Art for Wealth’s Sake: Art Basel Paints a Picture of Miami’s Separate and Unequal Worlds

It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday night. A naked girl is splashing about in the swimming pool at the Standard Hotel Miami. She is from New York and runs a nonprofit for homeless teens. We’ll call her Liz: “You’re so boring!” she yells from the middle of the pool.

It was a common refrain here during Art Basel Miami Beach—now the world’s largest contemporary art fair—where many of earth’s most privileged humans gather for a week of champagne and gawking at art (and at each other) in the sun.

The poolside celebration was for Terry Richardson, a fashion photographer known for his sexually charged (or sexually abusive, depending on your source) shoots. A cell phone company, HTC, spent $ 100,000 to sponsor the party, a book release for Richardson. This is a typical event, one of hundreds that occur during what is commonly referred to as “Basel.”

MORE: Scenes From a Class War (VIDEOS)

Basel is now 11 years old. It’s gone from a decent sized art fair to an international marketing and branding orgy with few parallels. Because all the big collectors fly down private, and scores of cool young New Yorkers file in on JetBlue, luxury brands rush in to hit both their “target demos” and “tastemakers” in one shot.

In terms of tourism dollars, Basel is Miami’s highest grossing week. Hotels on South Beach were demanding thousands per night for rooms. The fair’s main sponsor was the honorable UBS, the very same Swiss bank that just settled a billion dollar fraud case with international authorities. UBS not only robs the world and stashes terrorist/dictator cash, it sponsors art fairs too—cool guys.

Most Miamians don’t care about Art Basel. The city is only 11 percent white (far and away the primary Basel target demographic), and most of the 40 percent Hispanic and 20 percent black populations live far from the South Beach glam, many in poverty. Miami has the second widest gap between rich and poor in America, after New York. Blacks make an average of $ 15,000 a year. Whites double that, at $ 37,000. But at $ 19,000, the city’s majority Hispanics aren’t doing so well either.

Disparity defines the art world too, with its hungry artists and rich collectors and patrons. So it’s fitting that the largest contemporary art fair in the world happens in Miami.

Few people are more detached from the short-end reality of income disparity than the global art tribe. These arbiters of the cultural elite fly around the world to various openings and fairs then retreat to galleries, museums and studios in their home cities before heading out again. Of course, there are exceptions. Some artists at Basel retain a socio-politico aesthetic. A good example is Barbara Krueger, whose text-orientated pieces mocking consumerism and political power were selling for $ 200,000 to $ 500,000 and became the talk of the fair.

Bearing many hallmarks of a third world city, Miami breaks down into two distinct populations. The rich live across Biscayne Bay on beautiful beaches and gated islands. The poor are stretched across downtown’s grid, where every block headed west from the bay is worse than the one before it. The city has few economically diverse neighborhoods.

The two Miamis can easily be visited on the same day. Last week. Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez, the New York Yankee third baseman with the largest sports contract in history, was having a party in his $ 30 million modernist manse.

I skipped A Rod’s soiree, mainly because I hate the Yankees, to hang out with Dee, a 22-year-old drug dealer who lives on west 20th Street downtown. All he wanted was customers: “Man, who down here needs anything? I’m fucking broke. I live in the projects with my aunt. Gotta get out.”

Dee said he’d take any job—as in, “I’ll work at Chick-fil-A, man!” Saddled with a criminal record, he’s never been hired anywhere.

We cruised over to 75th Street, the main drag in Little Haiti, where public housing is painted lime green and similarly awesome pastel paint jobs cover buildings advertising W.I.C and Western Union.

“There are no banks here,” Dee tells me. “We don’t have enough money.”

UBS—where are you?

The South Beach Basel crowd hosted quite a few Hurricane Sandy benefits. But I didn’t find one art world benefit for Miami’s poor. There is a definite willful ignorance in plopping your billionaires down at dinners and six-figure parties in the name of “culture” while ignoring masses of people who are in dire need of said culture and are readily at hand: The impoverished residents of Miami.

Back in New York, I catch up with Liz, the naked pool gal. She’s in Tompkins Square Park, the epicenter of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Stella is smiling. Her art world disdain has clearly dried off.

“I have no idea why I was in Miami,” she says. “Who were those people? Why are they so boring, and why did that one guy in the black suit keep saying Le Baron over and over again?”

Around the same time I get a text from Dee. “You know anyone still down here? Tryna get that $ .”

I inform Lee that Le Baron is a Parisian disco that does a chic party every night of Basel.

Lee receives this information as she’s handing out clean needles and Narcan to the local crust punk populace, all of whom she knows by name.

“Do these people really care?” she asks.

