Israeli Soldiers Shoot at Protesters on Syrian Border

 

Wave after wave of protesters, mainly Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria, approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire on those who crossed a new trench and tried to attack the border fence near the towns of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights and Quneitra in Syria.

By nightfall, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that 22 protesters had been killed and more than 350 had been wounded. Israeli officials said that they had no information on casualties but suggested that the Syrian figures were exaggerated.

Even so, it was the worst bloodshed in the Golan Heights since Israel and Syria fought a war there in 1973.

The protest, on the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East war, followed a larger, coordinated assault by demonstrators three weeks ago on four fronts — Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank — and attempts on two others, Egypt and Jordan, that were thwarted by those governments.

This time, Lebanon and the Hamas government in Gaza kept protesters away from their borders, and the turnout was low in the West Bank.

The focus was on Syria, where thousands of protesters tried to force their way across the border. Syria’s decision to allow the protest appeared to reflect a calculated strategy to divert attention from its own antigovernment uprising.

Still, the protesters said they counted the day a success because they drew Israeli fire on unarmed demonstrators, generating outrage at Israel. At a time when the peace process is already strained, that reaction is likely to increase international pressure on Israel to create the conditions for resumed negotiations with the Palestinians, and to bolster support in the United Nations for the Palestinian appeal for statehood.

The young protesters, disillusioned with the stymied peace talks and continued Israeli settlement building, say they believe they have hit on a new tactic that at least achieves something, if at a cost, and they intend to repeat it.

“The plan is to clash with the soldiers now,” said Muhammad Abu al-Nassar, 25, who was protesting at a West Bank checkpoint. “We believe that unarmed popular resistance is the best form of ending the occupation.”

Israeli officials, who say they tried every nonlethal method of crowd control at their disposal before resorting to live fire, worry about being cast as the villain but admit they are in a bind.

“What would any country do if people from an enemy country were marching on its borders?” asked Dan Gillerman, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. “We tried all other possible means to stop them.”

At the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not allow “extremist elements” to penetrate Israel’s borders. “I have instructed the security forces to act with determination, with maximum restraint, but with determination to maintain our sovereignty, our borders, our communities and our citizens,” he said.

A military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, said that Israeli forces warned the protesters not to approach the border, in Arabic with megaphones; used nonlethal riot dispersal means like tear gas, which failed to deter them; and then fired warning shots in the air.

When the demonstrators reached the fence, soldiers were “left with no choice,” she said, “but to open fire at the feet of the protesters.”

Syria’s role also creates a quandary for Israel. Although the countries technically remain in a state of war, Syria has kept the border quiet for 37 years.

Protesters there could not have approached the border without government acquiescence, and analysts said the decision to allow the protest was aimed at deflecting attention from the protests sweeping Syria against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“I would note that these protests were carried live on Syrian television” an Israeli official said. “They do not carry the protests against their own regime live. They made a decision to try to exploit this for their own purposes.”

The official spoke anonymously because, he said, Israel did not want to allow the protests to stoke tensions with Syria.

But even revived peace talks with the Palestinians would be unlikely to alter Mr. Assad’s calculations.

Rina Castelnuovo contributed reporting from Majdal Shams, Golan Heights, and Fares Akram from Gaza.

 

North Sudan Takes Contested Town on South Border

NAIROBI – The northern Sudanese army has seized a strategic town along Sudan’s contested north-south border in a serious military escalation that has the potential of igniting an all-out civil war, Western officials said on Sunday.

A column of northern Sudanese tanks rolled into Abyei, a flashpoint border town on Saturday, after weeks of hit-and-run clashes between northern and southern forces.

The southern part of Sudan is gearing up to declare independence in July and both northern and southern Sudan claim Abyei, making it one of the most combustible issues between the two sides. The Abyei area produces a small amount of oil but more than that, it has become a potent, emotional symbol for both northern and southern Sudanese. It has been called Sudan’s Jerusalem because of the difficulties of resolving its status.

“The SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) have taken this evening the control of Abyei town and repelled the enemy forces, ” declared a Sudanese state television news bulletin on Saturday night. According to United Nations officials inside Abyei, there were at least a dozen northern tanks now prowling the town. But the United Nations monitoring team in Abyei was hampered from making more detailed observations because several mortar shells landed near the United Nations compound, and United Nations personnel were reluctant to venture into Abyei’s streets.

