Chris Hedges's Blog, page 457

3rd Kavanaugh Accuser Has History of Legal Disputes

WASHINGTON—Julie Swetnick, one of the women who has publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, has an extensive history of involvement in legal disputes, including a lawsuit in which an ex-employer accused her of falsifying her college and work history on her job application.

Legal documents from Maryland, Oregon and Florida provide a partial picture of a woman who stepped into the media glare amid the battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination for the nation’s highest court.

Court records reviewed by The Associated Press show Swetnick has been involved in at least six legal cases over the past 25 years. Along with the lawsuit filed by a former employer in November 2000, the cases include a personal injury suit she filed in 1994 against the Washington, D.C., regional transit authority.

Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, told the AP that court cases involving her have no bearing on the credibility of her claims about Kavanaugh. Avenatti said the suit from her ex-employer — it was dismissed a month after it was filed — was “completely bogus, which is why it was dismissed almost immediately.”

He told AP that he “fully vetted” Swetnick before helping her take her claims against Kavanaugh public.

Avenatti released a sworn statement by Swetnick this past week in which she says she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s.” In the statement, which was provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Swetnick said she had been sexually assaulted at a party attended by members of Kavanaugh’s social circle, but did not accuse him of assaulting her. Two other women have publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexually abusing them.

One of those women, Christine Blasey Ford, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday to offer emotional testimony that even Kavanaugh’s most ardent backers, including Trump, said they found credible. Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her during a drunken party when both were students at Yale University. Friends and colleagues of Ramirez describe her as a quiet person who has dedicated herself to being an advocate for needy families and survivors of domestic violence.

Swetnick was the third named Kavanaugh accuser to emerge, when Avenatti released details of her accusations on Twitter on the eve of Ford’s testimony.

Kavanaugh has denied the claims regarding him made by Swetnick and other women, characterizing some of the allegations as a “joke” and a “farce.”

Ann Simonton, a nationally recognized advocate for rape survivors and director of Media Watch, a media literacy organization, cautioned that many sexual abuse survivors encounter chaos and trouble later in life — things can tarnish a survivor’s image but don’t necessarily speak to the legitimacy of the underlying abuse allegations. “This type of trauma will impact your daily life forever,” she said.

Swetnick, who is from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., has said she is willing to be interviewed by either Congress or the FBI. On Twitter, Avenatti wrote that he and Swetnick would “thoroughly enjoy” embarrassing Republicans on the Judiciary Committee this weekend “when her story is told and is deemed credible.” Swetnick has taped an interview with “The Circus,” a political program that is part of Showtime’s Sunday lineup.

Some details of the legal disputes she’s been involved in aren’t known, because documents in the cases are incomplete or no longer available. Records in the lawsuit filed in late 2000 by her ex-employer, Oregon-based software company Webtrends, don’t indicate why it was dismissed. Avenatti said there was a settlement in the case but no money changed hands.

In its civil complaint in a state court in Oregon, the company said Swetnick, a software engineer, was an employee for a few weeks before its human resources department received a report that she had engaged in “unwelcome sexual innuendo and inappropriate conduct” toward two male co-workers at a business lunch.

The lawsuit said that Swetnick in turn accused Webtrends of subjecting her to “physically and emotionally threatening and hostile conditions” and that she claimed that she’d been sexually harassed by four co-workers. The co-workers denied the allegations, the suit said.

Company officials later determined, the suit said, that Swetnick had provided false information on her employment application. The suit alleged that she had misrepresented the length of time she worked at a previous employer and falsely claimed that she’d earned an undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry from Johns Hopkins University.

Her lawyer, Avenatti, said that “whether she has a college degree or not does not matter as to whether she is a sexual assault victim.”

Helene Moglen, Swetnick’s aunt, told AP this week that her niece went off to college but quickly moved back home. In an interview with The Washington Post, Swetnick’s father was quoted as saying that “she bootstrapped herself and became a computer expert. She’s a sharp woman.”

None of the executives named in the lawsuit still works at Webtrends. Calls and emails to the company’s Portland headquarters seeking comment received no response. The lawyer who represented the company in the lawsuit also did not return messages seeking comment on Thursday and Friday.

Swetnick was on the other side of a civil case in 1994, as a plaintiff, when she filed a personal injury lawsuit in Maryland against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. She claimed she lost more than $420,000 in earnings after she hurt her nose in a fall on a train in 1992.

Swetnick, who described herself in court records as a model and actor, claimed she had “numerous modeling commitments” with several companies at the time of the accident but missed out them because of her injuries.

To support her claim for lost wages, Swetnick named “Konam Studios” as one of the companies promising to employ her. A court filing identified Nam Ko, a representative of “Kunam Studios,” as a possible plaintiff’s witness for her case.

Ko, however, told AP on Friday that he was just a friend of Swetnick’s and that he had never owned a company with a name spelled either way and had never agreed to pay her money for any work before she injured her nose. He said he first met Swetnick at a bar more than a year after her alleged accident.

“I didn’t have any money back then. I (was) broke as can be,” Ko said.

Ko said he has a hazy memory of Swetnick asking to use him as a “character reference” but doesn’t recall hearing about her lawsuit.

“I thought it was for a job application,” he said.

In answer to questions about the suit, Avenatti said: “This is all hearsay. … None of this is relevant, not one bit.”

The paperwork filed in the suit includes a letter addressed to Swetnick’s attorney from Richard Zamora, who is identified as a marketing executive from a San Jose, California-based company called Fiber Sign Inc. In the letter, dated March 1994, Zamora said the company had been prepared to hire Swetnick as a model and spokeswoman and pay her a $60,000 base salary but offered the job to someone else after learning of her accident.

Zamora later asked a court in Florida for a restraining order against Swetnick. The remaining court records don’t show the reasons he gave for asking for the restraining order, but indicate that the case was dropped less than two weeks later when neither party appeared in court.

Zamora, who now goes by Richard Vinneccy, declined to comment to AP this week about the letter or the nature of the relationship he’d had with Swetnick.

Avenatti said the request for a restraining order was “nonsense.”

Court records show Swetnick’s lawsuit against the transit agency was dismissed in 1997 after a settlement was reached. Vincent Jankoski, one of the lawyers who defended the agency, said the case was resolved without paying Swetnick any money after she failed to provide documentation supporting her lost-wage claims.

___

Kunzelman reported from Rockville, Maryland, and Mendoza from Santa Cruz, California. Associated Press writers Jeff Horwitz in Washington and Brian Witte in Annapolis and News Researcher Monica Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.

Palestinians Mourn Two Children Killed by Israelis in Gaza

After Israeli snipers massacred seven Palestinians—including two young children—and injured over 500 during protests against Israel’s brutal occupation on Friday, thousands of Gazans on Saturday attended funerals for those who were killed and demanded justice from the international community.

Among those killed by Israeli forces on Friday were 11-year-old Naser Azmi Musbeh and 14-year-old Mohammed Naif al-Houm.

Nasir Azmi Musbah, 11, shot in the head, and Muhammad Nayif Yusif al-Hawm, 14, shot in the chest, were among 7 killed by Israeli snipers in Gaza on Friday — the bloodiest day since 14 May when Israel killed 60 people https://t.co/yNRxMoqmuU pic.twitter.com/5kY5KQrim5

— Electronic Intifada (@intifada) September 29, 2018

Students in Gaza mourn their 12-year-old friend, Naser, who was shot dead in the head yesterday by israeli snipers at #Gaza borders. pic.twitter.com/FmoNDcFRiP

— Muhammad Smiry | Gaza (@MuhammadSmiry) September 29, 2018

As Middle East Eye reported: “At least 509 were injured, three of them in serious condition. According to Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesperson of the health ministry, four paramedics, four journalists, and 90 children were injured by live ammunition.”

(Note: While the following video states Musbeh was 12 years old—the age initially given by the Gaza Health Ministry—Musbeh’s family told the Associated Press that his date of birth was Dec. 29, 2006.)

Seven Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Friday during ongoing protests on the Gaza-Israel border.

Two of them were young boys aged 12 and 14 years old pic.twitter.com/ftihYTB9fA

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 29, 2018

Friday was reportedly the deadliest day of anti-occupation demonstrations since May, when Israeli forces killed 60 Gazans and injured thousands more.

As Common Dreams reported, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly in May to dispatch war crimes investigators to probe Israel’s ongoing massacre of innocent Palestinians.

“Israel’s use of deadly force against unarmed protesters on Friday is characteristic of its actions throughout the Great March of Return, during which more than 150 Palestinians have been killed, including 31 children, three persons with disabilities, three paramedics and two journalists,” Maureen Clare Murphy of Electronic Intifada noted on Saturday.

“More than 10,000 have been injured and required hospitalization, around half of them wounded by live fire,” Murphy added. “There have been 77 cases of injuries requiring amputation, among them 14 children and one woman. Twelve patients have been paralyzed due to spinal cord injury and two of them have died.”

