The Boston Globe - 20.08.2019

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019 The Boston Globe A

The World

KABUL — As Afghanistan
mourned the 63 people killed
in a suicide bombing at a Kabul
wedding, a brother of the
groom spoke through tears of
his weariness at the bloodshed
in the country and the crushing
guilt he felt at having to face
his neighbors, many of whom
lost relatives in the weekend
blast.
‘‘Around 20 victims’ families
live in our very neighborhood,’’

said 22-year-old Ramin, whose

brother, Mirwais Alami, sur-

vived along with his bride,

Raihana.

‘‘We don’t know how we

should look at them,’’ said

Ramin, who like many Afghans

uses only one name. ‘‘Maybe

they don’t want us, or like us,

anymore.’’

He was drained after a day

of burying the dead, which in-

cluded the 8-year-old brother

of the bride. The bomber deto-

nated his explosives Saturday

night in the middle of a danc-

ing crowd in the wedding hall,

wounding nearly 200 others.

The attack was claimed by an

affiliate of the Islamic State.

Many outraged Afghans are

asking whether an expected

deal between the United States

and the Taliban to end nearly

18 years of fighting — Ameri-

ca’s longest war — will bring

peace as the Islamic State affili-

ate poses a growing threat.

‘‘We don’t care who will

make a peace deal. We don’t

care who will come into pow-

er,’’ Ramin said. ‘‘What we

want is peace.’’

The Islamic State affiliate

later said the bomber had tar-

geted a gathering of minority

Shi’ites, whom it views as apos-

tates deserving of death.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Afghanistanmourns,vowstocrushmilitantsafterattackbyIslamicState

MANOKWARI, Indonesia

— Thousands of people in In-

donesia’s West Papua province

set fire to a local Parliament

building on Monday in a pro-

test sparked by accusations

that security forces had arrest-

ed and insulted students from

neighboring Papua province,

officials said.

The angry mob torched the

building and set fire to cars

and tires on several blocked

roads leading to a seaport,

shopping centers and offices in

Manokwari, the capital of

West Papua province, Vice

Governor Mohammad Lako-

tani said.

‘‘The city’s economy has

been paralyzed by the demon-

strators,’’ Lakotani said.

Television footage showed

orange flames and gray smoke

billowing from the burning

building.

An insurgency has sim-

mered in Papua since the early

1960s, when Indonesia an-

nexed the region, a former

Dutch colony.

Protesters also destroyed

parts of an airport in Sorong,

another city in West Papua

province, local Police Chief

Mario Christy Siregar said.

He said rioters broke win-

dows and burned some be-

longings, but security forces

were able to secure the facility

and the incident did not dis-

turb airport activities.

Lakotani said the demon-

stration in Manokwari was

triggered by allegations that

police had arrested and insult-

ed dozens of Papuan students

in their dormitories in the East

Java city of Surabaya a day ear-

lier.

Police stormed the dormi-

tories in Surabaya, Indonesia’s

second-largest city, on Sunday

after Papuan students staying

there refused to be questioned

over allegations that they had

intentionally damaged the na-

tional red-and-white flag in

the dormitory’s yard.

East Java police spokesman

Frans Barung Mangera said 43

students were detained but re-

leased hours later after no evi-

dence was found that they had

damaged the flag.

Amateur video showing po-

lice, backed by soldiers, calling

the Papuan students ‘‘mon-

keys’’ and ‘‘dogs’’ circulated

widely on the Internet, spark-

ing anger in Papua and West

Papua.

President Joko Widodo

urged people to forgive each

other after the riots.

‘‘My brothers and sisters in

Papua and West Papua, I know

you feel offended. Therefore,

as fellow countrymen, to for-

give each other is the best. You

may get angry but forgiving is

better,’’ Widodo said. ‘‘Please

believe that the government

will maintain the honor and

welfare of all people in Papua

and West Papua.’’

