and the House of Cinema, was ordered actors have faced arrest or fled the closed. country. In January, a well-known independent film group in Tehran, • TURN TO OSCAR, 2A
FRANCE TRIES 3 IN ABSENTIA OVER 1988 SHIP ATTACK, 6A
EURO LEADERS POSTPONE DEBT CRISIS MEETING, BUSINESS FRONT
SPANISH CLIMBER, 73, HAS SIGHTS SET ON WORLD’S TOP PEAKS, SPORTS FRONT
The deaths of the two U.S. officers on Saturday followed a similar incident two days earlier in which two U.S. troops were gunned down by an Afghan soldier in Nangahar province. At least 36 U.S. and NATO troops have been killed by Afghans wearing official police or army uniforms since the start of last year, according to a review of military casualty reports. The fratricidal attacks have fueled suspicions at a vulnerable time for the U.S. military and NATO, which are trying to partner more closely with Afghan security forces so they can take over responsibility for the war against the Taliban and other insurgents. Former U.S. officials and analysts have said the consequences of an erosion of confidence in the U.S.-Afghan partnership could be devastating for NATO’s strategy to end combat operations by the end of 2014. On Monday, Pentagon officials sought to play down the effects of
INDEX THE AMERICAS............4A U.S. NEWS ...................5A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ..6B
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