corrupt countries

A landlocked nation in Southeast Asia occupying the northwest portion of the Indochinese peninsula, Laos is surrounded by China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma. It is twice the size of Pennsylvania. Laos is a mountainous country, especially in the north, where peaks rise above 9,000 ft (2,800 m). Dense forests cover the northern and eastern areas. The Mekong River, which forms the boundary with Burma and Thailand, flows through the country for 932 mi (1,500 km) of its course.

In 1960, the struggle became three-way as Gen. Phoumi Nosavan, controlling the bulk of the royal army, set up in the south a pro-Western revolutionary government headed by Prince Boun Oum. General Phoumi took Vientiane in December, driving Souvanna Phouma into exile in Cambodia. The Soviet bloc supported Souvanna Phouma. In 1961, a cease-fire was arranged and the three princes agreed to a coalition government headed by Souvanna Phouma.

But North Vietnam, the U.S. (in the form of CIA personnel), and China remained active in Laos after the settlement. North Vietnam used a supply line (Ho Chi Minh Trail) running down the mountain valleys of eastern Laos into Cambodia and South Vietnam, particularly after the U.S.–South Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia in 1970 stopped supplies via Cambodian seaports.

An agreement reached in 1973 revived the coalition government. The Communist Pathet Lao seized complete power in 1975, installing Souphanouvong as president and Kaysone Phomvihane as prime minister. Since then other parties and political groups have been moribund and most of their leaders have fled the country. The monarchy was abolished on Dec. 2, 1975, when the Pathet Lao ousted a coalition government and King Sisavang Vatthana abdicated.

The Supreme People’s Assembly in Aug. 1991 adopted a new constitution that dropped all references to socialism but retained the one-party state. In addition to implementing market-oriented policies, the country has passed laws governing property, inheritance, and contracts.

During the 1990s, the country began making more diplomatic overtures toward its neighbors. In 1995, the U.S. announced a lifting of its ban on aid to the nation. By most international estimates, Laos is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. The subsistence farmers who make up more than 80% of the population have been plagued with bad agricultural conditions—alternately floods and drought—since 1993.

Since March 2000, Vientiane has been rocked by a series of unexplained blasts. The activity has been widely attributed to a group of Hmong tribesmen based in the north. The anti-Communist rebel group has been protesting the government’s reluctance to embrace democratic reforms. Others attribute the bombs to rival factions in the government or military.

In Feb. 2002 parliamentary elections, 165 out of 166 candidates were members of the governing Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. In 2006, Choummaly Sayasone became party secretary-general and president of Laos. First Deputy Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh became prime minister.

Guinea, in West Africa on the Atlantic, is also bordered by Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Slightly smaller than Oregon, the country consists of a coastal plain, a mountainous region, a savanna interior, and a forest area in the Guinea Highlands. The highest peak is Mount Nimba at 5,748 ft (1,752 m).

In 1989, President Conté announced that Guinea would move to a multiparty democracy, and in 1991, voters approved a new constitution. In Dec. 1993 elections, the president’s Unity and Progress Party took almost 51% of the vote. In 2001, a government referendum was passed that eliminated presidential term limits, thus allowing Conté to run for a third term in 2003. Despite the trappings of multiparty rule, Conté has ruled the country with an iron fist.

Guinea has had ongoing difficulties with its neighbor Liberia, which was embroiled in a long civil war during the 1990s and again in 2000–2003. Guinea had taken sides against rebel leader Charles Taylor in Liberia’s civil war and was part of the Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces that intervened in the crisis. As a consequence, President Conté’s relations with Taylor remained sour after Taylor became Liberia’s president in 1997. The fighting in Liberia spilled over the border into Guinea on several occasions. Sierra Leone’s recent civil war also caused problems for neighboring Guinea. Already burdened by an inadequate infrastructure and a weak economy, an influx of nearly 300,000 refugees from Sierra Leone has overwhelmed the country.