American History for Truthdiggers: Reconstruction, a Failed Experiment

Editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

Below is the 18th installment of the “American History for Truthdiggers” series, a pull-no-punches appraisal of our shared, if flawed, past. The author of the series, Danny Sjursen, an active-duty major in the U.S. Army, served military tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and taught the nation’s checkered, often inspiring past when he was an assistant professor of history at West Point. His war experiences, his scholarship, his skill as a writer and his patriotism illuminate these Truthdig posts.

Part 18 of “American History for Truthdiggers.”

See: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10; Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15; Part 16; Part 17.

* * *

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—…

Or does it explode?

—Langston Hughes (1951)

It was, perhaps, the greatest betrayal, the ultimate lost opportunity, in all of American history. The failure of Reconstruction (1865-77)—the reunion and reorganization undertaken after the Civil War—was a dark, yet briefly vibrant, moment in our collective past. This was a time of promises made but not kept, mainly promises to the newly freed slaves. The results of this lost opportunity for genuine civil rights and racial equality resonate in the present day.

Most Americans know something about our great civil war. Lay enthusiasts, historical re-enactors and even otherwise disengaged citizens can recount the basic contours of great battles, horrific casualties and the sudden freedom granted the slaves. Well, it makes sense: War, when it is not actually unfolding around you, is exciting. Conversely, the process of picking up the pieces, rebuilding a nation and creating new social structures for a forever changed country, the stuff of Reconstruction, is far less well known.

It should be otherwise. The dozen or so years after the American Civil War (1861-65) are among the most consequential in our history and have far more relevance to contemporary affairs than almost any other era. Nearly every issue Americans grapple with today—citizenship, race, terrorism, affirmative action, the scope of federal power, and reparations payments—all have strong roots in the period of Reconstruction. It was in these years that the U.S. government would briefly triumph and ultimately fail in a grand experiment to achieve the twin goals of postwar Reconstruction: justice and reconciliation.

The historiography (the history of historians) of Reconstruction has a long, sordid history. Readers of a certain age, in fact, may recognize some of the older interpretations of this period. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, historians such as William A. Dunning and his many students at Columbia University—the so-called Dunning school of scholars—dominated this field. According to this highly biased, Southern-influenced interpretation, the problem with Reconstruction was that it went too far. The story went something like this: President Abraham Lincoln had a plan for leniency toward the former Confederates, and his successor, Andrew Johnson, attempted to follow the Lincoln vision. He was thwarted, however, by Radical Republicans in Congress who pushed too far too fast and were overly punitive with the former rebels. They sent “carpetbaggers” (outsiders) from the North who worked with “scalawags” (or collaborators) to force racial equality and Northern capitalist dominance on the poverty-stricken South. In this view, former slaves simply weren’t ready for the vote and other civil rights, and the Reconstruction-era governments in the South were massive, corrupt failures. Luckily, by 1877, a compromise was reached, the federal troops left, and heroic former Confederates in the newly formed Ku Klux Klan drove out the Yankee carpetbaggers and restored “home rule” to their governments.

If that interpretation seems shocking by modern standards, well, it should. What’s most disturbing is that some version of the Dunning interpretation remained mainstream (and in students’ textbooks) well into the 1950s; until, that is, the civil rights era. That this vision prevailed so long reflects a culture of white supremacy that existed long after the Civil War and, some argue, still exists today. The whole edifice was premised on the notion that blacks, as former slaves, were incapable of self-government and required the steady, paternalist hand of their white Southern superiors. After the civil rights era (1954-68), a new generation of historians took a fresh look at Reconstruction and rehabilitated the efforts of Radical Republicans, lauding their ultimately unsuccessful attempt to guarantee basic civil rights to newly freed blacks.

What, then, can now be said about Reconstruction? Perhaps this: It was a remarkably idealistic attempt to bring freedom and equality to 4 million souls only recently held in bondage. Some of the brief achievements of this period (such as blacks voting, holding office and serving in Congress) would not again occur on a broad scale for a century. The failure of these attempts was not due to corruption or the unpreparedness of blacks; rather, the racism and apathy of white Americans—both south and north of the Mason-Dixon Line—doomed black Americans to generations of slavery by another name: Jim Crow.

An Enormous Challenge: Reconstruction Begins

“If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to blacks, what will peace among the whites bring?” —Frederick Douglass (1875)

Americans began arguing about how best to reconstruct the Union before even winning the war. In fact, various generals and politicians experimented with several methods of reunion and racial reconciliation. Some Union generals treated escaped slaves like lowly laborers, either paying low wages for hard jobs or returning them to the plantations they had fled. This approach was common in the occupied Mississippi Valley and parts of Louisiana during the war. On the Carolina coast, however, the planters fled the approaching Union forces during the war and left behind some 10,000 slaves. Union generals granted land to the slaves and created a remarkable, if brief, experiment in black self-rule. White New Englanders flocked to the Carolina Sea Islands to teach blacks to read, treat them medically and train them in farming techniques. In another remarkable turn, Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ own plantation, Davis Bend, in Mississippi was seized and turned into a “negro paradise,” as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant declared it should be. The plantations were settled and worked by the slaves as a collective, and Davis Bend proved remarkably profitable for the rest of the war.

Such experiments, however, dealt only with the relatively few slaves left behind in the face of Union armies. After the South’s surrender, the U.S. government confronted a much larger challenge: What to do with some 4 million former slaves made free by the war? The size of the task was staggering. Six percent of all Northern white males had died as a result of the conflict, along with 18 percent of Confederate men. The freeing of the slaves was, by some counts, the largest confiscation of wealth (and “property”) in world history. The South was in ruins—it needed to be rebuilt and its surrendered rebels somehow reintegrated into the Union. It would have been a daunting task even if everything had gone right.

Besides, the South may have been beaten on the battlefield, but it was less clear that Southerners considered themselves truly defeated. Union Gen. James S. Brisbin wrote to a congressman in December 1865, “These people are not loyal; they are only conquered. I tell you there is not as much loyalty in the South today as there was the day Lee surrendered to Grant. The moment they lost their cause in the field they set about to gain by politics what they had failed to obtain by force of arms.” The average Confederate soldier may well have turned over his rifle (though often the soldiers kept their firearms) and taken off the uniform, and he may even have accepted the freeing of the slaves; however, he fully expected to maintain the edifice of white supremacy and return to the ways of the antebellum South.

The Worst President in History? Andrew Johnson and the Failure of Presidential Reconstruction

Johnson lacked all the qualities that made Lincoln a great president. He was combative, had no charisma, failed to compromise and was wickedly racist. When Johnson showed up drunk and gave a rambling, inebriated inaugural address, he was acting completely in character. Johnson was from Tennessee but had remained loyal to the Union, the only Southern senator to do so. He hated the planter aristocracy and the secessionists, but he was even less tolerant of blacks he considered uppity and Northern abolitionists. Johnson planned Reconstruction on his own terms. He lavished pardons on any Confederate official who wrote to him or visited Washington, and insisted that the leadership of the Southern states remain in place and that these states should quickly re-enter the Union. He had no love for famed abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, of whom he said at the conclusion of a meeting: “He’s just like any nigger, and he would sooner cut a white man’s throat than not.”

Few Confederates, even high-ranking ones, were severely punished. There were no war crimes trials, military tribunals for treason, or mass hangings. Even Confederate President Jefferson Davis spent but two years in prison. The Confederacy’s vice president, Alexander Stephens, would even rejoin the U.S. Congress within a decade of the war’s end, and end his career as governor of Georgia. As soon as white Southerners were back in charge of local government, the Deep South states quickly enacted “black codes,” or laws, controlling every aspect of the freedmen’s public lives. As an example, the Louisiana Black Codes read, in part:

Section 1. … [N]o negro or freedman shall be allowed to come within the city limits … without special permission.

Section 2. … [E]very negro freedman who shall be found on the streets after 10 o’clock without a writ-ten pass … shall be imprisoned and compelled to work five days on the streets.

Section 5. No public meetings … of negroes shall be allowed. …

Section 7. [N]o freedman who is not in the military service shall be allowed to carry firearms. …

Indeed, the Southern states, with the planter class back in charge, had largely negated the North’s achievements of the war and crafted a new version of slavery. All-white police forces and judiciaries, often composed of Confederate veterans still wearing their gray uniforms, enforced the black codes. Union veterans and Radical (meaning more liberal) Republicans in Congress began to wonder, if there was to be no punishment for the Confederates or meaningful freedom for the slaves, what the war had even been for.