National Police Chief Tito

Karnavian expressed regret

over the riots in West Papua,

which he said had been trig-

gered by the treatment of the

Papuan students and by a hoax

about a Papuan student being

killed during the detentions in

Surabaya.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ProtestersburnParliament

buildinginIndonesia’sPapua

MOSCOW — Russia’s lower
house of Parliament on Mon-
day set up a commission to ex-
amine alleged cases of foreign
interference in connection
with a series of protests
against the Moscow City Coun-
cil election, while President
Vladimir Putin defended the
harsh police crackdown on
some of the demonstrations.
The commission estab-
lished by the State Duma holds
its first session on Aug. 30.
This summer, thousands of
people have demonstrated —
in both authorized and un-
sanctioned protests — against
the election board’s exclusion
of some opposition and inde-

pendent candidates from the

Sept. 8 election.

The persistence of the pro-

tests apparently reflects grow-

ing disenchantment with Rus-

sia’s tightly controlled politics

in which dissent is suppressed

or ignored.

Andrei Isayev of the domi-

nant United Russia party in

the Duma said the interfer-

ence includes a US Embassy

travel warning that publicized

the time and venue for the un-

authorized protests. He also

cited alleged calls by German

broadcaster Deutsche Welle on

social media to participate in

the protests.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Russiaseesforeignersbehindprotests

ROME — Italy’s fierce bat-

tle over immigration raged on

Monday, with fights and panic

attacks reported among mi-

grants who have been strand-

ed on a rescue ship for up to

18 days at sea.

While Italy’s interior minis-

ter stuck to his refusal to let

the Open Arms rescue ship

dock on the Italian island of

Lampedusa, a few hundred

yards away from where it was

anchored, the charity coun-

tered by suggesting a plane be

chartered to fly the 107 mi-

grants on the boat to Spain.

For nearly a week, Lampe-

dusa has been frustratingly in

sight of the migrants who have

been crowded together, sleep-

ing and eating under the cano-

pied deck of the Open Arms af-

ter being plucked to safety in

early August from smugglers’

foundering dinghies off Libya.

To end the stalemate, and

‘‘give dignity to the ship-

wrecked, they could transfer

them to Catania (Sicily), and

from there, in a plane, to Ma-

drid,’’ Open Arms official Ric-

cardo Gatti told reporters at

the dock.

Open Arms is steadfast in

refusing Spain’s offer of a port,

saying even a few days of sail-

ing would be beyond the

crew’s and migrants’ limits.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Charitysaysplanecouldrescuemigrants

Daily Briefing

By Steven Lee Myers
and Javier C. Hernández
NEW YORK TIMES
SHENZHEN, China — The
Shenzhen Bay Sports Center
rises along the shore with the
green hills of Hong Kong visible
across the water. It normally
bustles with a variety of youth
sports programs and dance, art,
and language academies, in-
cluding one that advertises a
“Hong Kong Style Education.”
In recent days, however, it
has become a staging ground
for military transports and ar-
mored personnel carriers that
arrived Aug. 11 and disgorged
hundreds of officers from the
People’s Armed Police, a Chi-
nese paramilitary force, who
are loudly running through dai-
ly exercises and drills.
By massing the troops with-
in view of Hong Kong, the semi-
autonomous territory con-
vulsed by protests, China’s
Communist Party is delivering
a strong warning that the use of
force remains an option for Bei-
jing. It is also a stark reminder
that military power remains the
bedrock of its legitimacy.
“It’s a credible threat,” said
Minxin Pei, a professor at Clare-
mont McKenna College in Cali-
fornia. “The Chinese govern-
ment does not want to leave
any doubt that, if necessary, it
will act.”
China’s leader, Xi Jinping,

has governed with an increas-

ingly iron fist, including over

the military. The deployment

does not appear to be the pre-

lude to a military intervention

inHongKong,butfewanalysts

expressed doubt that China

would act if Xi believed the

country’s sovereignty over the

territory was jeopardized.

Tian Feilong, executive di-

rector of a research institute on

Hong Kong policy in Beijing,

said Xi is likely to perceive the

protests not just as a call for de-

mocracy in Hong Kong, but al-

so as an effort to topple the

Communist Party itself.

Xi’s government, he said,

has most likely completed prep-

arations for an intervention but

is holding off as long as the lo-

cal authorities manage to keep

the protests contained. That

calculus could change, he and

other analysts said, if the pro-

tests succeed in crippling the

government or other institu-

tions, like the courts, which will

soon begin hearing the first cas-

es of those arrested in the dem-

onstrations.

