1. sports
2. trekking

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014
ANALYSIS
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Issues
Nepal disaster a
‘wake-up call’ for
trekkers, agencies
By Ammu Kannampilly
A
snowstorm that killed dozens of people in Nepal is
a “wake-up call” for the trekking industry and
tourists alike, experts say, with some heading to
the world’s highest mountains unprepared for conditions
that can easily turn deadly. At least 26 hikers, guides and
porters were killed when heavy snow and avalanches
struck the Annapurna circuit in the Himalayas last Tuesday
at the height of the trekking season, in one of the worst
disasters ever to hit the country. Hundreds more have had
to be airlifted to safety, some suffering from frostbite after
days in freezing conditions without adequate clothing or
shelter.
But unlike a deadly avalanche that hit Mount Everest
earlier this year, experts say the latest disaster could have
been alleviated had warnings of bad weather in the area
been heeded. “This is a wake-up call for us. We need a
weather warning system and emergency shelters for
stranded hikers,” Nepal Tourism Board spokesman Sharad
Pradhan told AFP as emergency workers continued to
pull bodies out of the snow, almost a week after the storm
hit. “It’s also a reminder for thousands of trekkers who
think they can go up 4,000-5,000 metres alone that they
need to take responsibility for their safety,” he added. “If
they had gone with registered guides, the casualties
would have been much lower.”
Every year thousands of tourists hike the Annapurna
circuit, known as the “apple pie” trek because of the food
served at the lodges known as teahouses that line the
route. Most of the route follows clearly marked paths at
relatively low altitudes, making it suitable for inexperienced trekkers. But the Thorong La pass, near where
many of the victims were killed, climbs to 5,416 m, exposing trekkers to the risk of altitude sickness as well as avalanches. “It’s not an ordinary trek if you go up to the
Thorong La pass - it’s almost mountaineering,” said Kunda
Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times and an authority on the
Himalayas.
Paul Sherridan, a British survivor who has described
how his group made their way to safety in near-zero visibility, claimed trekkers were “herded to their deaths” by
Nepalese guides who lacked the expertise to deal with
the conditions. “My view is that this incident could have
been prevented,” the 49-year-old policeman told the BBC.
Warning Systems
Nepal’s prime minister has promised to set up weather
warning systems in remote mountain areas, particularly
those popular with tourists. But experts say much more
needs to be done to raise awareness of the dangers of
trekking at altitude in a country where many tourists head
into the mountains with little preparation. Anna Solander,
a 21-year-old Swede among the many young people who
flock to Nepal for holidays, had planned to hike across the
Annapurna region later this month - but said she was now
debating whether to go ahead. “I didn’t even know that
trekking was, like, dangerous - I thought it was only dangerous if you go for Everest or something,” she said.
About 30 percent of the around 200,000 hikers who
trek in Nepal every year do so without a registered guide,
according to Pradhan, who said trekkers needed to shoulder some responsibility for their own safety. Some survivors have said they were unaware the storm was coming when they set out on their trek - even though it had
been forecast by meteorologists.
But much of the blame for the scale of the disaster has
fallen on trekking agencies, who critics say should have
been better prepared. Tashi Sherpa, a trekking agency
head who postponed his clients’ trip after seeing the
weather forecast, said lives could have been saved had
the proper precautions been taken. “We take many precautions when we go up the Annapurna circuit - we carry
emergency oxygen, masks, medicines, satellite phones,
extra jackets, snowboots, goggles. Basically whatever we
might need in case the weather turns bad,” said Sherpa,
director of the Seven Summit Treks agency in Kathmandu.
Sherpa said there were no particular requirements to
open a trekking agency in Nepal and called for better
government regulation. “There are no criteria in place to
open a trekking company - anyone can do it, regardless of
experience,” he told AFP. “If you speak enough English and
you can convince clients, you are in business.” But Dixit
cautioned against overregulation of trekking in Nepal and
said improving mobile communications in mountain
areas should be the priority. “The spirit of trekking in
Nepal’s mountains, it’s about the freedom to go anywhere, with or without a guide,” he said. “If you start regulating it, you lose that freedom.” —AFP
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Doubt over Nigeria-Boko Haram ‘ceasefire’
By Phil Hazlewood
N
igeria’s announcement of a ceasefire with Boko
Haram has surprised many and convinced few, particularly when talks with the militants on the possible release of 219 kidnapped schoolgirls had been at a
frustrating standstill. The insurgents have had the upper
hand in fighting in the far northeast in recent months,
reportedly seizing at least two dozen towns and villages as
part of their quest to establish a hardline Islamic state. And
in the aftermath of Friday’s declaration by Nigeria’s military
and presidency, reports of attacks continue to emerge,
casting further doubts about the credibility of the ceasefire
claim.