The Radical Moment: Congressional Reconstruction

Johnson and his Southern compatriots would later argue that “radical” Reconstruction was despotic and unnecessary. Nevertheless, the record demonstrates the opposite. Through presidential vetoes and white Southern intransigence, the South brought radical Reconstruction upon itself. When Congress passed the remarkable Civil Rights Act of 1866, Johnson quickly vetoed it. This legislation provided for equality before the law (but not the vote) for the freedmen. Congress overrode his veto with a two-thirds majority—the first time a major bill was passed over a presidential veto in U.S. history. To solidify black rights, the Congress even passed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which stated:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

And, taking matters a step further, the Republican Congress also passed the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed the vote to black men (but not women). In a remarkable turn of events, black men had gained civil and political rights in just three years and over the objections of the president. The Republican Party—which hadn’t existed in the South before the war—began winning elections and even placing blacks (often former slaves) in elected offices. Eight hundred black men would serve in state legislatures from 1868 through 1877; a black man was briefly governor of Louisiana; more than a dozen blacks served in the U.S. House, and one in the Senate. White Southerners called this “Negro Rule,” but in reality it was the first ever attempt at democracy in the South. After all, in a few Deep South states, former slaves constituted an actual majority of the population.

Johnson was appalled by both the 14th and 15th amendments and the radical changes unfolding in Southern society. And by suddenly removing the Radical Republican Edwin Stanton from his position as secretary of war, he violated the recently passed Tenure of Office Act (which required congressional approval of such moves). That was the last straw for an already frustrated Congress. The House voted to impeach President Johnson, and the Senate came within one vote of the two-thirds majority required to remove him from office. Even though he remained president, Johnson had been politically castrated and wouldn’t run for re-election in 1868. He would be succeeded by the great Union war hero Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Grant’s Democratic opponents, Horatio Seymour and Francis P. Blair, would play the race card—actually, the racist card—in their failed 1868 campaign. Blair claimed that the Republicans had placed the South under the rule of “a semi-barbarous race of blacks who are worshippers of fetishes and polygamists” and who long to “subject the white women to their unbridled lust.”

Though blacks had won remarkable political power in a few short years, they generally lacked any true economic clout. There were early efforts, though, spearheaded by the likes of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, to offer 40 acres and in some cases supposedly a mule to freedmen along the Southeast coast. In January 1865, before the war had ended, Sherman enacted Special Field Order 15 from Savannah, Ga., thereby setting aside such confiscated land for thousands of freedmen. Unfortunately, by September 1865, after the war’s end, President Johnson rescinded Sherman’s order and mandated the land be restored to the Confederate owners. Some Union generals publicly opposed the president’s decision. Gen. O.O. Howard—head of the new Federal Freedmen’s Bureau, designed to support the newly emancipated slaves—was nearly fired and court-martialed after writing to his superiors: “The lands which have been taken possession were solemnly pledged to the freedman. Thousands of them are already located on tracts of forty acres each. The love of the soil and desire to own farms [is] the dearest hope of their lives.”

The language of this 1866 political cartoon says, in part, “The Freedman’s Bureau! An agency to keep the Negro in idleness at the expense of the white man. … Support Congress & you support the Negro. Sustain the President & you protect the white man.”

Howard’s Freedmen’s Bureau was itself a remarkable institution. Though always small (never having more than 900 employees in the entire South), the bureau worked toward the education and betterment of the former slaves in what was the earliest known federal welfare program of any size. Still, opposition cartoons in the South depicted the bureau—which was remarkably successful in most cases—as a haven for freeloaders and lazy black men. (This language rings as remarkably similar to 20th-century complaints against modern welfare programs.)

Some Radical Republicans—to their immense credit, given the times—wanted to go a step further. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, unsuccessful fought for the confiscation of 400 million acres of Confederate land and its redistribution to the freedmen. Stevens, in opposition to Johnson’s view, believed the federal government ought to treat the Southerners as a “conquered people” and reform “the foundation of their institutions, both political, municipal and social,” so that “all our blood and treasure [were not] spent in vain.” Given the century of Jim Crow laws, lynching and political disenfranchisement that followed Reconstruction, it appears that men like Stevens were ultimately right and exceptionally ahead of their times. Such a redistribution of land would be radical even today and carry the tainted labels of “socialism,” “affirmative action” and “reparations.” Still, in hindsight, the denial of land ownership to most freedmen doomed them to labor in the fields and on the plantations of the onetime slaveholders. The terms of work and the social caste system remained remarkably consistent with the pre-war “Old” South.

Domestic Terror: The KKK Counterrevolution

It was a time of great terror. Though pitched battles between armies became a thing of the past, the South was far from pacified and remained an extraordinarily violent place. The federal Army—which after the war never counted more than 30,000 men across the entire South—did what it could to stanch the violence and protect victims, who were almost always former slaves. The most infamous group of revisionist former rebels was known as the Ku Klux Klan, or the KKK for short.

The members of the Ku Klux Klan, formed in Pulaski, Tenn., by Confederate veterans, wore white sheets over their heads in order to appear “as the ghosts of the Confederate dead.” In reality, of course, the Klan was merely a resurrection of the old militias and slave patrols that had enforced white supremacy for centuries. Its tactic was violence; its goal, counterrevolution; its method, terrorism. The Klan was extraordinarily violent, probably killing more innocent black men, women and children during Reconstruction than the number of Americans killed in the 9/11 attacks of 2001. After all, in Texas alone, in just 1865-1868, over 1,000 blacks were murdered by whites.

Other statistics and events are equally shocking. In October 1870, bands of whites in South Carolina’s Piedmont region drove 150 freedmen from their homes and committed 13 murders. In Louisiana in 1873 a legally organized and accredited black militia tried to defend the parish courthouse in Colfax against a superior white force of former Confederates armed with rifles and a small cannon. The black militia held out for a time but was ultimately overwhelmed. At least 50 were summarily executed under a white flag of truce.

Furthermore, after Northern troops pulled out of the South and turned government over to white locals, the reign of terror continued. Some 3,000 blacks were lynched between 1882 and 1930.

Among the reasons given for these murders: “[a black man] didn’t remove his hat”; an African-American “wouldn’t call [a white man] master.” In yet another case, a white killer simply had “wanted to thin out the niggers a little.”

It’s not as though the Klan could not be controlled, even though it would be fair to characterize the U.S. Army campaign of 1866-77 as a form of what we would now call counterinsurgency. In fact, whenever the Army had the will, leadership and capacity to suppress the Klan, it did so. After the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was passed at the request of President Grant, the law proved remarkably successful in stymying the power of the KKK throughout much of the South; for the first time ever, a certain class of crimes was brought under federal jurisdiction. Ultimately, it was a question of will, not ability. The simple fact was that Northerners had little stomach for more fighting and complained of the expense—in blood and treasure—of continued occupation. In the end, the Northern public lacked the will necessary to win the peace as it had won the war.

The Lost Cause: Southern ‘Redemption’

“There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget. … [The South] has suffered to be sure, but she has been the author of her own suffering.”  —Frederick Douglass (remarks at Madison Square in New York City, Decoration Day of 1878)

The former Confederates never really accepted defeat or the reorganization of their social system. In reality, they bided their time, waged secret violence and, perhaps most importantly, crafted an alternative “Lost Cause” narrative. According to this (remarkably resilient) yarn, the South had actually outfought the North and was beaten only because it was overwhelmed by Northern superiority in numbers and resources. The South hadn’t really fought for slavery, but rather for states’ rights and Southern honor. In reality, soldiers on both sides—blue and gray—had more in common than they realized when they were killing each other in massive numbers. According to the Lost Cause myth—which still exists—“reconciliation” between the sections was more important than “justice” for blacks or “punishment” for rebels.

Southern generals were rarely punished and rose to prominence rather quickly as Reconstruction wound down in the 1870s. They gave popular speeches, both in the North and South, speaking of the need for “reconciliation” and “reunion,” words that tended to serve as code for abandonment of the former slaves to the will of their old masters. In 1877, in Brooklyn, N.Y., former Confederate Gen. Roger Pryor told a crowd that applauded him:

The Union is re-established … over the hearts of people. …

But slavery was not the cause of secession. For the cause you must look … to that irrepressible conflict between the principles of state sovereignty and federal supremacy. … Impartial history will record that slavery fell not by effort of man’s will, but by an act of Almighty God, and so, fellow citizens, the soldiers of the late war are brought today to fraternize over the graves of their departed comrades, and renew their vows of fealty to the Constitution.

Such sentiments were remarkably common and accepted on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. As violence, and the slow removal of federal troops from the South, began to keep blacks from the polls, Southern Democrats began winning statewide elections. By 1875, former Confederate Gen. James L. Kemper, who had been in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, was governor of Virginia and gave a speech to unveil a statue of Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson in Richmond. On the occasion, Gov. Kemper revealed not only a new heroic statue but his own version of the rhetoric of Lost Cause and reconciliation. He exclaimed:

Not for the Southern people only, but for every citizen of whatever section … this tribute … is to be cherished, with national pride. … Stonewall Jackson’s career of unconscious heroism will go down as an inspiration. … It speaks with equal voice to every portion of the reunited common country … to inspire our children with patriotic fervor. … Let Virginia demand and resume [its] ancient place in the sisterhood of States. …

Considering that “Stonewall” was a traitor who resigned his U.S. Army commission to fight for a treasonous Southern slaveholding secessionist republic just 14 years earlier, this was remarkable rhetoric. That it resonated among some Northerners as well as Southerners is more peculiar. But so it was.

