Arcadia Foundation

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Venezuela on the latest stop of a regional tour aimed at boosting ties with supporters of Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

Mr. Ahmadinejad arrived in Caracas late Tuesday and was welcomed at the airport by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

The Iranian president and his Venezuelan ally, President Hugo Chavez, are due to meet Wednesday. Ominously, they are expected to discuss business cooperation between their two nations.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, earlier Tuesday for talks with Bolivian President Evo Morales, another Iranian ally. Both Venezuela and Bolivia have backed Iran’s nuclear program, saying Tehran has a right to peace nuclear energy.

Western nations suspect Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons and have demanded that it stop sensitive nuclear work.

Dozens of people were killed in a remote corner of Central African Republic when Ugandan rebels attacked villagers but were then ambushed by Ugandan soldiers, a witness and local media said.

The killings took place last week around Djemah, 850 km (530 miles) east of the capital, Bangui, and are the latest in a wave of attacks by the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, a militia that roams around CAR, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo killing and kidnapping civilians.

“There were more than 40 rebels armed with guns, machetes and clubs. They attacked the village from three directions,” said Leon Hetanga, a Djemah resident who escaped the attack and traveled to Bangui to speak about the November 18 incident.

“What followed was carnage. The village’s two shops were pillaged, houses burned. Hidden up a mango tree I saw this horrible scene … three men were killed by machetes and two women were bound up and taken as prisoners,” he added.

Hetanga said at least 11 people had been killed by the time he escaped the village and alerted Ugandan soldiers, based 25 km away, who launched an counter attack on the rebels.

“It was carnage for the rebels when they were ambushed next to the Ngoangoa River by the Ugandan soldiers,” Hetanga said.

Bangui has allowed Kampala to dispatch Ugandan special forces to hunt down rebels in CAR, one of the weakest and most isolated nations in central Africa.

The LRA’s wave of attacks across the three countries follows a nearly two-decade long war in Uganda’s north and a Ugandan-led multinational strike on rebel bases in Congo last year.

The Ugandan-led attack broke up jungle hideouts but failed to net LRA leaders, who are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

The United States says it supports Sunday’s presidential election in Honduras as an “essential” part of a solution to that country’s ongoing political crisis.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly says the U.S. thinks it is important that the people of Honduras have the opportunity to “express their votes in a free and transparent way.”

But ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says the U.S. position on the election has divided the region. He says support for the election only legitimizes the ‘coup‘ that drove him from power in June and brought Roberto Micheletti to power. He has called for nations in the region not to recognize the election.

Spokesman Kelly noted that the election, in which neither Mr. Micheletti nor Mr. Zelaya is running, is being organized by an electoral tribunal that was selected and installed in a transparent, democratic process before Zelaya was removed from office. He said it is important the election be seen as free, fair and transparent, and is monitored by a credible international monitoring process.

The Obama administration originally said it would not recognize the election unless Mr. Zelaya was reinstated. Washington changed its position after the rival sides in the Honduran crisis signed an agreement backed by the Organization of American States.

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