The announcement has been greeted with scepticism
by security analysts, those with knowledge of previous
negotiation attempts with Boko Haram and ordinary
Nigerians suspicious about their government’s motives.
“The kinds of claims have been made (by the government)
a number of times before,” said Shehu Sani, a lawyer and
civil rights activist who has been involved in previous back
channel talks.
Identity Issues
The main question mark was the identity of the purported Boko Haram envoy, Danladi Ahmadu, who claimed
to be the group’s chief of security and to have been
involved in talks to broker the deal. “Danladi Ahmadu is
NOT part of #BH Shura (ruling council) or speak for them as
far as I know,” said Ahmad Salkida, a Nigerian journalist said
to have high-level contacts among the group’s leaders. He
“does not speak” for Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau,
he wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Further doubts came after Ahmadu failed to announce
explicitly that Boko Haram had agreed to a ceasefire or
give concrete details about the girls’ release in an interview
broadcast on Voice of America radio’s Hausa language
service on Friday. “It is not clear who the said Boko Haram
negotiator is and whether he has the mandate of the entire
group or just a faction of the entire group,” said Nnamdi
Obasi, Nigeria researcher for the International Crisis Group.
Talks and Deals
Ordinarily, a clear statement about such a development
would be expected from Shekau, who has previously
refused to end the violence until strict Islamic law is
imposed across northern Nigeria. He has also said the
schoolgirls would only be released if Nigeria agreed to a
prisoner swap of jailed militants. Talks on that issue broke
down in recent months over Abuja’s refusal to accept such
a demand, several sources involved have indicated to AFP.
“There are no immediate details about what Boko Haram is
getting out of the deal - and it is unlikely that it would give
up all the girls for nothing,” added Obasi. “If we see Boko
Haram getting a major prisoner swap as part of the deal,
that would dampen some of the excitement.”
Claims of amnesty deals in the past with Boko Haram to
end the five years of violence have come to nothing and
exposed the apparent factional nature of the group, several analysts noted. Previous military statements about the
conflict that have been contradicted by reports on the
ground have also increased doubts. In the days after the
mass kidnapping, for example, defence officials maintained
that most of the girls had escaped but were forced to
retract.
Cynical Politics?
Many observers viewed the announcement as politically
motivated, with President Goodluck Jonathan expected to
announce that he will stand for re-election in coming weeks.
Positive news about the insurgency and the kidnapped girls
- whether true or not - would likely give him and his ruling
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) a political boost even if violence continues. Ahmadu indicated in his interview that any
further violence would be perpetrated by “hooligans and
thieves” and not Boko Haram, which could sow enough
doubt to get the government off the hook.
The timing also comes just days after the six-month
anniversary of the girls’ abduction, with renewed domestic
and international attention on their plight. But Ryan
Cummings, chief analyst for sub-Saharan Africa at risk consultants Red24, said even if confirmed, Boko Haram’s
upholding of a ceasefire should be seen as temporary.
“Boko Haram has not been pressured in any way to lay
down their arms and it remains highly unlikely that the
Nigerian government would cede to all of the sect’s
demands,” he said in an email exchange. —AFP
Expelled Nazis got millions in benefits
By David Rising, Randy
Herschaft and Richard Lardner
D
ozens of suspected Nazi
war criminals and SS
guards collected millions
of dollars in US Social Security
benefits after being forced out of
the United States, an AP investigation has found. The payments,
underwritten by American taxpayers, flowed through a legal loophole that gave the US Justice
Department leverage to persuade
Nazi suspects to leave the US If
they agreed to go, or simply fled
before deportation, they could
keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal US
government records.
Among those receiving benefits were armed SS troops who
guarded the network of Nazi
camps where millions of Jews
perished; a rocket scientist who
used slave laborers to advance
his research in the Third Reich;
and a Nazi collaborator who engineered the arrest and execution
of thousands of Jews in Poland.