A poster for D.W. Griffith’s 1915 movie “The Birth of a Nation.” The highly popular film, shown in Woodrow Wilson’s White House, depicted the Ku Klux Klan as heroic.

The Lost Cause myth took on a life of its own and, eventually, drafted a Reconstruction chapter as well. According to this version, it was actually the KKK that was heroic during Reconstruction, protecting rightfully white leadership and the honor of Southern white women. As late as the early 20th century, this was somehow a mainstream interpretation. It was in 1915 that D.W. Griffith’s incredibly successful silent film “The Birth of a Nation” depicted the Klan as the heroic savior of the white South from venal Northern carpetbaggers and insufferable, lustful black savages. How mainstream was the film? Well, it was a favorite of President Woodrow Wilson (a Virginian) and received a private screening at the White House.

The South may have lost the war, but it most certainly won the peace.

Betrayal: The Retreat From Reconstruction

“The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” —W.E.B. Du Bois (1913)

The abandonment of Southern blacks shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, what did it truly mean to remake the South in the North’s image when the North itself was so virulently racist in the mid-19th century? Most Northerners had signed up for the Army to save the Union and cared little for the slaves. Soon after the war, The Cincinnati Enquirer announced, “Slavery is dead, the negro is not, there is the misfortune.”

Most Northerners were tired of Reconstruction by the mid-1870s. The commitment of troops and money to protect what many saw as corrupt and inefficient “black” administrations just didn’t seem worth it. Besides, the economic mismanagement—the Panic of 1873 was the worst financial disaster in 40 years—and staggering corruption that plagued the Grant administration only further alienated the Northern populace from what seemed a distant and futile task down South. The tragedy of it all, of course, is that when the U.S. government stuck with it, used the Army and enforced the law, the Reconstruction governments achieved remarkable successes—political wins for blacks that most Southern states wouldn’t see again until the 1980s! Unfortunately, most of the white North was fickle and bigoted.

Besides, even if the Republican president and Congress stood by the goals of Reconstruction, the Southern-dominated Supreme Court soon eviscerated much of the congressional legislation protecting black civil rights. Indeed, it would take a century for the courts to begin appropriately applying the 14th and 15th amendments to Southern blacks. In 1883, the court would rule that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. And, after all, it was the Supreme Court of the United States that would later, in 1896, rule in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation was legal!

A lackluster candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, ran on the Republican ticket for president in 1876. The party was seen as tainted by corruption in the Grant administration and mismanagement of the economy and had lost control of the Congress two years earlier, in 1874. It was almost amazing that the little-known Hayes, a former governor of Ohio, managed to keep the vote close in what turned out to be a disputed election with many abnormalities. It was unclear who had won a few Southern states. It appeared, however, that Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic nominee, had the majority of both the popular and electoral vote. It was at this moment that the Republican Party—for which Reconstruction and justice had become a political liability—struck a nefarious deal.

For the sake of party and power, “Rutherfraud” B. Hayes, as he was subsequently called, sold out the millions of Southern blacks who had loyally supported the Republicans for years. The candidate who had lost the popular vote would become president in exchange for his promise to remove the U.S. Army from the South. And so he did. Ironically, he also turned the South over to Democratic one-party rule for a century to come. Hayes was obviously lacking as a political tactician. The truth is, however, that by the time of the 1876 election the majority of Northern whites had tired of Reconstruction. More concerned with economic depression than black civil rights, Northerners were ready to throw in the towel and turn the South back over to its traditional white leaders, come what may. The Compromise of 1877 only reinforced what was by then inevitable: the abandonment of the South’s blacks. Looking back, a dozen years after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, one could plausibly wonder: What had all those men died for in the Civil War?

* * *

Justice and reconciliation. These were, ultimately, the twin goals of postwar Reconstruction. A century and a half on, though, the keen observer wonders if the two goals were ever compatible. To seek justice and equality for the freedmen seemed to inevitably make reconciliation with white former Confederates ever less likely. To prioritize reconciliation with the former rebels seemed to sentence black people to a prolonged bondage of sorts, under the segregationist regime of Jim Crow.

Still, this author sees Reconstruction as an admirable attempt—however far ahead of its time it might have proved to be—at true social and political equality in the United States. It is remarkable that Reconstruction was even attempted in America of the 1860s and ’70s. If only the U.S. Army had stayed longer, enforced the law more stringently, redistributed land and wealth more equitably; if, in other words, the nation had stuck with the Radical Republican approach. Perhaps, then, the civil rights movement of the 1960s could have begun a century earlier, thousands of lynchings been avoided, and the riots, violence and racial upheaval of our own day dodged.

Seen in that albeit provocative light, the real hero of Reconstruction was the congressional “radical” Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, the man who called for free land and civil equity for Southern blacks, at the point of the bayonet if necessary. He would die before Reconstruction truly got underway, and upon his death in August 1866 Stevens, a white man, for the last time challenged his countrymen to “rise above their prejudices.” As he wished, he was buried in an integrated cemetery, an action taken, in the words of his self-composed epitaph, “to illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life: Equality of Man before his Creator.”

Alas, there would be no such equality in the lives of his countrymen. The American experiment was, at it always seems to be, a step behind its egalitarian rhetoric. The United States, it turns out, was not ready for true Reconstruction—and more’s the pity. Many thousands of Northerners died during the American Civil War, and it would have been highly satisfying to imagine they had died for something more than a century of Jim Crow and slavery by another name. But that is the real America, warts and all. And that, in the end, was the failed experiment in Reconstruction.

Still, Reconstruction achieved much and demonstrated what was possible if, someday, Americans had the moral and political will to see it through. The brief Republican governments of the South brought the region its first-ever public school system. It brought more hospitals, more asylums for orphans and the insane. South Carolina in this period would fund medical care for the poor. Alabama would provide free legal counsel for indigent defendants. These were social gains the South wouldn’t see again in most cases until the 1970s or even in some cases until today.

We still live with Reconstruction’s incomplete mission, with its failed promises. Reconstruction remains; its weight presses upon a divided American body politic, sundered yet by class, race and gender. We are reconstructing still, and remain fixed in the midst of our unfinished revolution.

  * * *

To learn more about this topic, consider the following scholarly works:

• David W. Blight, “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” (2001).

• James West Davidson, Brian DeLay, Christine Leigh Heyrman, Mark H. Lytle and Michael B. Stoff, “Experience History: Interpreting America’s Past,” Chapter 17: “Reconstructing the Union, 1865-1877” (2011).

• Eric Foner, “A Short History of Reconstruction” (1990).

• Jill Lepore, “These Truths: A History of the United States” (2018).

• Richard White, “The Republic for Which it Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896” (2017).

Maj. Danny Sjursen, a regular contributor to Truthdig, is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, “Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kan. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet and check out his new podcast, “Fortress on a Hill,” co-hosted with fellow vet Chris “Henri” Henrikson.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

Separatists Clash With Barcelona Police as Tensions Mount

BARCELONA, Spain — Clashes between Catalan separatists and police in Barcelona left 14 people injured and led to six arrests Saturday as tensions boiled over days before the anniversary of the Spanish region’s illegal referendum on secession, which ended in violent raids by security forces.

Separatists tossed and sprayed colored powder at police officers, filling the air with a thick rainbow cloud and covering anti-riot shields and police vans. Some protesters threw eggs and other objects and engaged with the police line, which used batons to keep them back.

The clashes erupted after local Catalan police intervened to form a barrier when a separatist threw purple paint on a man who was part of another march of people in support of Spanish police demanding a pay raise. Officers used batons to keep the opposing groups apart.

There were more confrontations as the separatists tried to enter Barcelona’s main city square where 3,000 people supporting Spanish police had ended their march.

Separatists shouted “Get out of here, fascists!” and “Independence!” at the Spanish police supporters, who responded by shouting “We will be victorious!” and “Our cause is just!”

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau pleaded for peace when the first scuffles broke out.

“I make a call for calm,” Colau told Catalunya Radio. “This city has always defended that everyone can exercise their rights to free speech.”

The Catalan police told The Associated Press that the six arrests were made on charges of aggressions against police officers. The investigation was continuing.

One police officer was hurt, although it was not immediately clear if the officer was among the 14 people reported by health authorities as needing medical treatment. Three were taken to hospital while the others were attended to on the street.

There were ugly episodes between members of the opposing groups.

An AP photographer saw a group of several people who had come to support the Spanish police being chased by a mob of around 100 separatists, some of whom tried to kick and trip the supporters before they could reach the safety of local police. Separately, a woman punched a man who supports Catalan secession in the face before police could separate them.