In what some observers see

as a worrying sign, officials in

Beijing have called the protest-

ers’ actions “close to terrorism.”

The use of force, however,

would be fraught with risks for

Xi, who is already juggling eco-

nomic headwinds and deterio-

rating relations with the United

States under President Trump.

The country and the party

are still haunted by the use of

the People’s Liberation Army to

crush the Tiananmen Square

protest movement 30 years ago

this summer, which resulted in

international isolation and

sanctions. A military crack-

down could spell the end of

Hong Kong’s role as an interna-

tional financial center and the

unique political formula under

which it is governed.

“The military solution

would have many urgent and

disruptive effects,” said Wu

Qiang, a political analyst in Bei-

jing. “It would be political sui-

cide for the Communist Party of

China and the ‘one country, two

systems’ arrangement of Hong

Kong.”

More nationalistic voices

have brushed aside such fret-

ting, noting that China is a

much stronger and diplomati-

cally confident nation than the

one that endured international

opprobrium after the Tianan-

men crackdown.

The deployment in Shen-

zhen was clearly meant to focus

attention in Hong Kong and be-

yond. A white bridge that con-

nects Shenzhen to Hong Kong

is only 2 miles down the road.

The message was amplified

by no less than Trump, who dis-

closed on Twitter that US intel-

ligence agencies had spotted

the Chinese troop buildup.

It remains to be seen how ef-

fective Beijing’s posturing will

be. The authorities have from

the start misjudged the depth

of the anger driving people into

the streets. While the deploy-

ment and increasingly blunt

warnings from officials have

rattled nerves, they seem to

have had little effect on those

who view the struggle as one

crucial for preserving Hong

Kong’s freedoms.

The law that details rela-

tions between Hong Kong and

the army limits its role to exter-

nal defense, but allows it to in-

tervene, when sought by Hong

Kong’s leaders, to maintain or-

der or assist in disasters.

There appeared to be little

effort to disguise the activity.

The People’s Daily posted a vid-

eo late Saturday showing the

force in Shenzhen standing in

formation and conducting

mock clashes with protesters

wielding sticks. One officer

with a megaphone warned in

Cantonese, the dialect spoken

in Hong Kong, “Stop the vio-

lence, repent, and be saved.”

Withtroopbuildup,Chinasendsstarkwarning

Shows protesters

force is an option

in Hong Kong

RAFIQ MAQBOOL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A relative wailed near the coffins of victims of the Kabul wedding hall bombing during a mass funeral on Sunday.

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Protesters faced off with Indonesian police in Manokwari,

Papua, on Monday as riots broke out in the region.

LAM YIK FEI/NEW YORK TIMES

Chinese armored vehicles could be seen Friday at Shenzhen

Bay Sports Center, across the border from Hong Kong.

By Tami Abdollah

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Twitter

said Monday it has suspended

more than 200,000 accounts

that it believes were part of a

Chinese government influence

campaign targeting the protest

movement in Hong Kong.

The company also said it will

ban ads from state-backed me-

dia companies, expanding a

prohibition it first applied in

2017 to two Russian entities.

Both measures are part of

what a senior company official

portrayed in an interview as a

broader effort to curb malicious

political activity on a popular

platform that has been criti-

cized for enabling election in-

terference around the world

and for accepting money for

ads that amount to propaganda

by state-run media groups.

The accounts were suspend-

ed for violating the platform’s

terms of service and ‘‘because

we think this is not how people

can come to Twitter to get in-

formed,’’ the official said.

The official, who spoke on

condition of anonymity because

of security concerns, said the

Chinese activity was reported to

the FBI, which investigated

Russian efforts to interfere in

the 2016 US presidential elec-

tion through social media.

After being notified by Twit-

ter and conducting its own in-

vestigation, Facebook said

Monday it has also removed

seven pages, three groups, and

five accounts, including some

portraying protesters as cock-

roaches and terrorists.

Facebook, which is more

widely used in Hong Kong,

does not release the data on

such state-backed influence op-

erations.

Twitter traced the Hong

Kong campaign to two fake Chi-

nese and English Twitter ac-

counts that pretended to be

news organizations based in

HongKong,whereprodemoc-

racy demonstrators have taken

to the streets since early June.

Twitter shuts accounts targeting protesters