There are at least four living beneficiaries. They include Martin
Hartmann, a former SS guard at
the Sachsenhausen camp in
Germany, and Jakob Denzinger,
who patrolled the grounds at the
Auschwitz camp complex in
Poland.
Hartmann moved to Berlin in
2007 from Arizona just before
being stripped of his US citizenship. Denzinger fled to Germany
from Ohio in 1989 after learning
denaturalization proceedings
against him were underway. He
soon resettled in Croatia and now
lives in a spacious apartment on
the right bank of the Drava River
in Osijek. Denzinger would not
discuss his situation when questioned by an AP reporter;
Denzinger’s son, who lives in the
US, confirmed his father receives
Social Security payments and said
he deserved them.
The deals allowed the Justice
Department’s former Nazi-hunting
unit, the Office of Special
Investigations, to skirt lengthy
deportation hearings and
increased the number of Nazis it
expelled from the US. But internal
US government records obtained
by the AP reveal heated objections from the State Department
Maloney of New York, a senior
Democratic member of the House
Oversight and Government
Reform Committee. She said she
plans to introduce legislation to
close the loophole. Efraim Zuroff,
the head Nazi hunter at the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem,
said he would support efforts to
close the loophole. “If it can be
upon learning after the fact about
a deal made with Martin Bartesch,
a former SS guard at the
Mauthausen concentration camp
in Austria. In 1987, Bartesch landed, unannounced, at the airport in
Vienna. Two days later, under the
terms of the deal, his US citizenship was revoked.
The Romanian-born Bartesch,
In this July 28, 2014 photo, Jakob Denzinger looks from his apartment window in Osijek in
eastern Croatia. —AP
to OSI’s practices. Social Security
benefits became tools, US diplomatic officials said, to secure
agreements in which Nazi suspects would accept the loss of citizenship and voluntarily leave the
United States.
“It’s absolutely outrageous that
Nazi war criminals are continuing
to receive Social Security benefits
when they have been outlawed
from our country for many, many,
many years,” said US Rep Carolyn
done, it should be done,” he said in
an interview Monday.
Since 1979, the AP analysis
found, at least 38 of 66 suspects
removed from the country kept
their Social Security benefits. The
Social Security Administration
expressed outrage in 1997 over
the use of benefits, the documents show, and blowback in foreign capitals reverberated at the
highest levels of government.
Austrian authorities were furious
who had emigrated to the US in
1955, was suddenly stateless and
Austria’s problem. Bartesch continued to receive Social Security
benefits until he died in 1989. “It
was not upfront, it was not transparent, it was not a legitimate
process,” said James Hergen, an
assistant legal adviser at the State
Department from 1982 until 2007.
“This was not the way America
should behave. We should not be
dumping our refuse, for lack of a
better word, on friendly states.”
Diplomatic Niceties
Neal Sher, a former OSI director, said the State Department
cared more about diplomatic
niceties than holding former
members of Adolf Hitler’s war
machine accountable. Amid the
objections, the practice known as
“Nazi dumping” stopped. But the
benefits loophole wasn’t closed.
Justice Department spokesman
Peter Carr said in an emailed statement that Social Security payments never were employed to
persuade Nazi suspects to depart
voluntarily.
The
Social
Security
Administration refused the AP’s
request for the total number of
Nazi suspects who received benefits and the dollar amounts of
those payments. Spokesman
William “BJ” Jarrett said the agency
does not track data specific to
Nazi cases. A further barrier, Jarrett
said, is that there is no exception
in US privacy law that “allows us to
disclose information because the
individual is a Nazi war criminal or
an accused Nazi war criminal”. The
department also declined to make
the acting commissioner, Carolyn
Colvin, or another senior agency
official available for an interview.
Paul Shapiro, director of the
United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum’s Mandel Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies, said
the revelation that many received
Social Security benefits even after
removal was revealing. “Beyond
the undermining of American values that these people represented, as a group they gained leverage over government policy in
critical areas relating to national
security and immigration policy,”
he said yesterday. “And even
decades later as they were forced
to leave the country they continued to apply that leverage at the
expense of the American taxpayer.” —AP