The pro-police march had originally planned to end in another square home to the regional and municipal government seats but 6,000 separatists, according to local police, gathered in the square to force regional authorities to alter the march’s route. Some separatists arrived the night before and camped out in the square.

“The separatists are kicking us out,” said national police officer Ibon Dominguez, who attended the march. “They are kicking the national police and Guardia Civil out of the streets of our own country.”

The police march was organized by the police association JUSAPOL, which wants Spain’s two nationwide police forces, the national police and Civil Guard, to be paid as much as Catalonia’s regional police.

JUSAPOL holds marches in cities across Spain, but Saturday’s march in Barcelona comes two days before Catalonia’s separatists plan to remember last year’s referendum on secession held by the regional government despite its prohibition by the nation’s top court.

That Oct. 1 referendum was marred when national police and Civil Guard officers clashed with voters, injuring hundreds.

JUSAPOL spokesman Antonio Vazquez told Catalan television TV3 that while the march’s goal was to demand better salaries, they also wanted to support the national police and Civil Guard officers who had been ordered to dismantle the referendum.

“The national police and Civil Guard agents who acted last year were doing their duty and now they are under pressure and we have to support them,” Vazquez said.

Last year’s police operation that failed to stop the referendum has become a rallying call for Catalonia’s separatists, who point to it as evidence of Spain’s mistreatment of the wealthy region that enjoys an ample degree of self-rule.

“Outrageous! They shouldn’t be here. They came here to hit us a year ago and today they want to make an homage to that. It is pathetic,” said secession supporter Montse Romero.

Pro-secession lawmaker Vidal Aragones of the extreme left CUP party called the police march an “insult to the Catalan people.”

While Catalonia has seen huge political rallies take place without incident for several years, two weeks ago police had to intervene to keep apart rallies by Catalan separatists and Spanish unionists in Barcelona, the region’s capital.

Catalonia’s separatist-led government is asking Spain’s central authorities to authorize a binding vote on secession. Last year’s illegal vote led to an ineffective declaration of independence by Catalonia’s parliament that gained no international recognition and triggered a months-long takeover by central authorities.

Polls and recent elections show that the region’s 7.5 million residents are roughly equally divided by the secession question.

___

AP video journalist Renata Brito and AP photographer Daniel Cole contributed to this report.

Catalan Separatists Clash With Police in Barcelona as Tensions Mount

BARCELONA, Spain — Clashes between Catalan separatists and police in Barcelona left 14 people injured and led to six arrests Saturday as tensions boiled over days before the anniversary of the Spanish region’s illegal referendum on secession, which ended in violent raids by security forces.

Separatists tossed and sprayed colored powder at police officers, filling the air with a thick rainbow cloud and covering anti-riot shields and police vans. Some protesters threw eggs and other objects and engaged with the police line, which used batons to keep them back.

The clashes erupted after local Catalan police intervened to form a barrier when a separatist threw purple paint on a man who was part of another march of people in support of Spanish police demanding a pay raise. Officers used batons to keep the opposing groups apart.

There were more confrontations as the separatists tried to enter Barcelona’s main city square where 3,000 people supporting Spanish police had ended their march.

Separatists shouted “Get out of here, fascists!” and “Independence!” at the Spanish police supporters, who responded by shouting “We will be victorious!” and “Our cause is just!”

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau pleaded for peace when the first scuffles broke out.

“I make a call for calm,” Colau told Catalunya Radio. “This city has always defended that everyone can exercise their rights to free speech.”

The Catalan police told The Associated Press that the six arrests were made on charges of aggressions against police officers. The investigation was continuing.

One police officer was hurt, although it was not immediately clear if the officer was among the 14 people reported by health authorities as needing medical treatment. Three were taken to hospital while the others were attended to on the street.

There were ugly episodes between members of the opposing groups.

An AP photographer saw a group of several people who had come to support the Spanish police being chased by a mob of around 100 separatists, some of whom tried to kick and trip the supporters before they could reach the safety of local police. Separately, a woman punched a man who supports Catalan secession in the face before police could separate them.

The pro-police march had originally planned to end in another square home to the regional and municipal government seats but 6,000 separatists, according to local police, gathered in the square to force regional authorities to alter the march’s route. Some separatists arrived the night before and camped out in the square.

“The separatists are kicking us out,” said national police officer Ibon Dominguez, who attended the march. “They are kicking the national police and Guardia Civil out of the streets of our own country.”

The police march was organized by the police association JUSAPOL, which wants Spain’s two nationwide police forces, the national police and Civil Guard, to be paid as much as Catalonia’s regional police.

JUSAPOL holds marches in cities across Spain, but Saturday’s march in Barcelona comes two days before Catalonia’s separatists plan to remember last year’s referendum on secession held by the regional government despite its prohibition by the nation’s top court.

That Oct. 1 referendum was marred when national police and Civil Guard officers clashed with voters, injuring hundreds.

JUSAPOL spokesman Antonio Vazquez told Catalan television TV3 that while the march’s goal was to demand better salaries, they also wanted to support the national police and Civil Guard officers who had been ordered to dismantle the referendum.

“The national police and Civil Guard agents who acted last year were doing their duty and now they are under pressure and we have to support them,” Vazquez said.

Last year’s police operation that failed to stop the referendum has become a rallying call for Catalonia’s separatists, who point to it as evidence of Spain’s mistreatment of the wealthy region that enjoys an ample degree of self-rule.

“Outrageous! They shouldn’t be here. They came here to hit us a year ago and today they want to make an homage to that. It is pathetic,” said secession supporter Montse Romero.

Pro-secession lawmaker Vidal Aragones of the extreme left CUP party called the police march an “insult to the Catalan people.”

While Catalonia has seen huge political rallies take place without incident for several years, two weeks ago police had to intervene to keep apart rallies by Catalan separatists and Spanish unionists in Barcelona, the region’s capital.

Catalonia’s separatist-led government is asking Spain’s central authorities to authorize a binding vote on secession. Last year’s illegal vote led to an ineffective declaration of independence by Catalonia’s parliament that gained no international recognition and triggered a months-long takeover by central authorities.

Polls and recent elections show that the region’s 7.5 million residents are roughly equally divided by the secession question.

___

AP video journalist Renata Brito and AP photographer Daniel Cole contributed to this report.

North Korea Says It Won’t Disarm Nuclear Weapons if It Can’t Trust U.S.

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea needs more trust in the U.S. and their developing relationship before it will get rid of its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang’s top diplomat said Saturday as an envoy from another of the international community’s biggest worries — Syria — demanded that the U.S., France and Turkey withdraw their troops from his civil-war-wracked country.

More than three months after a June summit in Singapore between the U.S. and his country’s leaders, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly that his nation doesn’t see a “corresponding response” from the U.S. to North Korea’s early disarmament moves. Instead, he noted, the U.S. is continuing sanctions aimed at keeping up pressure.

“The perception that sanctions can bring us on our knees is a pipe dream of the people who are ignorant of us,” he said, adding that the continued sanctions are “deepening our mistrust” and deadlocking the current diplomacy.

“Without any trust in the U.S., there will be no confidence in our national security, and under such circumstances, there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first,” Ri said, adding that the North’s commitment to disarming is “solid and firm,” but that trust is crucial.

Washington is wary of easing sanctions or agreeing to another of the North’s priorities — a declaration ending the Korean War — without Pyongyang first making significant disarmament moves.

Ri’s comments come as U.S. President Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, are trying to regain momentum in their quest to get North Korea to renounce its nuclear ambitions.

Pompeo is planning to visit Pyongyang next month to prepare for a second Kim-Trump summit.

Both Kim and Trump want to meet again. But there is widespread skepticism that Pyongyang is serious about renouncing an arsenal that the country likely sees as the only way to guarantee its safety.

Pompeo and Ri met on the sidelines of the General Assembly Wednesday for what Pompeo described as a “very positive” discussion. He did not give any details.

The North has traditionally said that the nuclear standoff is between it and the United States, but recent summits between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have also dealt with the nuclear issue.

Nuclear envoys from the U.S. and ally South Korea have met three times during this week’s U.N. meetings to talk about ways to end North Korea’s pursuit of an arsenal of nuclear-armed long-range missiles.

Like North Korea, Syria could be on the cusp of significant developments.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem declared Saturday that his country’s “battle against terrorism is almost over” after more than seven years of civil war.

He demanded that U.S., French and Turkish troops pull out of the country immediately, calling them “occupation forces” that are there illegally, without the government’s invitation. The United States has around 2,000 troops in northern Syria, working with local forces against Islamic State militants in the country.

Al-Moallem vehemently restated denials that Damascus has used chemical weapons during the war — although international investigators have found otherwise — and he called on all refugees to return home, saying that is a priority for Damascus.