The southern Sudanese forces, who have tens of thousands of heavily-armed soldiers – some of them trained by the United States, have not indicated yet how they will respond. On Saturday night, Philip Aguer, a spokesman for southern Sudan’s military forces, told AFP, “The SAF have entered Abyei, there is still fighting but they have come with tanks, they are shooting and shooting. ”

“Our police have been fighting but the SAF have sent many soldiers in, ” he added, speaking by phone from Juba, the capital of southern Sudan.

The crisis comes right as a delegation from the United Nations Security Council is in Sudan, visiting both sides in preparation for the division of Sudan this summer.

Abyei has been a sore spot for years, a clear potential spoiler in the separation of north and south Sudan. It has a hybrid history, a dusty, arid patch of Sudan that is culturally and ethnically linked to the south and populated by mostly Southerners but incorporated administratively as part of the north for decades. Northern nomads cross through Abyei to bring their herds to watering holes and the area has been like a mosaic of cultures between north and south Sudan.

Abyei was supposed to have its own referendum to decide whether it would join the north or the south but that got shelved because of heated arguments over who was eligible to vote. Meanwhile, southern Sudan held a referendum in January in which more than 95 percent of Southerners voted for independence.

While its status is unresolved, Abyei has been administered by a joint north-south committee and the only soldiers in the area are supposed to units made up of Northerners and Southerners. But in the past few months, human rights groups have seen a sharp build-up by both sides around the contested border.

Over the past few weeks, northern and southern forces have been attacking each other in rural areas around Abyei town. On Thursday, southern forces ambushed a convoy of northern troops, killing more than dozen northern soldiers. Southern forces had staged a similar attack in early May.

One Western official on Sunday said that the southern forces had indeed provoked the north and that it was unlikely that northern forces would now withdraw from Abyei.

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Assault in Border Town Sends Syrians Into Lebanon

Backed by dozens of tanks, Syrian troops entered the town of Tall Kalakh before dawn, following the pattern of raids on other cities like Dara’a, Baniyas and Homs. The assault came a day after another Friday of protests and an announcement by the Syrian government that a national dialogue would begin next week.

Even though the death toll in the protests on Friday paled compared with past weeks, the assault seemed to show that the government would persist with a crackdown that has led to the deaths of hundreds and the detention of thousands in one of the most brutal campaigns of repression since the so-called Arab Spring began. The uprising has represented the most serious challenge to the four decades of rule by the Assad family, though Syrian officials have maintained that they have the upper hand.

“People in the town were expecting a big military operation,” said a human rights advocate in Damascus, who was in contact with people in Tall Kalakh, a town about 25 miles from the Lebanese border. “This morning, they saw army troops with dozens of tanks moving around their town.”

Fayaz Abdallah, a local official from the Lebanese village of Awadeh, across from Tall Kalakh, said that at least 600 Syrian families had fled to Lebanon since Saturday morning. He said that most of them were women and children. In all, Lebanese border officials say, at least 5,000 families have fled Syria since the beginning of the uprising in mid-March, when protests in the southern town of Dara’a over the arrests of youths set off nationwide demonstrations.

A local Lebanese official who gave his name as Amer said that among those who crossed the border Saturday were four wounded people, two men and two women. One of the men died later of his wounds in a Lebanese hospital, he said.

By nightfall, residents said, the town, along a landscape of rounded hills, remained tense. At least three people were killed in the assault, all by sniper fire, said Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan, a Syrian human rights group.

Mohamad Fawzi, a 24-year-old Awadeh resident, said that gunfire in Syria could be heard for hours on the Lebanese side of the border.

Since last month, the Syrian military, often at the vanguard of security forces and plainclothes paramilitary men known as shabeeha, has methodically marched across the country in an attempt to suppress the uprising by force. Dara’a was first, then Baniyas, on the Mediterranean coast, a week ago. Adnan Mahmoud, the Syrian information minister, said Friday that troops had pulled back from both those towns, though residents said a military presence remained. He declared both towns, and their hinterlands, quiet.

