China Neutralizes Cutting-Edge Magazine

Source: RFA.

HONG KONG, May 3, 2007—China’s powerful propaganda czars have pronounced the death knell for a magazine that ran hard-hitting exposes of official corruption, turning it into a cultural and lifestyle digest of mainly previously published materials, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.

Baixing, whose title translates roughly as “ordinary people” but is known in English as Commoners, was a popular monthly magazine under the aegis of the agricultural department, which made a name for itself exposing corruption among local officials in the countryside.

In an interview, former editor-in-chief Huang Lingtian told RFA’s Mandarin service that from the May 2007 edition, Baixing would take a digest format. “They want to turn it into a sort of digest publication, a cultural magazine aimed at young people in the countryside,” Huang, who has been moved to edit another publication under the agricultural department, told reporter Shen Hua.

“They will try their best not to produce any original material at all. Our treatment will be the same as for LifeWeek,” he said. This radical transformation into a lifestyle publication that cherry-picks the best writing from the Web effectively means Baixing will no longer employ in-house staff to originate its own articles.

LifeWeek is a magazine that suffered a similar fate, following the publication of articles on the politically sensitive topics of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) and the Tangshan earthquake (1976). It was then ordered to stay off current affairs topics by the Communist Party’s central propaganda department, which runs tight monitoring and controls of China’s media.

Police probes

Under Huang, Baixing had already received a lot of heat from the authorities because it dared to report on real situations. The magazine’s online edition had been repeatedly closed, and Huang himself was relieved of his position there at the beginning of the year.

According to a source familiar with the situation, Huang has remained the target of several police investigations since leaving the magazine.

Huang said: “First, there is absolutely nothing to be done about it. Second, we have to be firm about what we believe in.”

Staff reassigned

Huang said nearly all his former team at Baixing, from deputy editor, to reporters, to circulation and advertising staff, had almost all left the magazine after he did.

A journalist with Baixing who called himself “Mr. Wu” said he too was in the process of leaving the magazine.

“We are being posted away, too. We are following editor-in-chief Huang Liangtian. I am in the process of doing the paperwork. I’m going to work for him on the Agricultural Products Weekly. It’s also a Department of Agriculture publication.”

Both Huang and “Wu” said the order to change the content of Baixing hadn’t come from the department of agriculture, but from the propaganda department at a high level. “Wu” said most of the new staff of had been posted there from another publication run by the department.

“They all come from within the system. From Chinese Countryside. Our magazine is one of a stable of five or six publications. The leaders and the staff all rotate between them. Some people are hired from outside.”

Long process

Sources said the decision to change Baixing’s format and content had been taken long ago, but Huang, who still cared about the magazine, had tried even after being moved elsewhere to convince those in charge not to go ahead.

He had also been instrumental in ensuring that his staff were all placed in good jobs after he left Baixing: “I did it to preserve the deep ecology of Chinese culture, and also my own sense of justice, fairness, and conscience,” Huang said.

Asked if he thought that qualities of justice, fairness, and conscience were common among journalists in China today, Huang said: “These qualities are being severely challenged. But as intellectuals in public service, we should try to stand by them. It’s really not easy, not easy at all, to be an intellectual in China.”

Critical story

Last August’s edition of the magazine printed an article titled “Ground-level investigation into evictions and demolitions in Jiangyin city,” an expose of how Jiangyin municipal government officials had grabbed land from local rural families and evicted them, imprisoning their representatives with manacles.

Just before the issue went to press, the editors came under pressure from the city government and officials higher up in its chain of command, in the agricultural department, to spike the article.

But then editor-in-chief Huang stuck to his guns and printed the article, providing a major boost to the civil rights movement in Jiangyin and causing major shocks in official circles in the city, with some officials losing their jobs. That was the last of such articles to appear in Baixing.

Internet surveillance

As well as issuing regular edicts and daily guidelines limiting news coverage in traditional media, Beijing has invested billions of yuan in a nationwide Internet surveillance system and manages to block Web sites it considers sensitive.

Many prominent Chinese academics and journalists have spoken out against the Propaganda Department, saying it has become more restrictive since the change of leadership from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao.

Critics also say such heavy-handed oppression of the media will harm the country’s overall development because so few channels exist to monitor the actions of officials.

Original reporting in Mandarin by Shen Hua. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Cheadle acts to stop Darfur genocide

Source: CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Actor Don Cheadle has a new mission in life: raising awareness about the atrocities being carried out in what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Cheadle traveled throughout western Sudan's Darfur region in 2005, and the trip left him a changed man, so much so it was difficult to come back to "my comfortable life and take stock in all the privileges ... and do nothing," he said.

The "Hotel Rwanda" star teamed up with human rights activist John Prendergast to write "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond" (Hyperion), which arrived in bookstores this week.

It chronicles the Darfur crisis and urges readers to take action to stop genocide there and across the globe.

Cheadle and Prendergast spoke with CNN during a recent book tour that brought them to the nation's capital. They are hoping the book will draw attention to what's happening in Darfur -- where the United Nations estimates 200,000 people have been killed and another 2.5 million displaced since the conflict flared in 2003.

"[I] really try to feel what it would possibly be like to have been attacked and trudged through miles and miles and miles of desert," Cheadle said.

Cheadle and Prendergast detail what they saw throughout Darfur and outline how people can take action.

"It is urgent that President Bush act... to confront the Sudanese regime for the atrocities that it is committing and perpetuating to bring this genocide to an end once and for all," they write.

The book lists six steps for readers to get involved, beginning with raising awareness and then campaigning to bring an end to the crisis.

Prendergast, a former Clinton administration official who is a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, urges the U.S. government to pressure the Sudanese regime to take action against the militias that have ravaged Darfur.

