MiamiHerald.com HOTEL COPIES: A copy of The Miami Herald will be delivered to your room. A credit of US$0.25 will be posted to your account if delivery is declined.
Egyptian voters’ choices baffle outsiders BY NANCY A. YOUSSEF AND AMINA ISMAIL McClatchy News Service
CAIRO — The battle scars of the revolution that led to the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime continues to define the Egyptian landscape. The sides of buildings are adorned with graffiti mourning the nearly 1,000 civilians killed during the uprising. Protesters keep a stockpile of rocks in Tahrir Square, just in case they have to defend themselves while encamped there. The dated pictures of the 30-year ruler that once peppered the capital have been replaced with campaign posters for what was Egypt’s first democratic election. And yet during elections this week, just 15 months after Mubarak was forced to step down, many Egyptians voted for someone who has pledged to reinstate the very system they seemingly risked their lives to end. How could that be? While revolutionaries struggle to answer that question, there are clues that a rift between revolutionaries and the ordinary Egyptians had always existed and has been deepening since Mubarak left office. State media, the main source of information for most Egyptians, routinely blamed the state’s growing instability on the revolutionaries, and in a nation where many voters had never met a revolutionary, they said they trusted state media more. In addition, over the past year, the revolutionary effort was diluted by a splintered message, growing employment, worsened security and parliamentary elections that yielded little change. By Election Day, the once politically passive group of Egyptians known as the Couch Party for sitting out of the revolution spoke up at the polls. Ahmed Shafik, a former air force general and a known figure, is in the runoff election. He offered something immediate — stability and leadership. The revolution, it seems, offered too much choice to a nation mired in uncertainty. In response Egyptians voted for something familiar — the government candidate. “The lesson of the elections in Egypt in that people are not voting for a moral position, about how Egypt should be governed,” said Zaid Akl, a political analyst at the Cairo-based Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies. “It is about what voters feel they will gain immediately if they vote for a particular candidate. What they asked in this election of the candidates is: How will I benefit now by voting for you?” Shafik, who garnered 23 percent of the vote in the first round, will go • TURN TO EGYPT, 2A
INTERNATIONAL EDITION
TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2012 109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
In Syria, Annan urges cease-fire after massacre BY NEIL MACFARQUHAR New York Times Service
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Kofi Annan, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, began two days of negotiations in Damascus on Monday, seeking to shore up his peace plan that appeared more precarious than ever after the massacre of at least 108 civilians in central Syria. Annan began his visit by urging the Syrian government to be more forthcoming in implementing the six-point plan it agreed to in March, which includes not only a cease-fire but a political dialogue
with the opposition and freedom for Syrians to demonstrate. “I urge the government to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully, and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process,” Annan said. Creating the right climate for progress was the responsibility of not only the government but “everyone with a gun,” he added. Questions about the viability of the plan were thrown into sharp relief by the massacre in the villages of Houla, near Homs, on Friday,
which left at least 108 people dead, including 49 children. The United Nations Security Council on Sunday unanimously condemned the massacre, and while not assigning blame, censured the Syrian government for using heavy artillery against the town. The aftermath continued to reverberate inside Syria. Shops stayed shut as part of an opposition-led call to observe three days of mourning, including in the storied Hamadiyah bazaar of Damascus, according to opposition activists and residents. They said government agents forced some
stores to reopen, particularly in the famous nut bazaar, by prying open their metal shutters. Annan said whoever was responsible for the massacre had to be held accountable. “I am personally shocked and horrified by the tragic incident in Houla two days ago, which took so many innocent lives, children, women and men,” Annan said in brief remarks from the lobby of his hotel. His office later distributed the text. Annan, the envoy of both the • TURN TO SYRIA, 2A
A jaguar with her cubs at the Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Mass.