In Dec. 2003 President Conté was reelected to a third term. In April 2004, after two months on the job, Prime Minister Lonseny Fall resigned and went into exile, claiming that the president would not allow him to govern effectively. President Conté is in poor health, and many fear a power struggle should he die or be deposed. Anti-government demonstrators took to the streets in January and February 2007, demanding that Conté step down. In addition, labor unions went on strike, paralyzing the country. Conté, who has been criticized as being corrupt, responded by declaring martial law. The strike ended in late February when President Conté agreed to name diplomat Lansana Kouyaté as prime minister. More than 100 people died in battles with security officials during the strike.

Equatorial Guinea, formerly Spanish Guinea, consists of Río Muni (10,045 sq mi; 26,117 sq km), on the western coast of Africa, and several islands in the Gulf of Guinea, the largest of which is Bioko (formerly Fernando Po) (785 sq mi; 2,033 sq km). The other islands are Annobón, Corisco, Elobey Grande, and Elobey Chico. The total area is twice that of Connecticut.

From the outset, President Francisco Macías Nguema, considered the father of independence, began a brutal reign, destroying the economy of the fledgling country and abusing human rights. Calling himself the “Unique Miracle,” Nguema is considered one of the worst despots in African history. In 1971, the U.S. State Department reported that his regime was “characterized by abandonment of all government functions except internal security, which was accomplished by terror; this led to the death or exile of up to one-third of the population.” In 1979, Nguema was overthrown and executed by his nephew, Lieut. Col. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Obiang has been gradually modernizing the country but has retained many of his uncle’s dictatorial practices, including the amassing of personal wealth by siphoning it from the public coffers. In 2003, state radio compared him to God.

A recent offshore oil boom resulted in the economy’s growth by 71.2% in 1997, the first year of the petroleum bonanza, and it has sustained this phenomenal rate of growth. Between 2002 and 2005, the GDP skyrocketed from $1.27 billion to $25.69 billion. It is unlikely, however, that the country’s new wealth will benefit the average citizen—the president’s family and cronies control the industry.

The Congo, in west-central Africa, is bordered by the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one-quarter the size of the U.S. The principal rivers are the Ubangi and Bomu in the north and the Congo in the west, which flows into the Atlantic. The entire length of Lake Tanganyika lies along the eastern border with Tanzania and Burundi.

The country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997, which had been its name before Mobutu changed it to Zaire in 1971. But elation over Mobutu’s downfall faded as Kabila’s own autocratic style emerged, and he seemed devoid of a clear plan for reconstructing the country. In Aug. 1998, Congolese rebel forces, backed by Kabila’s former allies, Rwanda and Uganda, gained control of a large portion of the country until Angolan, Namibian, and Zimbabwean troops came to Kabila’s aid. In 1999, the Lusaka Accord was signed by all six of the countries involved, as well as by most, but not all, of the various rebel groups.

In Jan. 2001, Kabila was assassinated, allegedly by one of his bodyguards. His young and inexperienced son Joseph became the new president. He demonstrated a willingness to engage in talks to end the civil war. In April 2002, the government agreed to a power-sharing arrangement with Ugandan-supported rebels and signed a peace accord with Rwanda and Uganda. More than 2.5 million people are estimated to have died in the Congo’s complex four-year civil war, which involved seven foreign armies and numerous rebel groups that often fought among themselves.

On July 17, 2003, the Congo’s new power-sharing government was inaugurated, but the fighting and killing continued. In April 2003, hundreds of civilians were massacred in the eastern province of Ituri in an ethnic conflict. In 2004, an insurgency in Bukavu erupted, other areas of the Congo grew restive, and Rwanda continued to support various rebel groups fighting the government. By the end of 2004, the death toll from the conflict had reached 3.8 million.

Despite instability, political progress continued. In May 2005, a new constitution was adopted by the national assembly, and overwhelmingly ratified in Jan. 2006. On July 30, 2006, the first democratic election in the country since 1970 took place. President Kabila received 44.8% of the vote, which was not enough to win the election outright. Fighting broke out between factions supporting the two major candidates, setting off the worst violence the country has seen since the 2002 peace deal was signed. Kabila was declared the winner in the October run-off election, winning 58% of the vote, the country’s first freely elected president in four decades.