“Today, the situation on the ground is more stable and secure, thanks to combatting terrorism,” he said. “All conditions are now present for the voluntary return of refugees.”

Syrian government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have retaken most of the territory rebels seized during the war that has killed over 400,000 people and driven millions from their homes.

A military offensive by President Bashar Assad’s forces on Idlib, the last remaining rebel stronghold, was averted last week in a deal reached between Russia and Turkey to set up a demilitarized zone around the province. Still, there is uncertainty over how the deal will be implemented; two insurgent groups have rejected it.

Idlib has been a relative refuge for people displaced by violence in other parts of the country, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said a full-scale battle for Idlib could unleash “a humanitarian nightmare” surpassing the misery already seen during the war.

Trump, speaking before the U.N. Security Council Wednesday, warned Assad against a far-reaching offensive on the northeastern region: “I hope the restraint continues. The world is watching.”

Al-Moallem said the Syrian government hopes that when the demilitarization zone deal is implemented, “the last remnants of terrorism in Syria” will be eradicated.

Investigators from the U.N. and an international chemical weapons watchdog have attributed several chemical attacks during the war to government forces, while also blaming the Islamic State extremist group for at least one chemical assault. Syria has denied using chemical weapons in the fight.

“We fully condemn the use of chemical weapons under any circumstances,” al-Moallem said. He said countries have lobbed “ready-made accusations” at Syria without what he described as any investigation or evidence.

The issue has been a flashpoint at the U.N. Security Council, with the U.S. and Western countries denouncing Assad over chemical attacks and Russia rejecting the investigators’ findings. The U.S. has twice carried out its own airstrikes in response to the chemical attacks.

In November, Russia used its Security Council veto to block Western efforts to keep the investigative body going.

Meanwhile, the U.N.-led effort to bring Syria’s warring factions together to work on a new constitution, which would pave the way for elections, would be held has been stalled for years.

___

Associated Press writer Maria Sanminiatelli contributed to this report.

The Woman Who Accused Soccer Player Cristiano Ronaldo of Rape Seeks Justice

An American woman who has accused international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo of rape has come forward with her full story. Kathryn Mayorga, 34, plans to sue Ronaldo, 33, of Portugal and seeks to void a previous out-of-court settlement and nondisclosure agreement.

Mayorga detailed the alleged attack in Der Spiegel on Friday. According to documents reviewed by the German magazine, Ronaldo filled out a questionnaire with law firm Carlos Osório de Castro in which he admitted “she said ‘no’ and ‘stop’ several times.”

Mayorga said that on June 12, 2009, Ronaldo raped her in his Las Vegas hotel room. She said she had repeatedly turned him down during the course of the night. Eventually, he pulled her into the bedroom and jumped on her. She said she yelled “no, no, no” before he raped her anally. Afterward, she filed an anonymous police report and had a rape kit performed at the hospital.

According to Der Spiegel, Ronaldo said in the questionnaire to his lawyers: “She said that she didn’t want to, but she made herself available. … But she kept saying ‘no.’ ‘Don’t do it.’ ‘I’m not like the others.’ I apologized afterward.”

Months later, Ronaldo paid Mayorga a $375,000 settlement—a week’s salary for Ronaldo on Real Madrid—and she signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Mayorga plans to sue Ronaldo and have the previous agreement voided. “The purpose of this lawsuit is to hold Cristiano Ronaldo responsible within a civil court of law for the injuries he has caused Kathryn Mayorga and the consequences of those injuries,” Leslie Mark Stovall, Mayorga’s lawyer, said.

“I thought, ‘Is this a joke?’ This guy that is so famous and so hot … he’s a frickin’ loser and a creep,’ ” Mayorga said.

“I’ve had these serious breakdowns. And again, blaming of the rape. And I blame him, and I blame myself for signing that thing,” she added.

Ronaldo’s legal team called the Der Spiegel report “blatantly illegal” and “an inadmissible reporting of suspicions in the area of privacy.”

In 2005, Ronaldo was arrested and questioned on suspicion of rape at his London hotel, but Scotland Yard investigators did not pursue charges against him.

Documents were provided to Der Spiegel by the whistleblower platform the Football Leaks. In April, documents from the Football Leaks showed Ronaldo’s use of previously undisclosed offshore tax havens. In June, he agreed to pay the Spanish government  $21.7 million to avoid going to prison for tax evasion.

Sen. Sanders Demands That FBI Investigate Kavanaugh

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demanded that the newly reopened FBI investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh examine both the serious accusations of sexual assault against him and whether he lied to Congress in his testimony.

“In order for this FBI investigation regarding Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to be complete,” Sanders wrote, “it is imperative the bureau must not only look into the accusations made by Dr. Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick, it should also examine the veracity of his testimony before the Judiciary Committee.”

The Vermont senator went on to call on the Senate to not “constrain” the FBI probe to one week, arguing that a truly thorough probe could take longer.

“If you are concerned with a delay in this confirmation process, remember that Senate Republicans refused to allow the Senate to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court for nearly a year,” Sanders wrote. “In addition to investigating the accusations made by multiple women, a thorough investigation should include a review of Judge Kavanaugh’s numerous untruthful statements in his previous testimony before Congress.”

Lying to Congress is a federal crime.

The FBI must examine the veracity of Kavanaugh’s statements under oath in addition to the sexual assault allegations against him. Kavanaugh's truthfulness with the Senate goes to the very heart of whether he should be confirmed to the court. pic.twitter.com/TsNOTm4fxK

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 29, 2018

Even prior to the emergence of credible sexual assault allegations against him, Kavanaugh—who on Thursday repeatedly refused to endorse an FBI probe into the allegations against him—was accused by several Democratic senators of lying to the Senate during hearings for his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2004 and 2006.

In his letter to Grassley on Saturday, Sanders listed some of these examples, as well as statements Kavanaugh made “under oath regarding his treatment of women and his use of alcohol,” which “appear not to be true.”

Read Sanders’ full letter:

Dear Chairman Grassley,

In order for this FBI investigation regarding Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to be complete, it is imperative the bureau must not only look into the accusations made by Dr. Ford, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, it should also examine the veracity of his testimony before the Judiciary Committee.

The Senate should not constrain the FBI to one week and must allow time for a full investigation. I would request that you inform the FBI that you will not consider their work complete until they examine the truthfulness of Judge Kavanaugh’s statements under oath while testifying before the Senate throughout his career, given the very serious fact that lying to Congress is a federal crime.

If you are concerned with a delay in this confirmation process, remember that Senate Republicans refused to allow the Senate to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court for nearly a year.

In addition to investigating the accusations made by multiple women, a thorough investigation should include a review of Judge Kavanaugh’s numerous untruthful statements in his previous testimony before Congress. Specifically:

In his previous testimony before Congress, Judge Kavanaugh was asked more than 100 times if he knew about files stolen by Republican staffers from Judiciary Committee Democrats. He said he knew nothing. Emails released as part of these hearings show that these files were regularly shared with Kavanaugh while he was on the White House staff. One of the emails had the subject line “spying.” Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?
In 2006 Judge Kavanaugh told Congress he did not know anything about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program prior to it being reported by the New York Times. This year an email revealed that while at the White House he might have been involved in some conversations about this program.  Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?
In 2004 Judge Kavanaugh testified the nomination of William Pryor to the 11th Circuit “was not one that I worked on personally.” Documents now contradict that statement. Newly released documents also call into question whether Judge Kavanaugh was truthful that the nomination of Charles Pickering “was not one of the judicial nominees that I was primarily handling.” Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?
In 2006 Judge Kavanaugh testified, “I was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants.” New evidence released as part of these confirmation hearing contradicts that assertion. Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee
Kavanaugh testified before the committee that he did not believe polygraphs were reliable. In 2016 he wrote, “As the Government notes, law enforcement agencies use polygraphs to test the credibility of witnesses and criminal defendants.  Those agencies also use polygraphs to ‘screen applicants for security clearances so that they may be deemed suitable for work in critical law enforcement, defense, and intelligence collection roles.’ . . .  The Government has satisfactorily explained how polygraph examinations serve law enforcement purposes.”  (Sack v. United States Department of Defense, 823 F.3d 687 (2016)) What changed his opinion or was he misleading the committee as to his beliefs about the reliability of polygraph tests?