The assault on Tall Kalakh may have been spurred by a protest Friday by hundreds of professionals who have recently resigned from the governing Baath Party. In their protest, a show of dissent unheard of just months ago, residents said many of them chanted slogans calling for the fall of the government.

“For a week, we’ve been hearing that the government will send the army to punish us because we have been organizing big demonstrations against the Baath Party and President Assad,” said a Tall Kalakh resident who was reached by phone.

In past assaults, the military raid has been followed by waves of arrests, in which intelligence is gathered, and then more detentions are carried out.

Friday’s protests were, at least anecdotally, smaller than past weeks, though still remarkable in that they came in the face of the withering crackdown. Even in Homs, where the military deployed tanks last week, at least five small protests were reported.

Human rights activists said three people were killed Friday in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, and three others in protests elsewhere in the country.

Human rights activists say that at least 775 people have been killed since the beginning of the uprising. The government, which has portrayed the unrest as an armed rebellion led by militant Islamists and provocateurs, has said 98 soldiers and 22 police officers have been killed.

American officials acknowledge that at least some protesters, though a small minority, have resorted to arms.

 

Denmark Warned Over Border Plans

 

BRUSSELS — Controversy over the future of Europe’s passport-free travel zone grew Friday when Denmark was warned that its plans to restart checks at its frontiers could be against European Union law.

The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said in a letter to Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen that the move proposed by Denmark — ostensibly to prevent smuggling of drugs and weapons — could be problematic on two counts.

That charge was rejected by the Danish government, which said Friday that its plans, to be implemented over the next three weeks, include only the same customs checks already in force in Sweden.

European officials say that the legality of the Danish measures will depend on the details. Spot checks by customs officials are not illegal, providing they are carried out in a proportionate way. Installation of permanent checkpoints implementing systematic controls at frontiers, however, would breach the rules, they say.

The exchange is the latest ill-tempered dispute over the future of the Schengen accord, which gives people the right to cross frontiers in most of Europe without stopping.

One of the most visible signs of European integration, Schengen has come under strain because of increased migration, and it was recently at the center of a fierce dispute between Italy and France following the arrival of migrants from North Africa.

Denmark’s plans are the result of pressure from the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, which demanded the tightening of controls as its price for supporting other government measures.

But the deal produced an angry reaction from Germany, one of Denmark’s neighbors, and has heightened concerns that Schengen is being undermined.

On Friday Mr. Barroso spoke by phone with Mr. Rasmussen before sending his letter. In it, Mr. Barroso said a first legal assessment of Denmark’s plan “raises important doubts about whether the proposed measures, if implemented in the ‘intensive and permanent’ way that has been announced, would be in line with Denmark’s obligations under European and international law.”

Denmark’s plans “appear to put into question the smooth functioning of Europe’s single market” and may violate E.U. law on “the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital and the provisions of the Schengen Borders Code,” the letter added.

Peter Christensen, Denmark’s minister for taxation, told the Ritzau news agency that the criticism “is built on misunderstandings.”

“What we are going to do is a customs control — the same as the Swedes have been doing for years,” he said. “And this you can do in full accordance with the Schengen code.”

The anti-immigration party at the center of the dispute said it would insist that the move go ahead.

“This deal stands,” Peter Skaarup, vice president of the Danish People’s Party, told Ritzau. “We will make sure that the border controls will be reinstated as planned. We can’t imagine that the government will be frightened by the commission.”

“So now the government will have to calm the commission down or cancel the Schengen agreement,” he added.

In his letter Mr. Barroso noted that the Danish announcement suggested a “permanent customs presence at the borders and will imply the construction of new facilities, the recruitment of additional staff, comprehensive video surveillance and police backup.” He appealed to the Danish authorities to discuss how the plans will be implemented and to refrain from “unilateral steps.”

Were Denmark to find itself in breach of E.U. law, it could ultimately be taken to the European Court of Justice.

 

Balloon-Borne Messages to North Korea Have Detractors on Both Sides of Border

 

IMJINGAK, SOUTH KOREA — On a pleasant spring day, with the wind breezing up from the south, the quirky little tourist outpost of Imjingak — with its Peace Land amusement park, some souvenir sheds and a Popeye’s chicken stand — hardly seemed like a possible flash point for violent hostilities between North and South Korea.