In August 2007, a rebel general, Laurent Nkunda, led battles between his militia, made up of fellow Tutsis, and the Congolese Army. The fighting continued throughout the year, driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in eastern Congo and threatening to spiral the already fragile country back into civil war. Nkunda claimed he was protecting Tutsis from extremist Rwandan Hutus. In January 2008, the government and the rebels signed an agreement that has both sides withdrawing their troops and the rebels disarming and eventually being integrated into the national army. The rebels will be granted immunity for insurrection, but not for human rights violations. A commission will oversee the cease-fire.

A report released in January by the International Rescue Committee found that despite billions in aid, the deployment of the world’s largest peacekeeping force, and successful democratic elections, some 45,000 people continue die each month in Congo, mostly from starvation and disease.

Sudan, in northeast Africa, is the largest country on the continent, measuring about one-fourth the size of the United States. Its neighbors are Chad and the Central African Republic on the west, Egypt and Libya on the north, Ethiopia and Eritrea on the east, and Kenya, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of the Congo on the south. The Red Sea washes about 500 mi of the eastern coast. It is traversed from north to south by the Nile, all of whose great tributaries are partly or entirely within its borders.

On Aug. 20, 1998, the United States launched cruise missiles that destroyed a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Khartoum which allegedly manufactured chemical weapons. The U.S. contended that the Sudanese factory was financed by Islamic militant Osama bin Laden.

Since 1999 international attention has been focused on evidence that slavery is widespread throughout Sudan. Arab raiders from the north of the country have enslaved thousands of southerners, who are black. The Dinka people have been the hardest-hit. Some sources point out that the raids intensified in the 1980s along with the civil war between north and south.

Ever since Lt. Gen. Omar Bashir’s military coup in 1989, the de facto ruler of Sudan had been Hassan el-Turabi, a cleric and political leader who is a major figure in the pan-Arabic Islamic fundamentalist resurgence. In 1999, however, Bashir ousted Turabi and placed him under house arrest. (He was freed in Oct. 2003.) Since then Bashir has made overtures to the West, and in Sept. 2001, the UN lifted its six-year-old sanctions. The U.S., however, still officially considers Sudan a terrorist state.

A cease-fire was declared between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in July 2002. During peace talks, which continued through 2003, the government agreed to a power-sharing government for six years, to be followed by a referendum on self-determination for the south. Fighting on both sides continued throughout the peace negotiations. In May 2004, a deal between the government and the SPLA was signed, ending 20 years of brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of 2 million people.

Just as Sudan’s civil war seemed to be coming to an end, another war intensified in the northwestern Darfur region. After the government quelled a rebellion in Darfur in Jan. 2004, it allowed pro-government militias called the Janjaweed to carry out massacres against black villagers and rebel groups in the region. These Arab militias, believed to have been armed by the government, have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and displaced more than 1 million. While the war in the south was fought against black Christians and animists, the Darfur conflict is being fought against black Muslims. Although the international community has reacted with alarm to the humanitarian disaster—unmistakably the world’s worst—it has been ineffective in persuading the Sudanese government to rein in the Janjaweed. Despite the EU and the U.S. describing the killing as genocide, and despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Sudan stop the Arab militias, the killing continued throughout 2005.

On Jan. 9, 2005, after three years of negotiations, the peace deal between the southern rebels, led by John Garang of the SPLA, and the Khartoum government to end the two-decades-long civil war was signed, giving roughly half of Sudan’s oil wealth to the south, as well as nearly complete autonomy and the right to secede after six years. But just two weeks after Garang was sworn in as first vice president as part of the power-sharing agreement, he was killed in a helicopter crash during bad weather. Rioting erupted in Khartoum, killing nearly 100. Garang’s deputy, Salva Kiir, was quickly sworn in as the new vice president, and both north and south vowed that the peace agreement would hold.

