BryLog

Plans for a tunnel linking Bolivia to the Pacific Ocean have been unveiled by three architects who say it could put an end to a 130 year-old dispute between the landlocked country and its neighbour, Chile.

The three Chilean architects claim the tunnel would allow Bolivia to regain access to the sea since it was defeated by Chile in the Pacific War in 1879.  This has been one of Bolivia’s main demands for years, and is still strongly voiced by current President Evo Morales.  The 150km (93 miles) tunnel would run from the Bolivian border to an artificial island created in the Pacific Ocean from earth dug to build the tunnel….

According to the plan, the tunnel would run under the so-called Line of Concord which separates Chile and Peru.  The reason, the architects say, is that this is an area free of mines or cables which could potentially complicate the project.

But both Peru and Chile dispute the border.  To go ahead, the project would also need the approval of Peru.  And there are doubts about whether there would be the political will at a time when Peru and Bolivia are arguing about Peru’s decision to grant asylum to former opposition leaders from Bolivia.

In addition, the artificial island would be created in waters claimed both by Peru and Chile.  And both countries have recently taken a row over coastal waters to the International Court of Justice in The Hague…. (more @ BBC News)

The White House this week released Bush-era memos describing “enhanced interrogation techniques” CIA personnel used.  At the time, former Justice Department assistant attorney general Jay Bybee believed these techniques, such as waterboarding, not to be torture because apparently they do not cause long-term psychological distress (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder).

How can he claim this (via NPR; All Things Considered)?

For a number of decades, Bybee writes, the government has been systematically using almost all of these techniques against more than 26,000 of our own people: soldiers participating in a program intended to teach them how to survive capture by a hostile enemy. Only a very small portion of those soldiers, the memo goes on to say, experienced any negative psychological repercussions.

The message is clear: Because American soldiers didn’t suffer from these techniques, they pose no threat to enemy detainees and should not be considered torture….

The Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program that the memos cite to justify waterboarding and other interrogation techniques was first introduced in the United States many decades ago. The goal of the program was to train military personnel to withstand torture and interrogation.

Basically the idea is to inoculate soldiers against the psychological effects of torture by giving them firsthand experience with the techniques they are likely to face. Soldiers are subjected to sleep deprivation and face slapping and the other techniques described in the Justice Department memos.

Unfortunately, just because these interogation techniques do not produce long-term ill in a tightly controlled test environment with consenting subjects, doesn’t mean they won’t produce psychological distress in the field:

But Gary Hazlett, a research scientist who spent many years studying stress among soldiers who were going through these programs, says it is not possible to compare the soldiers to a population of people who have been involuntarily detained.

“One group has a lot of control and can say no and stop the process at any point along the way, but that really doesn’t hold for the detainee group,” he said in an interview. Several other scientists contacted by NPR said the same, but declined to go on record at this time.

In fact, dozens of studies have shown that when people are exposed to trauma and perceive that they have no control over events, they are at increased risk for prolonged psychological harm, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

So if politicians say these enhanced interrogation techniques are not torture because they do not produce long-term psychological distress, consider that evidence does not necessarily support this point of view.

For the past 15 months Peruvians have able to tune in live to the trial of their former leader on television.

At times riveting but often tedious and procedural, what has been called “the mega-trial” is the longest, most complex and costliest in Peruvian history.

To some it is shameful and wrong that Alberto Fujimori - the man they credit with putting the economy back on track and defeating the brutal Mao-inspired insurgency of the Shining Path - should now be on trial.

But almost three-quarters of the population, according to opinion polls, believe he will be found guilty of charges he was responsible for two death squad killings and two kidnappings - as well as those of corruption, embezzlement and phone-tapping which will be heard in two more trials which will begin in May.

Mr Fujimori is the first democratically-elected leader in Latin America to be tried in his own country for human rights abuses…. (continues @ BBC News)

An important collection of papers belonging to the American writer Ernest Hemingway has been saved for posterity, thanks to a unique joint rescue mission involving communist Cuba and the United States.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has handed over thousands of hectares of land seized from large-scale owners to indigenous farmers.