Datelines

...Fred Setterberg (Fred Setterberg is a free-lance writer in Berkeley...

...No transport is available, so miners walk the five miles to the road and then try to hitch a lift to town...

...Boniface produces a grubby envelope on which is written 128 rands—Namibia uses South African currency—his month's earnings...

...There is no meal break and only water is brought down now and again...

...We gather information in times of crisis and upheaval," says Andy Kivel, the Center's director of resource services...

...The country's biggest loss, according to Lara Castro, is that "about one million Paraguayans went into exile in Stroessner's thirty-five years...

...On Robben Island, at least the authorities have to feed their prisoners...

...But everything in this nation of four million people was rigged...

...The task of putting it all together is made far easier by the library's labor-intensive preference for clipping and sorting instead of relying on the computerized data banks that prop up most private research firms...

...profiles of dozens of nations...

...In the 1976 wave of repression, she says, 2,000 to 3,000 were jailed...

...The rolling stretches of sand are broken only by the world's highest dunes, flora and fauna unique to the Namib—and unexpected mine installations...

...It didn't jail people for long periods, as previously, only for days and months...

...The Data Center plays a vital background role in world events...

...He is one of the 115 single miners here...

...They were released in 1978 because of the Carter Administration's pressure...

...And at Iguagu Falls, the former Stroessner City, just across from Brazil, has been renamed the City of the East...

...For five years, they were in a place without lights and were tortured badly...

...Its comprehensive scope and provision of easy access to information prompted a college professor in Florida to forbid his students use of it in writing term papers...

...Now we have more important things to work on, getting democracy going...

...They have no cooking facilities and there is no education for the children, who run around all day in the scorching sun...

...But Ben Ulenga believes the country's year-long transition toward independence, which started on April 1, could enhance union efforts at Zinc and Lead...

...The Center publishes, among other regular reports, a 350-page monthly compendium of news from the region called Information Services on Latin America...

...For all its accomplishments, the Data Center scrapes by on a remarkably low budget...

...As new crises erupt, the Data Center's files grow...

...Not so for the political prisoners who were peasants—and the bulk of them were...

...Boniface's only day off is pay day, devoted to the journey into Swakopmund...

...Supreme Court, assisted negotiators for the Arias plan for peace in Central America, and worked with Corazon Aquino's Filipino government to sniff out the trail of Ferdinand Marcos's pirated wealth...

...Lara Castro adds that "it's very difficult to know the exact numbers" of political prisoners and of the "disappeared," people murdered by the military...

...Each week the staff surveys, sorts, and clips 2,500 articles by hand and then stuffs them into a plethora of bulging folders with such headings as mercenaries, evangelicals, international debt crisis, or toxic waste—all the major issues and grim public preoccupations of our time...

...Unlike many data-base collections, the clipping files include the full texts of articles, including maps, graphs, and charts...

...Despite his use of inhalants and alcohol, no one, including the home's director, anticipated the middle-of-the-night call from the sheriffs department in Longview, Texas, informing the home that the sixteen-year-old had stolen a pickup truck and ended up in a high-speed chase during which he was shot in the foot...

...The company is not obliged by law to negotiate and does not allow union officials into the mine...

...In the desert, forty miles from the sea, a lone road sign announces Zinc and Lead Company (Namibia) Ltd...

...Glenn S. Phillips (Glenn S. Phillips, an Oklahoma writer, worked for the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission from 1978 to 1988...

...I had to eat from a newspaper on the floor, like a dog...

...Worse than Robben Island," says Ben Ulenga...

...These were people who from 1958 to 1972 were prevented even from reading anything...

...And much of the Data Center's materials—say, its copies of the Sandinista newspaper published underground prior to the 1979 revolution— simply can't be found elsewhere...

...For the past thirteen years, its specialty has been papers demonstrating the world's unequal distribution of wealth and power, along with the political eruptions that come with it...

...An attempt to get a teacher to come failed...

...But the hundreds of miles of electric lines just don't make it as far as the hovels that house the migrant workers who have come here alone in search of work, leaving their families many days' journey away to the north...

...A few hundred yards away, the single-story slums which "house" the miners are distinguished by a huge pile of black rubble and rock dumped there from the pit...

...There was a strike in 1987 and many miners were dismissed...

...from Ovamboland in the north, he came here two years ago to seek work...

...Two miners share each nook, their stone bunk beds divided by a tiny space...