In 2006, the slaughter in Darfur escalated, and the Khartoum government remained defiantly indifferent to the international communities’ calls to stop the violence. The 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers deployed to Darfur proved too small and ill equipped a force to prevent much of it. A fragile peace deal in May 2006 was signed between the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel group; two smaller rebel groups, however, refused to sign. The UN reported that there has in fact been a dramatic upsurge in the violence since the agreement. The Sudanese government reneged on essential elements of the accord, including the plan to disarm the militias and allow a UN peacekeeping force into the region to replace the modest AU force. Khartoum eventually agreed to allow the modest AU force to remain in the country until the end of 2006, but rejected a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force entering the country. In. Jan. 2007, Sudan and Darfur rebel groups agreed to a 60-day cease-fire, which was intended to lead to peace talks sponsored by the African Union. Libya hosted peace talks ni October, but several rebel groups boycotted the proceedings, and the summit ended shortly after the opening ceremony. In July 2007, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to deploy as many as 26,000 peacekeepers from the African Union and the United Nations forces to help end the violence in Darfur. The African Union peacekeeper base in Darfur was attacked in September. Ten peacekeepers were killed. Days later, the town was razed, leaving some 7,000 Darfuris homeless.

In Feb. 2007, the International Criminal Court at the Hague named Ahmad Harun, Sudan’s deputy minister for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Abd-al-Rahman, a militia leader, as suspects in the murder, rape, and displacement of thousands of civilians in the Darfur region. In May, the Court issued arrest warrants for Haroun and Ali Kosheib, a Janjaweed leader, charging them with mass murder, rape, and other crimes. The Sudanese government refused to hand over them over to the Court.

The Bush administration expanded sanctions on Sudan in May, banning 31 Sudanese companies and four individuals from doing business in the U.S.

In October 2007, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) quit the national unity government, leaving the peace agreement signed in 2005 on the brink of collapse. The SPLA claimed that the governing party, the National Congress Party, had ignored its concerns over boundary between the north and south and how to divide the country’s oil wealth.

Sudan faced international criticism once again in January 2008, when Musa Hilal, a Janjaweed leader, was appointed to a top government position as an adviser to the minister of federal affairs. Human Rights Watch called Hilal “the poster child for Janjaweed atrocities in Darfur.”

Government forces and the janjaweed resumed their attacks in the Darfur region in February 2008, forcing as many as 45,000 people to flee their homes. The government claimed it was targeting the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group that has become increasingly powerful and is believed to be linked to the government of Chad. Civilians in the region, however, say the attacks have continued after the rebels escape. The Justice and Equality Movement launched a bold attack in May, coming within a few miles of Khartoum before being repulsed by government troops. It was the first time that the conflict in Darfur has threatened to spill over into Khartoum.

A landlocked country in north-central Africa, Chad is about 85% the size of Alaska. Its neighbors are Niger, Libya, the Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Lake Chad, from which the country gets its name, lies on the western border with Niger and Nigeria. In the north is a desert that runs into the Sahara.

In 1990, Idriss Déby, a former defense minister and head of the Patriotic Salvation Movement, overthrew Habré, suspended the constitution, and dissolved the legislature. In 1994 a new constitution was drafted and an amnesty for political prisoners was declared. Déby won multiparty elections in 1996 and was reelected in 2001. His rule has been marked by repression and corruption. Déby has faced about a half-dozen insurgencies since taking office.

In June 2000 the World Bank agreed to provide more than $200 million to build a $3.7-billion pipeline connecting the oil fields in Chad to those in Cameroon. Oil revenues are estimated to earn $2.5 billion over the next 30 years. Human rights groups are concerned they will only benefit the oil companies and the political elite in Cameroon and Chad. The World Bank, however, has forced Chad to agree to spend 80% of the resulting oil revenues on education, health, infrastructure, and other social welfare projects desperately needed by this impoverished country. The deal has been hailed as a novel approach to ensuring that developing countries with authoritarian governments manage to spend revenues to alleviate the poverty of their people rather than enrich its elite. (In 2005, Transparency International listed Chad as the world’s most corrupt country.) In the next 25 years Chad is expected to make $80 million per year, increasing the government treasury by 50%. But in 2006, after the pipeline was completed, Déby reneged on the deal with the World Bank, saying he would spend the oil revenues to finance the military, to buttress his nearly insolvent government, and to shore up his fragile hold on power. In response, the World Bank suspended its loans and froze Chad’s bank accounts. In May the World Bank and Chad reached a compromise: Chad’s government would receive 30% of the oil revenues, instead of the 10% originally agreed to, and the remaining 70% of revenues would be spent exclusively on programs to alleviate the country’s poverty.