Imjingak, the site of a ferocious battle during the Korean War, has become a favored launching site for some of the South Korean activists who send propaganda balloons northward. The balloon campaign has so angered North Korea that its military has threatened — as recently as last Friday — to “mercilessly” shell Imjingak and other border towns if the launchings continue. North Korean artillery units are dug in a few kilometers away, just across the world’s most heavily militarized border.

It is flying season now, with robust winds blowing through the Korean Peninsula, and the activists are eager to get their balloons and leaflets in the air. Some of the balloonists are political agitators, others are Christian proselytizers, most are North Korean defectors. If the wind is at their backs, they say, millions of leaflets will be sent aloft in the coming weeks.

“North Korea has said they would fire surgical strikes at those of us sending up balloons, so this highly allergic reaction clearly shows what we’re doing is working,” said Park Sang-hak, 43, the son of a former North Korean spy who defected along with his family in 1999.

Mr. Park now heads Fighters for a Free North Korea, a human rights group in Seoul that has become the most aggressive balloon-launching outfit in the South.

Mr. Park and other balloonists do have their domestic political opponents, principally the organizations that seek a return to South Korea’s so-called sunshine policy, which favors a conciliatory approach to the North. Some of these groups occasionally try to sabotage the showier balloon events, and Mr. Park, who has had 24-hour police protection since 2008, once fired a tear gas pistol during a violent melee at Imjingak.

“We get threats against him quite often now,” said a plainclothes police officer who was guarding Mr. Park before a recent launching.

For much of the previous decade, the South Korean government tried to block the balloon launchings, which pushed the activists to work clandestinely. But the policy changed dramatically in the spring of last year after the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, and the deaths of 46 sailors. The South has blamed a North Korean torpedo attack; the North says it was not involved.

“Previously we tried to persuade the balloon guys not to do anything because it badly affected inter-Korean relations,” said a senior official in the Unification Ministry, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. “But after the Cheonan, our position changed,” the official said. “We don’t block them now. It’s a matter we leave to the local police.”

Police officials have allowed the balloon launchings to continue at Imjingak — no special permit is necessary — and they intervene only if there is violence.

Mr. Park, an engaging and energetic man, honed his technique alongside Lee Min-bok, an evangelical Christian and the other leading figure in the balloon campaign. Beginning in 2003, looking for a way to poke the North Korean regime, they started out by tying a few handwritten leaflets to some tiny children’s balloons bought at a party store.

Once devoted colleagues, the men are now bitter rivals.

“I’m the original,” said Mr. Lee, who had been an agricultural scientist in North Korea. He said he fled in 1995 after his suggestions about economic reforms were not well received by his superiors.

His operation is financed by donations from churches and conservative Christians. He said he launched 1,500 balloons a year and accounted for 90 percent of all propaganda leaflets being sent into the North, about 250 million so far.

Mr. Lee, who uses various covert launching sites along the border, ridiculed Mr. Park’s launchings at Imjingak as little more than publicity stunts. He said the wind conditions were so unfavorable that Mr. Park’s balloons often ended up floating back into South Korea.

Mr. Park, for his part, called Mr. Lee “a Christian zealot” who was voted out of their secular group several years ago because he wanted to emphasize religion in their leaflets.

 

Thailand and Cambodia Clash Again in Border Dispute

BANGKOK — Thai and Cambodian troops clashed for a third day on Sunday in the first major territorial encounter since an informal cease-fire that followed four days of fighting in February. At least 10 people were killed and thousands of residents were evacuated from border areas, according to reports from both sides.

The United Nations called on the countries to settle the conflict peacefully, with an effective and verifiable cease-fire. The exact cause of the latest clash, which began early Friday, was unclear, with the two sides accusing each other of making the first move in what was mostly a long-range artillery duel.

The fighting was reported at border areas 100 miles west of Preah Vihear, an 11th-century temple that has been the focus of armed tensions since it was listed in 2008 by the United Nations as a World Heritage site under Cambodian administration.