THE CHANGING ROLE OF U.S. ZOOS BY LESLIE KAUFMAN New York Times Service
ST. LOUIS — With fluorescent yellow eyes and tufts of hair sticking straight up behind their ears, Bonner and Etienne look like slightly crazed old men. These riotous and chatty lemurs — known for elaborate rituals that include grooming and braying — once ranged across eastern Madagascar. Now scores of these blackand-white ruffed lemurs are being bred here at the St. Louis Zoo and at other zoos across the United States as part of a broader effort to prevent their extinction. But Ozzie, a lion-tailed macaque, will never father children. Lion-tails once flourished in the tops of rain forests in India, using their naturally dark coloring to disappear into the height of the jungle. Though there are only about 4,000 remaining in the wild,
manner of mammals, frogs, birds and insects whose populations are suddenly crashing. To conserve animals effectively, however, zoo officials have concluded that they must winnow species in their care and devote more resources to a chosen few. The result is that zookeepers, usually animal lovers to the core, are increasingly being pressed into making cold calculations about which animals are the most crucial to save. Some days, the burden feels less like Noah building an ark and more like Schindler making a list. PHOTOS BY TODD HEISLER/NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE The lemurs at this zoo are A lion-tailed macaque, of which there are only about being saved in part because of a 4,000 remaining in the wild, at the St. Louis Zoo. well-financed program to rescue rare fauna of the island nation not one among Ozzie’s group risk of extinction soars, zoos are of Madagascar. By contrast, alhere in St. Louis will be bred. U.S. increasingly being called upon to though St. Louis has kept lionzoos are on the verge of giving up rescue and sustain animals, and tailed macaques since 1958, other on trying to save them. not just for marquee breeds like As the number of species at pandas and rhinos but also for all • TURN TO ZOOS, 2A
Inmates, corruption rule Honduras’ prisons BY ALBERTO ARCE Associated Press
RODRIGO ABD/AP
Inmates at the San Pedro Sula Central Corrections Facility in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — Inside one of Honduras’ most dangerous and overcrowded prisons, inmates operate a free-market bazaar, selling everything from iPhones to prostitutes. It’s more like a fenced-in town than a conventional prison, where raccoons, chickens and pigs wander freely among food stalls and in troughs of open sewage. But guards do not dare cross the painted, yellow linea de la muerte (line of death) into the inner sanctum run by prisoners, and prisoners do not breach the perimeter controlled by guards. “The prisoners rule,” assistant
prison director Carlos Polanco told The Associated Press. “We only handle external security. They know if they cross the line, we can shoot.” The unofficial division of power at the San Pedro Sula Central Corrections Facility is mimicked throughout the country, where a Lord-of-the-Flies system allows inmates to run a business behind bars, while officials turn a blind eye in exchange for a cut of the profits they say is spent on prison needs. This culture virtually guarantees that even in the glare of international scrutiny over a fire that killed 361 prisoners at another Honduran prison three months ago, little stands to change.
Just one month after the fire at Comayagua prison, convicts at San Pedro Sula turned on their leader, killing 14 people and taking over the prison for three weeks before officials could get inside. Less than two weeks ago another inmate was killed and 11 wounded in a brawl. The AP this month toured the prison in San Pedro Sula, where 2,137 inmates live in a space built for 800. Journalists gained access not through the prison director but with permission from the head inmate, Noe Betancourt, who provided a team of eight prisoners as security. No guards went inside the bustling, • TURN TO HONDURAS, 4A
INDEX OBAMA HONORS FALLEN TROOPS AT ARLINGTON CEMETERY, 3A
29PGA01.indd 1
TONY BLAIR TESTIFIES ABOUT MURDOCH TIES, 6A
SPANISH BORROWING COSTS RISE ON BANK WOES, BUSINESS FRONT
CANADIAN BREAKS THROUGH IN GIRO D’ITALIA RACE, SPORTS FRONT
THE AMERICAS............4A U.S. NEWS.....................5A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES...5B
5/29/2012 4:54:12 AM