...Hope for Paraguay ASUNCION\ PARAGUAY Carmen de Lara Castro has chaired Paraguay's nongovernmental Commission for Defense of Human Rights for more than twenty years, and suffered for it...

...about a quarter of the 160 black workers have already signed up...

...She is a retired teacher of high-school civics, the widow of a lawyer...

...Lara Castro, short and plump, took part in politics and was elected a Liberal Party legislator from 1968 to 1978, when her faction withdrew from politics completely because Stroessner had rigged the constitution in 1977 to permit himself to be re-elected...

...Newspapers and radio stations were persecuted and closed, too...

...Later, the regime attacked "priests who tried to defend human rights—they were called reds and exiled...

...He'd been in exile twenty-two years...

...A prison seminar on alcoholism in 1979 and exposure to religious role models in the 1980s also contributed to making him an articulate and respected jail-house lawyer...

...When news of the Iran-contra scandal broke, that file provided one of the richest background sources available anywhere for investigators wanting to trace its roots...

...asked an astonished Goff, when he heard the news...

...He actually "won" eight straight presidential elections, the latest in 1988...

...he is also the general secretary of the Mineworkers' Union, and he should know...

...When their middle-class relatives demanded releases," she says, "they often got out...

...There is no doctor...

...I have six brothers and sisters, all in Argentina except for one brother who returned after the coup...

...In 1972, Asuncion's bishop convinced the regime to let these people read a Catholic magazine from Argentina and eventually got them a cell with lights...

...Choctaw with a Mission NORMAN, OKLAHOMA Ben Carnes is not your average college freshman...

...And Lakota spiritual adviser Archie Fire Lame Deer pointed out that Indian prisoners who do turn to traditional practices have a strikingly low recidivism rate...

...It built credibility...

...For provisions, the men must go to Swakopmund, forty miles away...

...For example: On December 10, 1988, a group of organizations held a human-rights march here that drew a million people...

...The trick is to put it all together...

...Their return trip, loaded with sacks of maize for the week or month, can be worse...

...Like many of his people At the miners' hovels, a man gets a stone bunk but no electricity, water but no food...

...But in the nothingness of the desert, the concept is still vague...

...Unlike a computerized system that relies upon key words in headlines or titles to turn up relevant materials—and often produces staggering bills for overkill efforts—the Data Center provides the priceless, irreplaceable resource of human intelligence...

...They burned cigarettes on his lips and tongue and beat him so that he's had kidney problems and now has heart problems...

...In the past, four miners lived in this space, but the miners now use the upper bunks to store their meager belongings and sacks of the crushed maize that is their constant diet...

...Carnes has also waged a three-year battle to stop the Department of Corrections from forcing Indian inmates to cut their hair—from "being robbed of their religion," he says...

...Calmly chatting in the coffee lounge of the Excelsior Hotel, she recalls the Stroessner years, which ended with his exile last February in a military coup...

...It was an aberration, but that incident and later alcohol-related arrests resulted in his serving more than seven years...

...He shrugs...

...Off the passage which stretches to each end of the single men's quarters are a series of cubbyholes, about six foot square...

...For years, Namibia has been treated like a fifth South African province, and Pretoria's mining laws provide for a break after five hours' work...

...One of NACLA's strengths was the footnote," he says...

...We began voluntarily in 1967," she says...

...They are, for example, immigration specialists documenting human-rights atrocities in Guatemala and El Salvador to halt deportations...

...Only the makeshift doors or blankets put up to mark out each occupant's territory make it a "room...

...Boniface says he worked twelve months before qualifying for two weeks' leave...

...He spent ten years in South Africa's notorious prison for his part in the fight for Namibia's freedom...

...Stone," says Fred Goff...

...Conditions now are no better," says Ulenga, "and maybe worse...

...But this was a contradiction...

...At the 1987 trial, expert witness David Hilligoss testified that long hair is "a strong symbol and expression of religious identity" similar to what Christians call "an affirmation of faith...

...Like Boniface, Ulenga is an Ovambo...

...In April, Carnes emerged as a leader of a march on the capitol in Oklahoma City, a five-mile trek to demonstrate that Indians do not share in the celebration of the Centennial of the Oklahoma Land Run, when many of their ancestors had their lands stolen...

...local reporters and foreign journalists researching the institutions and individuals that foment social progress—or prevent it...

...The library supports its staff of twelve, assisted by thirty interns and volunteers who log 2,500 hours of unpaid work through the year, for about $250,000 annually...