Additionally, several statements made by Judge Kavanaugh under oath regarding his treatment of women and his use of alcohol appear not to be true. The scope of the FBI’s investigation must include investigating the following statements:

Judge Kavanaugh repeatedly told the committee he never drank to the point where he didn’t remember something.  He also denied ever becoming aggressive when he drinks. However there have been many reports from those Judge Kavanaugh attended high school, college and law school with that contradict this assertion. Was he being truthful with the committee?
Judge Kavanaugh testified he treated women “as friends and equals” and “with dignity and respect.”  Numerous entries in his school yearbook would seem to contradict this. Was Judge Kavanaugh’s statement to the committee truthful?
Judge Kavanaugh claimed that he and Dr. Ford “did not travel in the same social circles.”  Dr. Ford said she dated Chris Garrett, referenced as a friend in his yearbook. In fact she testified Garrett introduced her to Kavanaugh. Was Judge Kavanaugh’s statement to the committee truthful?
Kavanaugh claimed he did not drink on weeknights but an entry on his calendar for Thursday July 1 states, “Go to Timmy’s for Skis w/ Judge, Tom, Pj, Bernie, Squi.” Kavanaugh clarified to Sen. Booker that “Skis” referred to beer. Was his original statement to the committee truthful?

A fundamental question the FBI can help answer is whether Judge Kavanaugh has been truthful with the committee. This goes to the very heart of whether he should be confirmed to the court. If a thorough investigation takes longer than a week, so be it. First and foremost, we need the truth.

Sincerely,

Bernard Sanders

Trump’s FDA Won’t Make Lettuce Farms Test for Deadly Bacteria

William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding.

For four days last spring, doctors struggled to control the infection that was ravaging Whitt, a father of three in western Idaho. The pain was excruciating, even though he was given opioid painkillers intravenously every 10 minutes for days.

His family feared they would lose him.

“I was terrified. I wouldn’t leave the hospital because I wasn’t sure he was still going to be there when I got back,” said Whitt’s wife, Melinda.

Whitt and his family were baffled: How could a healthy 37-year-old suddenly get so sick? While he was fighting for his life, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quizzed Whitt, seeking information about what had sickened him.

Finally, the agency’s second call offered a clue: “They kept drilling me about salad,” Whitt recalled. Before he fell ill, he had eaten two salads from a pizza shop.

The culprit turned out to be E. coli, a powerful pathogen that had contaminated romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, and distributed nationwide. At least 210 people in 36 states were sickened. Five died and 27 suffered kidney failure. The same strain of E. coli that sickened them was detected in a Yuma canal used to irrigate some crops.

For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables.

After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food, Congress in 2011 ordered a fix, and produce growers this year would have begun testing their water under rules crafted by the Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration.

But six months before people were sickened by the contaminated romaine, President Donald Trump’s FDA – responding to pressure from the farm industry and Trump’s order to eliminate regulations – shelved the water-testing rules for at least four years.

Despite this deadly outbreak, the FDA has shown no sign of reconsidering its plan to postpone the rules. The agency also is considering major changes, such as allowing some produce growers to test less frequently or find alternatives to water testing to ensure the safety of their crops.

The FDA’s lack of urgency dumbfounds food safety scientists.

“Mystifying, isn’t it?” said Trevor Suslow, a food safety expert at the University of California, Davis. “If the risk factor associated with agricultural water use is that closely tied to contamination and outbreaks, there needs to be something now. … I can’t think of a reason to justify waiting four to six to eight years to get started.”

The deadly Yuma outbreak underscores that irrigation water is a prime source of foodborne illnesses. In some cases, the feces of livestock or wild animals flow into a creek. Then the tainted water seeps into wells or is sprayed onto produce, which is then harvested, processed and sold at stores and restaurants. Salad greens are particularly vulnerable because they often are eaten raw and can harbor bacteria when torn.

After an E. coli outbreak killed three people who ate spinach grown in California’s Salinas Valley in 2006, most California and Arizona growers of leafy greens signed agreements to voluntarily test their irrigation water.

Whitt’s lettuce would have been covered by those agreements. But his story illustrates the limits of a voluntary safety program and how lethal E. coli can be even when precautions are taken by farms and processors.

Farm groups contend that water testing is too expensive and should not apply to produce such as apples or onions, which are less likely to carry pathogens.

“I think the whole thing is an overblown attempt to exert government power over us,” said Bob Allen, a Washington state apple farmer.

While postponing the water-testing rules would save growers $12 million per year, it also would cost consumers $108 million per year in medical expenses, according to an FDA analysis.

For Whitt and his family, his illness has been traumatic as well as costly. After returning home from his nine-day hospital stay, he relied on narcotic painkillers for about six weeks. The infection caused a hernia and tore holes in the lining of his stomach that surgeons had to patch with mesh. Five months later, he still has numbness from the surgery and diarrhea every week.

Whitt and his wife said it is irresponsible for the FDA to postpone the water-testing requirements when officials knew that people like Whitt could pay a hefty price.

“People should be able to know that the food they’re buying is not going to harm them and their loved ones,” Melinda Whitt said. “At this point, we question everything that goes into our mouths.”

FDA Shows No Urgency

The federal government often requires water testing to protect the public: Tap water is tested to make sure it meets health standards, and so are beaches, lakes and swimming pools.

But under the Trump administration plan, large growers wouldn’t have to start inspecting their water systems and annually test surface waters for pathogens until 2022.

Then they will have an additional two years to ensure irrigation water that comes in contact with vegetables and fruit does not contain E. coli above a certain concentration.

For the smallest farms, inspections and annual testing will begin in 2024, and they will have until 2026 to meet E. coli standards.

That means full compliance with the safeguards wouldn’t come until 20 years after three people died from eating California spinach, 15 years after Congress signed the Food Safety Modernization Act and eight years after Whitt and more than 200 others were sickened by romaine lettuce.

While the delay is just a proposal for now, the FDA has assured growers that it will not enforce the requirements in the meantime.

FDA officials declined interview requests. But a spokeswoman said the agency proposed the delay to ensure the testing requirements are effective.

“The Yuma outbreak does indeed emphasize the urgency of putting agricultural water standards in place, but it is important that they be the right standards, ones that both meet our public health mission and are feasible for growers to meet,” FDA spokeswoman Juli Putnam said in response to written questions.

In addition, the FDA did not sample water in a Yuma irrigation canal until seven weeks after the area’s lettuce was identified as the cause of last spring’s outbreak. And university scientists trying to learn from the outbreak say farmers have not shared water data with them as they try to figure out how it occurred and avoid future ones.

Why Farmers Should Test Water

The FDA has yet to unravel the mystery of how the Yuma romaine sickened so many people. But irrigation water is a “viable explanation,” the FDA said in an August update. Analysis of water samples from canals detected E. coli with the same genetic fingerprint as the bacteria that sickened Whitt and others. A large cattle feedlot is under investigation as a possible source.

The romaine outbreak is reminiscent of the 2006 spinach outbreak, which sickened at least 200 people in 26 states, killing a 2-year-old boy and two elderly women. Inspectors traced the E. coli strain to a stream contaminated with feces from cattle and wild pigs that then seeped into well water.

Many growers irrigate with water straight from streams or wells without testing it for pathogens. Pathogens from water can be absorbed by a plant’s roots. A CDC review reported that almost half of all foodborne illnesses from 1998 to 2008 were caused by produce.

Scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, found in 2014 that investigations of tainted produce “often implicate agricultural water as a source of contamination.” Another study by FDA researchers in May noted that salmonella in irrigation water “has been regarded as one of the major sources for fresh produce contamination, and this has become a public health concern.”

In the wake of the public outcry over the spinach outbreak, California and Arizona suppliers of salad greens created their own voluntary safety program in 2007. Since then, water testing has become commonplace in the Salinas Valley, known as the nation’s “salad bowl” because about 60 percent of all leafy greens are grown there.

On one recent foggy summer morning, Gary and Kara Waugaman stood in the fields of a ranch near the Salinas Valley town of Watsonville. The Waugamans are food safety coordinators for Lakeside Organic Gardens, a vegetable grower and shipper. Clad in neon vests and jeans, they drove from field to field, examining soil, surveying plants and testing water.

“We got red chard, green chard, rainbow chard, green kale, red kale, lacinato and then collards,” Gary Waugaman said, pointing at row after row of colorful leafy plants.

Kara Waugaman stepped onto an open, concrete-lined reservoir. A single duck floated on the surface. It appeared clean, “but you can’t tell anything by looking,” she warned.

In her years of testing water from this underground well, she never has found a sample with fecal contamination high enough to violate industry standards. Using a special stick, she dipped a small glass bottle into the reservoir; it disappeared with a tiny glug, then emerged full of clear water.

Next, the Waugamans drove to another farm. Baby Brussels sprouts poked out of leafy plants. A powerful rotating sprinkler showered Kara Waugaman as she ran toward it and quickly filled a small bottle.

For about 10 years, the Waugamans have sent samples to a laboratory that tests for generic E. coli. If a certain concentration of what is known as “indicator” bacteria is detected, it could be a sign of more dangerous pathogens like the one that sickened Whitt.

The two farms the Waugamans visited that day participate in the voluntary California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. Members test agricultural water once a month and submit to audits by state inspectors.

Mike Villaneva, the agreement’s technical director, said he hopes growers elsewhere soon will get on board with water testing.

“Our feeling is that everyone ought to know their water quality, and the only way you know that is by testing,” he said.

