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MONDAY, JULY 16, 2012 sÜddeutsche zeitung 3
Climbing
Paradise
Forbidden
By ALEX LOWTHER
VALLE DE VIÑALES, Cuba — Here,
the mountains weren’t pushed up from
underneath, as mountains usually are.
In this national park and Unesco World
Heritage site, everything but the mountains
fell down. The mogotes, islands of
limestone, are gently domed, like loaves
of crusty bread, but the sides seem to
have been cleaved off, leaving terrain that
drops precipitously to the valley floor.
In the late 1990s, rock climbers found a
paradise where the walls of the mogotes
are too steep for the otherwise ubiquitous
crawling vines and striving trees. Overhangs,
some 150 meters tall, are covered
with chandeliers of stalactites and blobs
and pockets, all perfectly formed for human
hands and feet to climb from the bottom
of a cliff to its top.
Soon, locals caught on, and a flourishing
climbing scene took hold. Viñales became
a top destination for climbers from Europe,
Canada and the United States. Hun-
Tourism and sport
are threatened by an
inexplicable ban.
dreds of routes went up the major mountain
faces in the valley, and for years visiting
climbers had essentially free rein.
No longer. In late March, even as Pope
Benedict XVI called for “authentic freedom”
in Cuba before an estimated 200,000
people in Havana, climbers here, a threehour
drive west of Havana, the capital,
are wrestling with the prohibition of their
sport, which has been enforced since the
beginning of this year. In an era when
the Cuban government has been easing
restrictions it seems to have moved in a
sharply different direction here, threatening
the prosperity of Viñales and the
future of the sport in Cuba by enforcing a
ban on climbing and regulating independent
tourism in general.
Jens Franzke, a climber from Dresden,
Germany, here with his wife, Ina, for three
weeks, was fed up. “It feels like East Germany
before the fall of the Berlin Wall,” he
said. “There are all these rules, and none
of them make any sense.”
Mr. Franzke, 46, and his wife had been
forced to stop climbing multiple times,
threatened by park guards and told that
the “Cuba Climbing” guidebook they were
using to find routes in the valley was illegal
to use because the authors do not live
in Cuba.
“It’s a real shame because it’s such a
paradise,” Mr. Franzke said. The couple
had climbed nearly every day they wished
by evading the rules and the guards, but
“we will never come back,” he said.
This is the main worry for residents and
climbers. Viñales is the hub of the valley
and the heart of Viñales National Park.
The bustling town has a population of
By LYDIA POLGREEN
JOHANNESBURG — It was exactly
the kind of case the International Criminal
Court was created to investigate: Yemen’s
autocratic leader was clinging to
power, turning his security forces’ guns
on unarmed protesters.
But when Yemen’s Nobel laureate,
Tawakkol Karman, traveled to The Hague
to ask prosecutors to investigate, she was
told the court would first need the approval
of the United Nations Security Council.
That never happened, and today the former
president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is living
comfortably in Yemen’s capital, still
wielding influence.
Now, as the world confronts evidence
of atrocities in Syria as President Bashar
al-Assad’s government battles a growing
rebellion, there are signs that Mr. Assad,
too, will evade prosecution.
The men have not been prosecuted
because they have powerful allies in the
Security Council. That now threatens to
undermine the still-fragile international
consensus that formed the basis for the
court’s creation in 2002: that leaders
should be held accountable for crimes
against their own people.
Already, the failure to act against some
Arab leaders has critics saying the court’s
justice is reserved for outcast leaders, including
an assortment from weak African
states.
“We have the feeling that international
justice is not ruled by law,” said Rami Nakhla,
an exiled Syrian activist. “It depends
on the situation, it depends how valuable
this person is. That is not real justice.”
Yet the dream of a world court that could
prosecute crimes against humanity is
closer than ever to reality. Three former
heads of state are in custody of international
courts, and one, Charles Taylor, has
been convicted. The International Criminal
Court has convicted one defendant,
Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese psychologist
turned warlord who recruited child
soldiers, and sentenced him to 14 years in
prison. A former Bosnian Serb general,
ALEX LOWTHER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Valle de Viñales, in Cuba. Climbing has been banned here since 2003.
about 17,000 with more than 300 private
boardinghouses that rent rooms to tourists.
All that has allowed the valley to
overcome the poverty typical across the
country.
Cuban climbers rely on tourists to donate
shoes, harnesses and ropes to climb.
Equipment is not available, and even if
it were, it would cost too much in a country
where government salaries average
$15 to $25 a month. Without new donations,
shoes, harnesses and ropes wear
out. Without replacement, the bolts in the
rock that secure climbers would corrode
and eventually become unsafe. Climbing
would become, essentially, impossible.