By 2006, about 250,000 Sudanese refugees had fled to Chad to escape the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region, where they face hunger and disease in desperately undersupplied refugee camps. In April 2006, a coup to oust Déby was averted with the help of French troops stationed in the country. Opposition parties boycotted the May presidential elections, and Déby retained the presidency.

Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji died in February 2007. President Déby named Delwa Kassire Koumakoye as his successor.

Rebels from three groups stormed N’Djamena in February 2008 and demanded the resignation of President Déby. Chad’s military, however, repulsed the rebels. Leaders in Chad accused Sudan of fomenting the rebellion, and tension between the two countries escalated. About 100 people died in the fighting. In April, Déby fired Prime Minister Delwa Kassire Koumakoye and replaced him with Youssouf Saleh Abbas.

Afghanistan, approximately the size of Texas, is bordered on the north by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, on the extreme northeast by China, on the east and south by Pakistan, and by Iran on the west. The country is split east to west by the Hindu Kush mountain range, rising in the east to heights of 24,000 ft (7,315 m). With the exception of the southwest, most of the country is covered by high snow-capped mountains and is traversed by deep valleys.

In June 2002 a multiparty republic replaced an interim government that had been established in Dec. 2001, following the fall of the Islamic Taliban government.

On Aug. 20, 1998, U.S. cruise missiles struck a terrorist training complex in Afghanistan believed to have been financed by Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Islamic radical sheltered by the Taliban. The U.S. asked for the deportation of Bin Laden, whom it believed was involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998. The UN also demanded the Taliban hand over Bin Laden for trial.

In Sept. 2001, legendary guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Masoud was killed by suicide bombers, a seeming death knell for the anti-Taliban forces, a loosely connected group referred to as the Northern Alliance. Days later, terrorists attacked New York’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, and Bin Laden emerged as the primary suspect in the tragedy.

On Oct. 7, after the Taliban repeatedly and defiantly refused to turn over Bin Laden, the U.S. and its allies began daily air strikes against Afghan military installations and terrorist training camps. Five weeks later, with the help of U.S. air support, the Northern Alliance managed with breathtaking speed to take the key cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul, the capital. On Dec. 7, the Taliban regime collapsed entirely when its troops fled their last stronghold, Kandahar. However, al-Qaeda members and other mujahideen from various parts of the Islamic world who had earlier fought alongside the Taliban persisted in pockets of fierce resistance, forcing U.S. and allied troops to maintain a presence in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar remained at large.

In Dec. 2001, Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun (the dominant ethnic group in the country) and the leader of the powerful 500,000-strong Populzai clan, was named head of Afghanistan’s interim government; in June 2002, he formally became president. The U.S. maintained about 12,000 troops to combat the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and about 31 nations also contributed NATO-led peacekeeping forces. In 2003, after the United States shifted its military efforts to fighting the war in Iraq, attacks on American-led forces intensified as the Taliban and al-Qaeda began to regroup.

President Hamid Karzai’s hold on power remained tenuous, as entrenched warlords continued to exert regional control. Remarkably, however, Afghanistan’s first democratic presidential elections in Oct. 2004 were a success. Ten million Afghans, more than a third of the country, registered to vote, including more than 40% of eligible women. Karzai was declared the winner in November, taking 55% of the vote, and was inaugurated in December.

In May 2005, 17 people were killed during anti-American protests prompted by a report in Newsweek that American guards at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had desecrated the Koran. In September 2005, Afghanistan held its first democratic parliamentary elections in more than 25 years.