"These guys will respond to significant measures," he said.

There is one image from Darfur that haunts Prendergast. He was traveling through the desert with a colleague when they came across the bodies of about 24 young men left to rot in the 130-degree heat.

"No amount of time in Sudan or work on genocide ever prepares anyone sufficiently for what Samantha and I saw in a ravine deep in the Darfur desert," Prendergast writes.

"One month before, they had been civilians, forced to walk up a hill to be executed by Sudanese government forces. Harrowingly, this scene was repeated throughout the targeted areas of Darfur."

The United States has called the atrocities of Darfur this century's first genocide.

The Darfur crisis began in February 2003 when black Sudanese rebels attacked government property, accusing the government of neglecting Darfur in favor of the country's Arab population in northern Sudan.

The government is accused of arming the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia, whose members have raped, killed and tortured Darfur civilians.

Cheadle said he finds it disturbing the mainstream media gives so little attention to the killings in Darfur, while crime stories in the United States will be reported on ad nauseam.

"The media loves when they have a little piece of tape that they can run over and over. I just think that it really does a disservice," Cheadle said.

While the actor and Prendergast are hoping to bring about an end to the atrocities, they also acknowledge it's a daunting task.

"Preventing genocide and other mass atrocities is a challenge made all the more difficult by a lack of public concern, media coverage, and effective response, especially to events in Africa," they write.

I just have one question. Where have you been? President Bush has been trying to get everyone involved. Do you mean to say that the political party of a person determines who you will and will NOT help? HMM?

Sudan, Chad reach Darfur deal

Source: CNN.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- The leaders of Sudan and Chad signed an agreement in Saudi Arabia on Thursday pledging to work together to quell spillover fighting from the Darfur crisis along their countries' 600-mile border.

The accord, signed by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and Chad's President Idriss Deby, calls on the two African nations to work together to halt rebels and opposition groups from staging cross-border attacks and support the African Union's efforts to restore stability in Darfur.

The deal comes amid fears that the bloodshed in Sudan's western Darfur region is increasingly spilling over the border into neighboring Chad. Janjaweed militiamen who have terrorized Darfur regularly launch raids into Chad, attacking civilians. Meanwhile, Sudanese-backed Chadian rebels stage attacks into Chad, prompting Chadian army assaults into Darfur.

The four-year conflict between ethnic African rebels and pro-government janjaweed militia in the western Sudanese region has killed more than 200,000 people and displace 2.5 million Darfurians.

Khartoum denies supporting the janjaweed. But the International Criminal Court in The Hague has accused a junior Sudanese Cabinet minister of being the militia's paymaster and a member of the Sudanese security forces of being a janjaweed commander. (Full story)

The current 7,000 AU peacekeeping force in Darfur has struggled to contain the fighting in the region, which is the size of France. Khartoum has recently agreed to allow a batch of 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers reinforce the AU troops in Darfur.

U.S. House members blast China

Source: CNN.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. Congress members rebuked China on a range of issues, criticizing Beijing's test of an anti-satellite weapon, its military buildup, its policy of forced abortion, its support of ruthless regimes, and its repatriation of North Korean refugees in violation of international law.

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers repeatedly expressed concern over China's suitability to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

"If ever there was a time for China to get its house in order, this is it," said committee chairman Tom Lantos, a Democrat.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican and long a strident critic of China, noted that the United States has played a significant role giving China the wherewithal to become a military power because of China's robust U.S.-bound exports.

"We have built up a Frankenstein that now threatens us," Rohrabacher said.

In a similar vein, Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen, a Republican, noted that China is planning a 17.8 percent increase in its military budget for the next financial year.

"Who's the target?" she asked.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte testified that the motives behind China's military buildup are unclear and are a matter of concern to both United States and China's neighbors.

"To enhance -- rather than detract from -- regional security, China should be more open about its military budget, doctrine, and intentions," said Negroponte, who is the chief adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on China and Asia in general.

Negroponte agreed with China's critics on the committee that Beijing falls short on a number of issues. But, he said, the overall picture is not uniformly negative.

He said it would not have been possible in the relatively recent past to imagine China supporting U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea -- as it did last year after Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon.

"They are capable of shifting," Negroponte said, referring to the Chinese authorities. "They are changing."

As another example, he cited China's relations with other East Asian countries.

"China's improved relations with its neighbors are a testament to the country's robust trade ties, but also to China's increasingly skillful diplomacy. This is a positive development," he said.

China caused a stir last January when it downed one of its own satellites, using a missile warhead. It triggered fears of a big power competition for supremacy in space, and China's unwillingness to comment on the action for almost two weeks caused widespread unease.

Negroponte raised the possibility that the Chinese military may have undertaken the action on its own, without the knowledge of the country's political leadership.

Pressure on Sudan urged

Sitting behind Negroponte were a group of people wearing shirts emblazoned with the words: "Genocide Olympics."

This was a reference to the support China has shown for the Sudanese government, despite Khartoum's role in the violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. The Bush administration has characterized the suffering there as genocide.

Several committee members also criticized China's support for Sudan. Negroponte agreed that Beijing "is seen as Khartoum's diplomatic patron and benefactor."

But he also said the United States has had a "measure of success" in sensitizing the Chinese leadership to the need to respond to the human suffering in Darfur.

Amnesty International made public on Tuesday a letter signed by 96 senators to Chinese President Hu Jintao urging him to increase the pressure on Sudan.

Specifically, the letter calls on Hu to reconsider his offer to Sudan of an interest-free loan to build a presidential palace in Khartoum.

"We believe that extending such a loan would clearly send the wrong message to Khartoum," the letter said.

It urged Hu to impress on President Omar al-Bashir the need to halt Sudanese military operations in Darfur and to withdraw Sudanese troops from the area.