Climbing was prohibited in 2003, four
years after major climbing development
started. The state deemed climbing a factor
in peligrosidad, a vague designation of
being dangerous to the state. It is an offense
punishable by imprisonment. The climbing
ban was never formally announced, nor
was it enforced for tourists at all. For Cubans
it was often a mere hassle, but consequences
could be more severe. One veteran
Cuban climber was put on notice of being
considered peligroso in 2010, and several
others were taken to the police station and
had reports drawn up. This seems to have
been more likely if the climbers were climbing
and socializing with foreigners, which
the state frowns upon.
Since at least 2003, an explanation has
been circulating that the government is
Ratko Mladic, is appearing before a tribunal
created to try accused war criminals
from the former Yugoslavia.
But the court can investigate crimes
only in nations that have signed the Rome
Statute, which created the court, unless
the Security Council refers a case.
“So many crimes have been committed
here,” said Nabeel Rajab, a rights activist
in Bahrain, where the royal family, with
help from Saudi Arabia and the acquiescence
of the United States, has used force
to put down a pro-democracy uprising.
“But because of the close relationship
between Western powers and the government
of Bahrain, how can we hope for
justice?”
busy organizing a system through which
one would buy a daily pass or license to
climb. No such pass yet exists.
Many of the cliffs where climbing takes
place are part of the national defense plan
in case of attack, and climbers suspect
that state security officials are worried
that the Cubans and foreigners are there
organizing against the government.
Owners of casas particulares, as the
private boardinghouses are called, said
warnings about the rules were overblown.
Oscar Jaime Rodriguez, owner of
a boardinghouse that is the de facto base
camp for climbers in the valley, sought to
quiet fears. “They are always saying, ‘It’s
prohibited, it’s prohibited,’ but climbers
still come and they still climb,” he said.
“It’s worth it.” (Since reporting there concluded
at the end of March, climbers have
said enforcement of the no climbing rule
may have become more lenient.)
On their last day in Cuba, after an unmolested
climbing session in warm early
morning sun and a “coco loco” cocktail
in the shade, the Franzkes reconsidered
their vow never to return.
“Maybe all of the not so good stuff about
Cuba will leave my memory,” Jens Franzke
said. “I’ll just remember the beautiful
people, the red soil, the salsa.” Mr. Franzke
looked at the drink in his hand, smiled
and said, “The coco loco.” He looked in the
direction of the mogotes, and added, “And
the spectacular climbing.”
Uprisings Expose Global Court Flaws
SAMUEL ARANDA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Tawakkol Karman sought
international justice for protesters
killed in Yemen’s uprising.
Powerful allies let
officials elude justice
in The Hague.
The court has 120 member states, but
three of the five veto-holding members of
the Security Council — the United States,
Russia and China — are not among them.
Despite this, the court has turned into a
touchstone for justice-seekers. The Security
Council allowed the court to investigate
Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan
al-Bashir, who was indicted on charges
of war crimes in Darfur, though the court
has been unable to apprehend him.
And in February 2011, the Security
Council asked the International Criminal
Court to investigate the Libyan government
led by Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi.
The court handed down indictments
against Colonel Qaddafi and several top
officials, though he was killed in Libya before
he could face prosecution.
But the court has not taken action in
any other Arab uprising, in no small part
because of the ties between the countries
involved and veto-holding members of
the Security Council. Bahrain and Yemen
are allies of the United States. Russia and
China are close to Syria’s government.
Debates have raged about whether
the court, by closing off a graceful exit,
makes dictators more likely to fight to the
death.
But supporters say the court has
achieved more than expected. “The assumption
was the court will take years to
come into effect,” said Darryl Robinson,
who worked as an adviser to the International
Criminal Court’s prosecutor. “And
once it is in force it is going to be this court
with jurisdiction over Canada and Norway,
with nothing to investigate.”
Instead, much of the world has signed
up, and protesters in Yemen, Bahrain,
Libya and Syria have demanded that their
leaders be sent to The Hague for trial. The
deeper question is whether the failure to
prosecute the autocrats of the Arab Spring
will erode faith in the movement toward a
system of international justice.
Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch
said: “For justice to be legitimate, it is essential
that it be applied equally to all.”
world trends
A Bruised Iceland Is Healing Nicely
By SARAH LYALL
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — For a country
that four years ago plunged into a financial
abyss so deep it all but shut down overnight,
Iceland seems to be doing surprisingly
well.
It has repaid, early, many of the international
loans that kept it afloat. Unemployment
is hovering around 6 percent, and falling.