The Taliban continued to attack U.S. troops throughout 2005 and 2006—the latter becoming the deadliest year for U.S. troops since the war ended in 2001. In 2004 and 2005, American troop levels in Afghanistan had gradually increased to nearly 18,000 from a low of 10,000. Throughout the spring of 2006, Taliban militants—by then a force of several thousand—infiltrated southern Afghanistan, terrorizing local villagers and attacking Afghan and U.S. troops. In May and June, Operation Mount Thrust was launched, deploying more than 10,000 Afghan and coalition forces in the south. About 700 people, most of whom were Taliban, were killed. In Aug. 2006, NATO troops took over military operations in southern Afghanistan from the U.S.-led coalition. NATO’s Afghanistan mission is considered the most dangerous undertaken in its 57-year history.

Attacks by the Taliban intensified and increased in late 2006 and into 2007, with militants crossing into eastern Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas. The Pakistani government denied that its intelligence agency has supported the Islamic militants, despite contradictory reports from Western diplomats and the media.

Mullah Dadullah, a top Taliban operational commander who has organized assassinations and abductions, was killed in a raid in Helmand Province in May 2007 carried out by Afghan security forces, NATO troops, and American soldiers.

An August 2007 report by the United Nations found that Afghanistan’s opium production doubled in two years and that the country supplies 93% of the world’s heroin. Southern Afghanistan, particularly Helmand Provice, saw the largest spike, and the report said the Taliban is involved in the business.

The Taliban continued to launch attacks and gain strength throughout 2007 and into 2008. In February 2008, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Gates warned NATO members that the threat of an al-Qaeda attack on their soil is real and that they must commit more troops to stabilize Afghanistan and counter the growing power of both al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

A suicide bomber attacked at a crowded dogfight near Kandahar in February, killing about 80 people and injuring nearly 100. A local police chief Abdul Hakim Jan was among the dead. It was the worst suicide attack since 2001. President Karzai survived an assassination attempt in April, when suspected Taliban militants attacked a parade to celebrate Afghan national day. The insurgents penetrated the security detail surrounding Karzai, suggesting they had inside help in planning the attack.

Uzbekistan is situated in central Asia between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, the Aral Sea, and the slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains. It is bounded by Kazakhstan in the north and northwest, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the east and southeast, Turkmenistan in the southwest, and Afghanistan in the south. The republic also includes the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, with its capital, Nukus (1992 est. pop., 182,000). The country is about one-tenth larger in area than the state of California.

In June 1990, Uzbekistan was the first central Asian republic to declare that its own laws had sovereignty over those of the central Soviet government. Uzbekistan became fully independent and joined with ten other former Soviet republics on Dec. 21, 1991, in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Vozrozhdeniye, an island in the Aral Sea, was a secret test site for biological weapons during the Soviet era. In 1988, the Soviets attempted to bury the evidence on the island, a frightening legacy that Uzbekistan inherited upon independence. U.S. scientists have confirmed that the island contains live anthrax and other deadly poisons.

President Karimov, a former Communist Party boss, is an autocrat who has brutally suppressed political parties and religious freedom and maintained rule with an iron fist. In 1999, after a bus hijacking, he declared, “I am prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic.” The country’s thousands of political and religious prisoners are subject to appalling conditions and horrific torture, including being boiled alive.

In 1999, the country battled against militant Islamic groups bent on the overthrow of the secular government. Fighting against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) continued for the next several years.

In 2001, Uzbekistan provided the U.S. and UK with a base to fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in neighboring Afghanistan and became the United States’ main regional partner in the war on terror. Karimov linked his own battle against the Islamic opposition to the global fight on terrorism. He also exploited the real threat of Islamicism by labeling all of his opponents as Islamic extremists. As a strategic partner, the U.S. has been reluctant to take a firm stand regarding Uzbekistan’s dismal human rights record. According to a report in the New York Times in May 2005, the U.S. has sent clandestine planeloads of accused terrorists to Uzbekistan as part of its controversial “rendition” program, the delivery of prisoners to countries with abusive interrogation tactics that are prohibited in the United States.

On May 13, 2005, unarmed antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Andijan were killed in a military crackdown; the number of casualties is still disputed, but it may be as many as 1,000. Earlier, a number of protesters had stormed a prison and released about 2,000 prisoners to protest what they saw as the rigged trial of 23 businessmen. The government claimed the men were Islamic terrorists; the protesters insisted the 23 were antigovernment civic leaders whom the government saw as a threat to its authority. In July 2005, President Karimov ordered the U.S. military to close its air base in Uzbekistan after the U.S. called for an inquiry into the massacre and supported the airlift of Uzbek refugees escaping the violence. The base was shut down four months later, with U.S. forces moving to Kyrgyzstan.