But if the Yuma farms were voluntarily testing their water for pathogens, how did E. coli contaminate the lettuce? There may never be an answer.

“Everyone is in shock because the (growers) really felt their (voluntary) program would prevent not every and all sporadic illnesses, but a large outbreak like this,” Suslow said. “They’re reeling with that failure and working to figure out what to do to prevent it from taking place again.”

He hopes this failure will persuade them to give researchers access to water data collected before the romaine outbreak and in the future.

Villaneva and Gary Waugaman said the monthly testing is not foolproof; it minimizes, but doesn’t eliminate, the risks. Also, pathogens from livestock and other animals can get into crops from wind, dust and other means.

The contaminated lettuce likely came from multiple farms. But the only grower named so far, Harrison Farms, is a member of the Arizona alliance that agreed to follow the voluntary safety measures, including water testing.

Harrison Farms said in a statement that it has tested its irrigation water on a monthly basis for the past 10 years and that it met federal standards for E. coli during the last growing season. The farm said its fields and water supply “underwent a thorough investigation” by the FDA in May that “did not yield any significant findings.”

Although the federal rules may not have prevented the Yuma outbreak, experts say they could help prevent the next one. The requirements would have been mandatory nationwide and applied to all produce.

But Patty Lovera of Food & Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for safe food and water, called the Obama-era rules “unmanageable.” She said produce contaminated by tainted water is unacceptable, but so is shutting down small farms that can’t afford the testing.

“It’s a terrible situation,” she said. “The (federal rule) solution could have a lot of casualties. That’s not acceptable either.”

Stuart Reitz thinks onion growers shouldn’t have to test water at all.

“We haven’t seen any evidence that there’s contamination of onions from any pathogenic bacteria in irrigation water,” said Reitz, a scientific adviser to the Malheur County Onion Growers Association in Oregon.

Allen, the Washington apple farmer, estimates that it would cost him about $5,000 for the first two years of testing his irrigation water. He thinks it’s a waste of time and money because no outbreaks have been tied to the state’s apples.

“I’m not gonna test,” he said. “If they want to throw me in jail, well then, OK, guess I have to go to jail.”

FDA to Growers: ‘Keep Doing What You’re Doing’

The FDA’s deference to growers was on full display at a February meeting, two months before the romaine outbreak made national headlines.

During a two-day recorded workshop with growers and other industry officials, Stephen Ostroff, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, told growers that federal scientists had investigated “far too many produce-related outbreaks over the years where water turned out to be the culprit. There is no question that to reduce the risk of contamination of produce by the water that’s used on the crops, we need water standards.”

But Ostroff reassured the audience members that the FDA wants their feedback to develop new “requirements that are less burdensome while protecting public health.”

“We see revisiting the water standards as a collaboration with stakeholders, including all of the stakeholders in this room,” he said.

“All options are on the table, including reopening the rule,” he told them.

The safety requirements would not be implemented anytime soon, FDA officials told the group.

“Rather than kind of rushing to make a set decision, (we’re) just focusing on, you know, working with you guys for now,” said FDA staff fellow Chelsea Davidson.

James Gorny, a former industry lobbyist whom the FDA hired in February to implement produce safety rules, told the group that the agency would not ask anything of growers in the interim.

“The FDA has clearly stated, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’ We’re not asking you to do any more at this point in time,” he said.

Gorny’s career is a classic example of the revolving door between federal agencies and the industries they regulate.

In 2006 and 2007, Gorny was a registered lobbyist for the United Fresh Produce Association. Then he worked for the FDA as a food safety scientist for several years. In 2013, he became a vice president of another growers group, the Produce Marketing Association, which has spent $120,000 on lobbying so far this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group.

Gorny’s hiring by the FDA mirrors a pattern across public health and environmental agencies. The Trump administration has appointed dozens of former industry officials and lobbyists to relax regulations designed to protect public health.

Whitt is suing the restaurant in Nampa, Idaho, that sold him the contaminated salads, and his anger flares when he talks about the FDA delay, as well as all the growers, shippers and processors that played a role in the outbreak and haven’t been identified yet.

“I think everybody is at fault,” Whitt said.

Now his family doesn’t trust the nation’s food supply.

“I’m terrified to eat vegetables,” Whitt said. “I won’t eat them unless they’re cooked. We won’t eat salads. I personally think it’s a broken system right now.”

Indonesia Tsunami Death Toll Nears 400

PALU, Indonesia — Residents too afraid to sleep indoors camped out in the darkness Saturday while victims recounted harrowing stories of being separated from their loved ones a day after a powerful earthquake triggered a tsunami that unleashed waves as high as 6 meters (20 feet), killing hundreds on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

The official death toll stood at 384, with all the fatalities coming in the hard-hit city of Palu, but it was expected to rise once rescuers reached surrounding coastal areas, said disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. He said others were unaccounted for, without giving an estimate. The nearby cities of Donggala and Mamuju were also ravaged, but little information was available due to damaged roads and disrupted telecommunications.

Nugroho said “tens to hundreds” of people were taking part in a beach festival in Palu when the tsunami struck at dusk on Friday. Their fate was unknown.

Hundreds of people were injured and hospitals, damaged by the magnitude 7.5 quake, were overwhelmed.

Some of the injured, including Dwi Haris, who suffered a broken back and shoulder, rested outside Palu’s Army Hospital, where patients were being treated outdoors due to continuing strong aftershocks. Tears filled his eyes as he recounted feeling the violent earthquake shake the fifth-floor hotel room he shared with his wife and daughter.

“There was no time to save ourselves. I was squeezed into the ruins of the wall, I think,” said Haris, adding that the family was in town for a wedding. “I heard my wife cry for help, but then silence. I don’t know what happened to her and my child. I hope they are safe.”

It’s the latest natural disaster to hit Indonesia, which is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra island in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. Last month, a powerful quake on the island of Lombok killed 505 people.

Palu, which has more than 380,000 people, was strewn with debris from the earthquake and tsunami. A mosque heavily damaged by the quake was half submerged and a shopping mall was reduced to a crumpled hulk. A large bridge with yellow arches had collapsed. Bodies lay partially covered by tarpaulins and a man carried a dead child through the wreckage.

The city is built around a narrow bay that apparently magnified the force of the tsunami waters as they raced into the tight inlet.

Indonesian TV showed dramatic smartphone video of a powerful wave hitting Palu, with people screaming and running in fear. The water smashed into buildings and the mosque.

Nina, a 23-year-old woman who goes by one name, was working at a laundry service shop not far from the beach when the quake hit. She said the quake destroyed her workplace, but she managed to escape and quickly went home to get her mother and younger brother.

“We tried to find shelter, but then I heard people shouting, ‘Water! Water!'” she recalled, crying. “The three of us ran, but got separated. Now I don’t know where my mother and brother are. I don’t know how to get information. I don’t know what to do.”

The earthquake left mangled buildings with collapsed awnings and rebar sticking out of concrete like antennae. Roads were buckled and cracked. The tsunami created even more destruction. It was reported as being 3 meters (10 feet) high in some areas and double that height elsewhere.

“We got a report over the phone saying that there was a guy who climbed a tree up to 6 meters high,” said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman.

Communications with the area were difficult because power and telecommunications were cut, hampering search and rescue efforts. Most people slept outdoors, fearing strong aftershocks.

“We hope there will be international satellites crossing over Indonesia that can capture images and provide them to us so we can use the images to prepare humanitarian aid,” Nugroho said.

Indonesia is a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that’s home to 260 million people. Roads and infrastructure are poor in many areas, making access difficult in the best of conditions.

The disaster agency has said that essential aircraft can land at Palu’s airport, though AirNav, which oversees aircraft navigation, said the runway was cracked and the control tower damaged.

AirNav said one of its air traffic controllers, aged 21, died in the quake after staying in the tower to ensure a flight he’d just cleared for departure got airborne safely. It did.

More than half of the 560 inmates in a Palu prison fled after its walls collapsed during the quake, said its warden, Adhi Yan Ricoh.

“It was very hard for the security guards to stop the inmates from running away as they were so panicked and had to save themselves too,” he told state news agency Antara.

Ricoh said there was no immediate plan to search for the inmates because the prison staff and police were consumed with the search and rescue effort.

“Don’t even think to find the inmates. We don’t even have time yet to report this incident to our superiors,” he said.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said Friday night that he instructed the security minister to coordinate the government’s response to the disaster.

Jokowi also told reporters in his hometown of Solo that he called on the country’s military chief to help with search and rescue efforts.

United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said U.N. officials were in contact with Indonesian authorities and “stand ready to provide support as required.”

Sulawesi has a history of religious tensions between Muslims and Christians, with violent riots erupting in the town of Poso, not far from Palu, two decades ago. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country.

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Associated Press writers Margie Mason and Stephen Wright contributed to this report from Jakarta, Indonesia.