And while much of Europe is struggling
to pull itself out of the recessionary swamp,
Iceland’s economy is expected to grow by
2.8 percent this year.
“Everything has turned around,” said
Adalheidur Hedinsdottir, who owns the
coffee chain Kaffitar, and has plans to open
a new cafe and bakery. “When we told the
bank we wanted to make a new company,
they said, ‘Do you want to borrow money?’ ”
she went on. “We haven’t been hearing that
for a while.”
Analysts cite the surprising turn of
events to a combination of fortuitous decisions
and good luck, and caution that the
lessons of Iceland’s turnaround are not
readily applicable to the larger and more
complex economies of Europe.
But during the crisis, the country did
many things different from its European
counterparts. It let its three largest banks
fail, instead of bailing them out. It ensured
that domestic depositors got their money
back and gave debt relief to struggling homeowners
and to businesses facing bankruptcy.
“Taking down a company with positive
cash flow but negative equity would in the
given circumstances have a domino effect,
causing otherwise sound companies to
collapse,” said Thorolfur Matthiasson, an
economics professor at the University of
Iceland. “Forgiving debt under those circumstances
can be profitable for the financial
institutions and help the economy and
reduce unemployment as well.”
Iceland also had some advantages when
it entered the crisis: relatively few government
debts, a strong social safety net and a
fluctuating currency whose rapid devaluation
in 2008 caused pain for consumers
but helped buoy the all-important export
market. Government officials, who at the
height of the crisis were reduced to begging
for help from places like the Faroe Islands,
are now cautiously bullish.
“We’re in a very comfortable place because
the government has been very stable
in fiscal terms and is making good progress
in balancing its books,” said Gudmundur
Arnason, the Finance Ministry’s permanent
secretary. “We are self-reliant and can
borrow on our own without having to rely
on the good will of our Nordic neighbors”
or lenders like the International Monetary
Fund.
But not even Mr. Arnason says he believes
that all is perfect. Inflation, which
reached nearly 20 percent during the crisis,
is still running at 5.4 percent, and even with
the government’s relief programs, most of
the country’s homeowners remain awash
in debt, weighed down by inflation-indexed
mortgages in which the principal, disastrously,
rises with the inflation rate. Taxes
are high. And with the country’s currency,
the krona, worth between about 40 and 75
percent of its pre-2008 value, imports are
punishingly expensive.
Strict currency controls, imposed during
Good decisions and luck
speed a return from the
financial abyss.
the crisis, mean that Icelandic companies
are forbidden to invest abroad.
At the same time, foreigners are forbidden
to take their money out of the country
— a situation that has tied up foreign investments
worth, according to various estimates,
between $3.4 billion and $8 billion.
“The capital controls are worse and
worse for companies, but the fear is that if
we lift them, the value of the krona will collapse,”
Professor Matthiasson said.
He said the only solution would be for Iceland
to dispense with the krona and join a
larger, more stable currency. The choices
at the moment seem to be the euro, which is
having its own difficulties,
and the Canadian
dollar.
Not everyone buys
into the rosy picture
presented by officialdom.
Jon Danielsson,
an Icelander who
teaches global finance
at the London School of
Economics, said that
both the International Monetary Fund,
which bailed Iceland out during the crisis,
and the government had a vested interest in
painting a positive picture of the situation.
Some Icelanders say they have been
soothed by the country’s bold decision to
initiate an extensive criminal investigation
into the financial debacle.
A visit to Iceland late last month revealed
a far different place from the shellshocked
nation of 2008. Stores and hotels were full.
The Harpa, a glass-and-steel concert hall
and conference center designed in part by
the artist Olafur Eliasson and opened in
2011, soared over the Reykjavik skyline,
next to a huge construction site that is to
house a luxury waterside hotel. Employers
said that instead of having to lay off workers,
they were in some cases having trouble
finding people to hire.
Icelanders said that they had stopped
feeling ashamed and isolated, the way that
they did during the worst of the crisis, when
their country was portrayed as a greedy
and foolish pariah state and its British assets
were frozen by the British government
using the blunt and humiliating instrument
of antiterror legislation.
“We went through this complicated and
terrible experience and were in the center
of world events,” said Kristrun Heimisdottir,
a lecturer in law and jurisprudence at
the University of Akureyri in northern Iceland.
She compared Iceland’s shame to that of
a private person thrust onto the front pages
by a lurid scandal. “It might take 20 years
to recover from the stress and humiliation
of having their personal life paraded before
the world,” she said. “But it turned out that
what happened to us was a microcosm of
the whole crisis.”
ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
After its free fall,
Iceland’s economy
is expected to
grow 2.8 percent
this year. Window
shoppers strolling in
Reykjavik.