Israeli troops catch accused
leader of suicide bombings
By Michael A. Lev
Chicago Tribune
JERUSALEM (KRT) — Israeli
forces on Monday captured a top
aide to Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat as U.S. officials announced
that Secretary of State Colin Powell
would meet again with Arafat and
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
to try to jump start the Middle East
peace process.
Powell, who is to see Sharon on
Tuesday and Arafat the following
day, embraced an Israeli suggestion
for an American-led peace confer
ence that could take place among for
eign ministers and not necessarily
involve Arafat. That addresses a key
Israeli demand, but analysts said the
Palestinians and Arab states might
reject any meeting arranged to specif
ically exclude Arafat.
Sharon, meanwhile, said Israeli
troops would withdraw from most
West Bank cities by next week. He
provided two important excep
tions, however: Bethlehem, where
Palestinian gunmen are holed up
in the Church of the Nativity; and
Ramallah, where Israeli troops
have placed Arafat's compound
under siege.
The arrest of Marwan Bargh
outi, leader of the Tanzim militia
and a chief organizer of the 18
month-old armed uprising against
the Israeli presence in Palestinian
lands, brought condemnation
from Palestinian officials.
“Any harm to Barghouti will
lead to grave consequences,”
Arafat aide Ahmed Abdul Rah
man told Reuters.
Israeli officials once considered
Barghouti, 41, a supporter of the
peace process, a man they could
deal with, perhaps even a palat
able alternative to Arafat. But the
Sharon government now views
him as a terrorist masquerading as
a politician.
Israeli officials tie Barghouti to
the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a
shadowy group linked to Arafat’s
Fatah movement that has claimed
responsibility for a series of suicide
bombings and shooting attacks on
Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben
Eliezer said Barghouti had turned
Fatah’s militia into “the most mur
derous of the terrorist organiza
tions, committing most of the re
cent attacks against Israel.”
Sharon said Israel would try
Barghouti, who was brought to
Jerusalem for interrogation after his
arrest in Ramallah. Barghouti had
been evading Israeli troops since
their sweeping assault on Palestin
ian territories began nearly three
weeks ago after a Passover holiday
suicide bombing killed 26 Israelis.
Barghouti, the highest-ranking Fa
tah official detained by Israel, had not
left the Palestinian-controlled town of
Ramallah for 19 months, for fear of be
ing arrested by Israel or being killed.
Some members of the Sharon
government despise him. When his
arrest was announced, a govern
ment spokesman said bitterly:
“They should have killed him. He
doesn’t deserve to live and he will
be a bigger headache alive.”
Well-educated, charismatic and a
(KRT)
Marwan Barghouti, shown in this May 2001
file photo, was arrested in Ramallah in the
West Bank by Israeli forces.
member of a prominent Ramallah
family, Barghouti is a member of
the Palestinian parliament and one
of the most popular figures of the
current uprising. He is considered
an accomplished street politician
believed capable of expertly organ
izing demonstrations but whose
darker impulses are less under
stood.
Barghouti has talked both of the
promise of a negotiated peace set
tlement with issue and made
threats that there can be “no securi
ty without peace.”
“I do not seek to destroy Israel
but only to end its occupation of
my country,” he once said.
©2002, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
Pope summons cardinals to Rome
By Tom Hunflley and Flynn McRoberts
Chicago Tribune
ROME (KRT) — Pope John Paul
II on Monday summoned U.S. car
dinals to the Vatican next week to
discuss the sex scandals roiling the
Catholic Church — an extraordi
nary signal of how serious the pon
tiff now considers the crisis.
The call to Rome of the eight
American cardinals who lead arch
dioceses — including Chicago’s
Francis George — amounted to a
dramatic departure from the pope’s
public reticence on an issue that
has shaken the credibility of the
church’s American leadership.
Church observers could not
name another instance where a
pope summoned the American car
dinals on such short notice to ad
dress a specific issue.
The Vatican’s announcement fol
lowed by just days a lunch meeting
between the pope and leaders of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops in which they discussed
the American church’s handling of
priests accused of sexual abuse.
Leading the delegation to the Vat
ican was the conference president,
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, a Chica
go native who as head of the dio
cese of Belleville, 111., has actively
addressed the scandal.
Gregory “relayed to the Holy Fa
ther very honestly what the situa
tion is in the American church —
that it is a very painful, significant
moment for the church,” said Bish
op William Skylstad of Spokane,
Wash., the vice president of the
conference who also attended the
lunch with the pope last Tuesday.
Since the latest sex-abuse scan
dal erupted with disclosures in
Boston that offending priests had
been quietly shuttled from parish
to parish, John Paul II had made
only two brief references to the is
sue. One came in a single para
graph in his 22-page pre-Easter
letter to priests in which he wrote
that they are affected by “the sins
of some of our brothers” who have
succumbed to “the most grievous
forms” of evil.
As recently as last week, the
pope expressed “fraternal solidar
ity” with U.S. clergymen over the
widening scandal and made clear
that he thought it was up to them
to clean up the mess created by
fellow priests.
His summons on Monday sent a
very different signal. “The fact that
the Vatican is calling the cardinals
together betokens a recognition ...
that this is a problem affecting the
entire church nationally,” said
Scott Appleby, professor of history
at the University of Notre Dame.
“Calling the cardinals together to
talk about something is not extraor
dinary,” Cardinal George said in an
interview Monday night. “What is
extraordinary is the moment. ...
The more we discuss this, the bet
ter off we are in general.”
Despite the extraordinary nature
of next week’s session, church ex
perts cautioned against predicting
immediate, fundamental changes
from it.
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“There is a danger of having ex
cessively high expectations of what
can come from this meeting,” said
Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of Amer
ica, the national Catholic weekly
magazine. “Obviously, the pope
cannot micromanage the priest per
sonnel policies of every diocese in
the U.S. But the cardinals could
float ideas with the pope and get
his reactions.”
©2002, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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