Karimov was reelected in December 2007, taking 88.1% of the vote. The opposition claimed the vote was rigged.

Situated east of the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific, Tonga (also called the Friendly Islands) consists of some 150 islands, of which 36 are inhabited. Most of the islands contain active volcanic craters; others are coral atolls.

Hereditary constitutional monarchy.

The government is largely controlled by the king, his nominees, and a small group of hereditary nobles. In the 1990s a movement began aimed at curtailing the powers of the monarchy, and the Tongan Pro-Democracy Movement (TPDM) has continued to gain in popular support. In 1999, Tonga gained UN membership.

The king’s official court jester, American Jesse Bogdonoff, a former salesman of magnets to relieve back pain, was sued by the government in 2002 for squandering $26 million of Tonga’s money (40% of its annual revenue) in unsound investment schemes. In 2004, he agreed to pay a $1 million settlement.

The king grew increasingly authoritarian and has curtailed press freedom. In 2005, 3,000 civil servants went on strike, demanding better pay. Throughout 2005, discontent with economic and social inequities intensified throughout the kingdom. As a result, Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata resigned as prime minister in Feb. 2006. The following month pro-democracy leader Feleti Sevele became the first elected commoner to serve as the country’s prime minister. In Aug. 2006, the king died and was replaced by his son, George Tupou V.

Haiti, in the West Indies, occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. About the size of Maryland, Haiti is two-thirds mountainous, with the rest of the country marked by great valleys, extensive plateaus, and small plains.

Republic with an elected government.

Throughout the 1990s the international community tried to establish democracy in Haiti. The country’s first elected chief executive, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest who seemed to promise a new era in Haiti, took office in Feb. 1991. The military, however, took control in a coup nine months later. A UN peacekeeping force, led by the U.S.—Operation Uphold Democracy—arrived in 1994. Aristide was restored to office and René Preval became his successor in 1996 elections. U.S. soldiers and UN peacekeepers left in 2000. Haiti’s government, however, remained ineffectual and its economy was in ruins. Haiti has the highest rates of AIDS, malnutrition, and infant mortality in the region.

In 2000, former president Aristide was reelected president in elections boycotted by the opposition and questioned by many foreign observers. The U.S. and other countries threatened Haiti with sanctions unless democratic procedures were strengthened. Aristide, once a charismatic champion of democracy, grew more authoritarian and seemed incapable of improving the lot of his people. Violent protests rocked the country in Jan. 2004, the month of Haiti’s bicentennial, with protesters demanding that Aristide resign. By February, a full-blown armed revolt was under way, and Aristide’s hold on power continued to slip. The protests, groups of armed rebels, and French and American pressure led to the ousting of Aristide on Feb. 29. Thereafter a U.S.-led international force of 2,300 entered the chaos-engulfed country to attempt to restore order, and an interim government took over. In September, Hurricane Jeanne ravaged Haiti, killing more than 2,400 people. Lawlessness and gang violence were widespread, and the interim government had no control over parts of the country, which were run by armed former soldiers.

After numerous delays, Haiti held elections on Feb. 7, 2006. The elections, backed by 9,000 United Nations troops, were seen as a crucial step in returning Haiti to some semblance of stability. Former prime minister and Aristide protegé René Préval, very popular among the poor, was seen as the favorite. But when the election count indicated that Préval’s lead over the other candidate was dropping and that he would not win an outright majority, Préval contested the election and charged that “massive fraud and gross errors had stained the process.” On Feb. 14, the interim government halted the election count, and the following day, after the votes were retabulated, Préval was declared the winner.

In April 2008, Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis was removed from office by the senate, which held him responsible for the poor economy. On April 12, after violent street riots, President René Préval announced that he would cut the cost of rice by nearly 16%. On April 27, President René Préval designated Ericq Pierre as the new prime minister.