Both nations claim ownership of a strategic area of 1.8 square miles near Preah Vihear. Two other ancient Hindu temples in the border area are the focus of the latest eruption of fighting.

In his weekly television address, the prime minister of Thailand, Abhisit Vejjajiva, accused Cambodia of starting the fighting. “When there is firing into Thailand, we must fire back,” he said.

Mr. Abhisit added: “We must not fall into Cambodia’s trap in trying to spread a picture of conflict, or say the conflict is unsolvable through bilateral talks.”

A sticking point in efforts at negotiations is Thailand’s resistance to Cambodia’s demand for mediation by international bodies. In the past, outside judgments have favored Cambodia. In 1962, the World Court ruled that Preah Vihear, which stands on a border bluff overlooking the Cambodian countryside, belonged to Cambodia.

The disputes involve border demarcations between the two countries made by former French colonial administrators and include references to competing maps and interpretations of maps.

The conflicting claims are a rallying cry for nationalists on both sides. In Thailand, they have become a focus of the antigovernment “yellow shirt” protests in recent months.

In February, the United Nations forwarded a Cambodian request for mediation to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in which both sides agreed to allow unarmed military observers to be posted along the border.

But the Thai military resisted that plan, and the country’s foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, said that his government was trying to secure the cooperation of the armed forces to find a peaceful settlement.

Cambodia accused Thailand over the weekend of firing artillery shells “loaded with poisonous gas” and of flying jet fighter sorties over Cambodian territory. Thailand rejected the accusations as groundless.

 

Thai, Cambodian Armies Clash on Border; 6 Killed

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand and Cambodia exchanged artillery and gunfire for several hours Friday in a flare-up of a long-running border dispute, and their militaries said six soldiers were killed.

The fighting near the ancient temples of Ta Krabey and Ta Moan forced thousands of civilians on both sides to flee. Cambodia says artillery fell on villages and other areas as far as 13 miles (21 kilometers) inside its territory.

It was the first skirmish reported since four days of fighting in February, when eight soldiers and civilians were killed near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the east of Friday's fighting.

A decades-old border dispute over ancient temples and the land surrounding them has fueled nationalist passions in both countries. Clashes have erupted several times since 2008, when Preah Vihear was given U.N. World Heritage status.

Each side blamed the other for the resumption of fighting.

Thai army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Siriya Khuangsirikul said three Thai soldiers had been killed, and 13 wounded, one critically. Cambodian defense spokesman Lt. Gen. Chhum Socheat said three Cambodian soldiers were killed and six wounded.

Cambodia's Bayon TV, which has close links to the government, showed footage Friday night of damaged houses and civilians being evacuated by farm vehicles to schools and Buddhist pagodas 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the front lines.

A statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Thailand said the country had "exercised its inherent right of self-defense on the basis of necessity, proportionality and strictly directed at military targets from where the attacks were launched by Cambodian troops."

Indonesia, chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, called for an immediate cease-fire and further efforts to resolve the border dispute. Fighting stopped by early afternoon, but no cease-fire had been reached, Cambodia said.

Tensions between the neighbors have been exacerbated in recent months in part by pressure from influential Thai nationalist groups, which have protested in Bangkok urging the government to take back land awarded to Cambodia by an international court ruling.

The flare-up comes as the Thai military raises its profile in domestic politics ahead of a general election expected to be held by early July. The army had previously effectively vetoed an agreed-on plan to station Indonesian observers to monitor the border situation.

Cambodia in a note from Foreign Minister Hor Namhong to the president of the U.N. Security Council accused Thailand of refusing to accept the Indonesian monitors so it could carry out "this deliberate act of aggression."

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters his government was investigating the cause of Friday's clash and said despite a pause in fighting, the situation was volatile.

"What we would like reiterate is the position of troops of both countries are close to each other. Therefore, any movement can lead to clashes," Abhisit said.

Abhisit called for a meeting of one of the bilateral committees the two countries have set up to discuss border issues.

Reiterating Thailand's stance on its dispute with Cambodia, he said it was not necessary for ASEAN or other multinational bodies to take up the matter, because then "it will be harder to solve."

Cambodia insists bilateral talks are unproductive and a third party's participation would be useful.

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Sopheng Cheang reported from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.