Not So Silent Night
The front pages of the Christmas papers are splashed with violence and
bloodshed. The Washington Post lead reports that soldiers in the Ivory
Coast mounted a coup d'etat, ousting President Henri Konan Bedie and suspending
the country's constitution, courts, and parliament. "I will take care of
everybody. You should not be worried," announced retired Gen. Robert Guei, who
claimed to be in charge. Meanwhile, army troops and civilians alike pillaged
the capital city of Abidjan. The soldiers' motives are still unclear-- some
seem to be after back pay, while others said they specifically wanted to topple
Bedie. Bedie may be under house arrest or may have taken refuge at the French
ambassador's residence-- no one's sure yet. The papers describe the Ivory Coast
as a former oasis of stability in war-torn West Africa.
The New York Times and Los Angeles
Times front the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight bound from
Katmandu to New Delhi with 189 people abroad (the WP reefers the story).
Since terrorists seized it on Friday, the plane has touched down in India,
Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Afghanistan. The hijackers claim to
have killed four passengers, but so far they've released only one corpse, along
with three men, nine women, and 13 children. The papers tentatively identify
the hijackers as Sikhs, but don't give any background on their history or
goals. (The Sikh minority has long sought freedom from Indian rule. Many
moderate Sikhs seek autonomy; more extreme factions want independence, and have
long used violent means to pursue it.) The NYT tentatively speculates
that the hijacking is related to the Indian-Pakistani tug-of-war over Kashmir
but doesn't say how. The LAT mentions the possibility that the
hijackers are Kashmiris.
The LAT lead wonders if U.S. law enforcement officials are too quick
to broadcast warnings about terrorist threats to the public. By erring "on the
side of overexposure," authorities may be encouraging mass paranoia. As
evidence for this nationwide hysteria, the story quotes a gun shop owner in Las
Vegas who's been unloading an unusually high number of gas masks and
bulletproof vests (if ammo shops in Las Vegas are a reliable indicator of the
country's mood, then Today's Papers is moving to Denmark). The story also says
that disclosure of the threats generates intense media coverage, which in turn
means that the extremist groups get exactly what they're after--national
publicity. The tell-all policy is a reaction to the explosion of Pan Am Flight
103 in 1988, when the State Department was condemned for sharing some threats
with its embassies but not with the public. Many of the points in the story
were stated in an op-ed in Thursday's NYT written by a former CIA-nik.
These arguments seem to have migrated a little too quickly from the NYT
to the LAT and from the op-ed page to the front page.
A WP front pager reports that Canadian authorities have issued an
arrest warrant for Abdelmajed Dahoumane, former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the
man arrested last week for trying to enter Washington state while carrying
ingredients for explosives. Workers at the Vancouver motel where they'd stayed
said their room stank of rotten eggs--more evidence that they may have been
brewing up bombs. The WP reminds readers that on Christmas Eve five
years ago, armed hijackers from an Algerian independence group with which
Ressam is linked hijacked an Air France jet. They were foiled when French
anti-terrorist commandos stormed the jet as it was parked and killed the
terrorists.
The LAT reports that very little of last year's $206 billion
settlement between states and tobacco companies is being used for anti-smoking
programs. Instead, the money is being used for sundry bread-and-butter
projects: new sidewalks, tax cuts, boot camps, school construction. The suit,
of course, was filed expressly to fund anti-smoking efforts.
Front-page reports in the WP and LAT report that millennial
Christmas Eve in Bethlehem was peaceful, if a bit sparsely attended--many
visitors stayed away from fear of violence. Meanwhile, midnight mass St.
Peter's Basilica in the Vatican was thronged with worshippers. Perhaps they
came for the e-goodies: this year, the Vatican produced "pilgrim cards"
embedded with microchips, which visitors can swipe to reserve seats at masses,
on tour buses, and in restaurants.
