Newspaper claims tsunami was retribution for area's sex trade

A ROW erupted in Morocco yesterday after an Islamic newspaper said the tsunami that devastated southern Asia was a result of divine retribution against the region.

An article in Attajdid, the newspaper of Morocco’s moderate Islamic Justice and Development Party (PJD), claimed that the disaster was brought on the area by God displeased with its promotion of sex tourism.

The newspaper said the disaster was a warning to Morocco to take measures against sex tourism, which it described as a developing "calamity" in the north African country.

The newspaper, led by its director, Abdelilah Benkirane, later back-tracked, saying the article represented the personal opinion of its author and added that the comments had been taken out of context.

But it added: "If we are not categorical that the tsunami was a divine punishment, because only God knows that ... we believe, as all Muslims do, always have, that earthquakes and disasters depend on the will of God."

It added: "We are surprised that people who think in this way have their right to free expression scorned."

Human-rights groups and rival political parties condemned the comments about the tsunami, but the newspaper has received support from many Moroccans who turned out to protest on the streets of the capital, Rabat, and defend the publication’s right to free speech.

The PJD said about 5,000 people joined a demonstration supporting Attajdid after the comments were condemned on Moroccan television.

As the relief effort in the wake of the disaster continued yesterday, Indonesia said that nearly 5,000 more victims of the tsunami have been buried in Aceh province over the past week.

The figure brings the latest confirmed death toll across 11 countries to between 150,704 and 178,115.

The number of missing ranges from 26,404 to 142,132, with most of those presumed dead.

Meanwhile, government and Acehnese rebel negotiators cut short ceasefire talks, bringing more uncertainty to the safety of relief efforts.

Despite two days of peace talks in Finland, Indonesian troops clashed with Free Aceh Movement rebels in eastern Aceh, killing four guerrillas, a military spokesman said. No troops were hurt in the fighting over the weekend.

Aid groups said the early shutdown of talks would not hamper their work in Aceh.

"We don’t have any comment on political negotiations, but we will continue with our aid effort for as long as it is needed," a World Food Programme spokeswoman said yesterday.

On Thailand’s tsunami-ravaged Phuket island, 47 nations and agencies approved a plan to set up a warning network for southern Asia with several separate regional centres, after failing to resolve differences over where to base a central hub.

The hub would collect seismic and oceanographic data, analyse it and issue alerts to coastal areas in danger.

Experts say that even a few minutes’ warning could have saved many of the lives lost.