...Uppermost on his priorities list, however, is his dream to organize a national organization to assist Native American prisoners...

...And challenging the practice in a way that enhanced multiracial understanding won for Carnes a 1987 award from the state's Human Rights Commission—unique recognition for a prisoner...

...Sometimes, he gets sixteen to twenty rands more, a "bonus" for compulsory overtime...

...a growing collection on censorship, propaganda, and the erosion of First Amendment rights, and a comprehensive labor archive seeded with the private collection of the late journalist Paul Jacobs...

...Boniface is eighteen...

...Whatever the roots of his motivation, Carnes—paroled last summer—is that rarity, a rehabilitated convict...

...He has never been to school...

...But, she continues, "All the Stroessner posters have come down...

...Worse Than Robben Island' NAM IB DESERT, NAMIBIA The change in the scenery along the 220 miles of winding road from the Namibian capital Windhoek to Swakop-mund on the Atlantic Ocean is almost imperceptible...

...But it expanded the pace of repression, so that people weren't jailed just for political views but also for social, cultural, and economic views—writers, actors, theatrical people became targets...

...She won't tell her age but says her six sons range from twenty-eight to forty...

...There are no shops, and the owner of this mine brings in water but not food...

...Getting back late means getting fired, so trips to town are not frequent...

...The Center's clients gather in its cluttered corners, trailing past rows of newspaper-filled crates and overflowing stacks of books and magazines...

...A well-rounded student who writes for the university newspaper, involves himself in various sociopolitical activities, and finds time to perform an occasional Eagle Dance, Carnes wants to develop materials to set straight the distortions about Indians that persist in racist history books...

...The answer: "Because it makes research too easy...

...Others bring their families—which means, in Namibia, not only children but often parents, unmarried siblings, cousins, nephews, and nieces...

...Many of Lara Castro's fellow human-rights activists were imprisoned...

...The origins of Carnes's quest are unclear...

...Basically, we're a library for people involved in social change," says Fred Goff, the Data Center's president and founder...

...Sick leave does not exist...

...Perhaps his metamorphosis stems from his belief that a higher power allowed him to survive that foolish escapade despite the nineteen bullet holes in the cab of the pickup...

...The Center was established in 1977 to handle the prodigious demands of documentation, Latin America remains a primary concern...

...Jeff Apter (JeffApter is a free-lance writer based in Palaiseau, France...

...Many are in Buenos Aires...

...All my sons were put in prison at one time or another," she says, during the thirty-five-year regime of dictator Alfredo Stroessner...

...We are one of Latin America's oldest human-rights groups...

...But not before Indian inmate Joe Gaines had his hair forcibly cut in the middle of the prison day room...

...At last, she adds, after thirty-five years of dictatorship, "There is hope...

...On the other side of the mine complex, television antennae show that electricity does reach the pit-head and the suburban-style houses of the white mine officials...

...The library has 7,000 files on U.S...

...They spend off-hours sleeping, talking in the cool desert evening, and contemplating the void...

...Another son was "brutally tortured...

...The reason, she says: "Many people never asked about their relatives, out of fear...

...corporations dating back at least ten years...

...The Namib Desert is a narrow plain forty to a hundred miles wide, extending for a thousand miles along Namibia's Atlantic seaboard...

...One of her sons was put through a fake execution—"They prepare to execute," she says, "and at the last moment don't...

...Most of the miners are Lutheran Christians, and their attempt to set up a church failed too...

...In 1979—again, possibly because of Carter Administration pressure, she says, "the Stroessner regime changed its methods...

...His work rhythm goes on for twenty-seven days without a break, although other miners on a nine-hour shift get the weekend off...

...The public outcry that resulted caused prison officials to ban the wearing of long hair...

...Almost anything must be better than this...

...But owners may apply for dispensation, and often get it...

...One of the Data Center's patron saints is I.F...

...The mine changed hands last year, and the pithead was shifted three miles further into the desert...

...His age (twenty-nine), his long hair, and his status as an ex-convict combine to make him an unusual figure on the campus of the University of Oklahoma...

...Five miles down a stony track, a series of buildings heralds the pit-head...

...Fifty married miners live with their families in individual shacks not far from the single quarters, and they are little better off...

...there were still political prisoners in jail...

...She says, "We're going to get rid of those names and monuments later...

...Her brother spent three years in prison, her brother-in-law, eight years...

...Five years ago, conditions at Zinc and Lead, then Namib Lead/Deblin Mining, were exposed...

...With little fanfare, its archivists excavated information to help lobbyists fight the nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S...

...We demanded their release...

...Why...

...In the 1960s, many who organized political guerrilla movements—the Agrarian Leagues of the Peasants—were killed," she says...

...But the Department of Corrections has, at least, allowed long-hair exemptions for Indians who can meet a three-part test involving their religious sincerity...

...A product of a rough, small-town Oklahoma background dominated by his parents' alcoholism, Ben ended up a teen-ager at a home for troubled Choctaw children...

...By utilizing the same traditional methods—the sacred pipe, the drum, the sweat lodge, spiritual advisers, and long hair-that helped turn his own life around, Carnes hopes to reduce the recidivism rate he witnessed first-hand at McAlester...

...Carnes, believing that his traditional American Indian religion allows him to cut his hair only during periods of mourning, filed an internal grievance, secured a temporary injunction, and ultimately succeeded in having a class-action suit heard in state district court...

...He said that if you could put your hands on the public record, you'd find a tremendous amount—it's a gold mine for people who want to do independent analysis...

...There were never any trials...

...Beyond that, though, in this quiescent college generation, Carnes—a full-blooded Choctaw—is an activist staunchly committed to addressing racism, especially as it affects Indians in general and Indian inmates in particular...

...Many of his colleagues are just as young, but others have been here for Boniface's entire lifetime...

...Many of the single men spend their time drinking...

...If he gets worse, he'll be taken to a hospital the next day...

...Boniface knows independence is coming soon...

...Every time the desert wind blows, dust enters the broken windows of these living quarters, poisoning the atmosphere...

...Members of the Human Rights Commission were persecuted, many exiled, some tortured...

...In 1983, for example, the staff began clipping material on the private financing of the Nic-araguan contras...

...rank-and-file labor activists trying to stop a plant-closing...

...The court—and an appellate court last April—upheld the grooming code...

...It was compulsory to have them and his picture in all shops and public places...

...I returned December 9," recalls Lara Castro, "from a human-rights congress in Spain, and was arrested at the airport and accused of masterminding the march, though I wasn't responsible for it...

...There is no pay slip and no indication of how much may have been deducted for "working too slowly...

...The Center is an outgrowth of NACLA-the North American Congress on Latin America—which Goff co-founded in 1966...

...At its heart is the Center's clipping files...

...In the 1970s, Paraguay "had some of the oldest political prisoners in Latin America...

...The demand didn't get very far...

...The practice dates from a March 1986 grooming code, an outgrowth of the television images of a December 1985 takeover of the state penitentiary at McAlester by inmates wearing earrings, head bands, and long hair...

...But gradually the grass becomes sparser and the trees disappear, giving way to what seems a never-ending stretch of coarse sand and stones punctuated only by an occasional lone bush...

...In 1967, Stroessner announced a new constitution and a constituent assembly...

...I was put in jail for five days like a war criminal...

...William Steif (William Steif, a former national and foreign correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspapers, is a free-lance writer based in the U.S...

...On occasion, the Center anticipates issues that later become national obsessions...

...At the moment, the wind is not blowing, and there is no sign of the strange fog that every few days pervades the desert from the ocean...

...Stroessner's early targets, says Lara Castro, were teachers and trade unionists, with the unions "totally suppressed" in the 1950s...

...Communist leaders jailed in 1958 weren't released until 1978...

...The union, founded in November 1986, is building up membership here...

...If a miner takes ill, he is told to lie down...

...From 1958, four years after Stroessner seized power, until 1967, there was a wave of repression, with many political prisoners...

...Among the 300 marchers were members of the university's American Indian Student Association, whose interest was sparked in part by the leadership of Ben Carnes...

...Earnings can reach 200 rands a month, but that's only a third of the minimum the Mineworkers' Union of Namibia demands...

...Lara Castro laughs when asked about the fascist vestiges still so conspicuous in Asuncion—the monument to Nicaraguan dictator Anasta-sio Somoza, the long road entering the city carrying the name Avenida Generalissimo Franco...

...Everything "depended on the mood of the dictator...

...Virgin Islands...

...Traditionally, northerners come alone...

...Sick days don't count for holiday entitlement, and too many days off can lead to dismissal...

...Starting at 7 a.m., Boniface works an eight-hour shift, 2,000 feet underground...

...The sun beats down inexorably, emphasizing the loneliness of the desert, broken only by incongruous electricity pylons emerging from the rolling desert plain...