Sadly, Basel people do seem to express more concern about French discos and wearing aggressive outfits than they do about the inequality in America—maybe best seen in Miami’s two worlds.

I have an idea for Art Basel next year. In the process of exchanging all those millions for bought and sold visions, try and help some of the people from Miami.

Are wealthy visitors obligated to alleviate some of the local misery when they party in the midst of poverty? Take a position in COMMENTS.

These are solely the author’s opinions and do not represent those of TakePart, LLC or its affiliates.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Dispatch From Morocco: ‘Excuse Me, Aren’t We About to Start a War Here?’

• America, Syria and the State of Child Soldiering 2012

• Census Shows Sharp Increase in U.S. Poor

---

Ray LeMoine was born in Boston and lives in New York. He’s done humanitarian work in Iraq and Pakistan and has written for various media outlets, including the New York Times, New York Magazine and the Awl.

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Which Les Misérables Star Did You Pick as Best Dressed This Week?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/15/2012 at 12:00 PM ET

FameFlynet

Her costar Anne Hathaway had everyone talking this week, but Amanda Seyfried seemingly earned the last word: 16,000 of you voted her gorgeous gown the number-one dress of the week.

The winning Alexander McQueen creation, worn to the Les Misérables premiere in N.Y.C. on Monday, featured a golden embroidered bodice, a tortoiseshell belt and black skirt.

PHOTOS: SEE THE TOP 10 BEST DRESSED STARS ON PEOPLE THIS WEEK! 

Seyfried finished off the regal design with a braided crown, Harry Winston jewels and a smoky eye.

Coming in a close second was last week’s best dressed star, Katie Holmes, in a grape Vivienne Westwood column gown paired with emerald satin Roger Vivier sandals for a Broadway Dreams Foundation party in N.Y.C. on Monday.

Click here to find out who else ranked in the top 10 and vote for your favorite celeb looks. Tell us: Who do you think had better Les Mis red carpet premiere style: Seyfried or Hathaway? Sound off in the comments.

–Jennifer Cress

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."

Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.

"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.

"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."

With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.

Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.

"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.

"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."

Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.

BEWARE OF THE WITCH

This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.

"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.

RETHINKING APPLE

Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.

Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.

On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.

"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.

But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Foreign Minister Blames Sanctions for Syria’s Troubles

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Receiving a high-level United Nations delegation on Saturday in Damascus, Syria’s foreign minister blamed international sanctions for his country’s problems and called on the United Nations to help lift the measures, which were imposed to punish the government for its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that spiraled into armed conflict.

Government forces continued airstrikes and artillery barrages in the suburbs of Damascus, the capital, as a top United Nations official, Valerie Amos, visited the city to investigate the needs of Syrians during a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people and led more than a half-million to flee the country, with many more displaced inside Syria.

The civil war set off by the brutal crackdown on peaceful protests has devastated many cities and suburbs as the government levels rebellious neighborhoods and some rebels set off bombs.

But Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and other officials placed the blame elsewhere, according to Syrian and foreign news reports, saying, “The sanctions imposed by the United States and countries of the European Union on Syria are responsible for the suffering of the Syrian people.”

In the northern city of Aleppo, rebels claimed to have taken another important military installation, the region’s infantry school, though some reports said that fighting continued on Saturday.

There was an outpouring of grief from antigovernment activists and fighters after a commander of a rebel group, the Tawhid, or Unification, Brigade, was reported to have died in the fighting. It was an unusual moment of focus on an individual in an uprising with few widely known leaders or public faces.

The commander, Yousef al-Jader, also known as Abu Furat, had earlier recorded a statement, posted online on Saturday, that resonated with many Syrians.

“I feel very sad whenever I see a dead man, whether from our side or their side,” he said.

Speaking about President Bashar al-Assad, who has resisted calls to step down, he asked: “Why did he have to hold on to his seat? If he had resigned, we would have the best country in the world.”

Opposition members were distraught over the death of Mr. Jader, considered a skilled and respected officer by others in the loose-knit Free Syrian Army.

“A man has left our world, and men are few,” Samar Yazbek, a prizewinning novelist, wrote on Facebook, adding that Mr. Jader’s statement had made her cry. “His quavering and humanitarian voice represented, for me, the lovely and difficult future of Syria,” she wrote. “He barely lighted a star in the sky of our pain!”

The commander was one of many fighters to die in the fighting at the infantry school, which is north of Aleppo, in Muslimiyah.

A Syrian activist in the region, reached by phone, said rebels, who had breached the school’s compound several days ago and had been fighting for it building by building, had lost as many as 25 fighters there on Saturday. “It was a big victory for us, but very costly,” said the activist, Yasser al-Haji.

It is unclear whether the rebels will keep control of the base. In many cases, rebels have quickly taken ammunition from captured bases and then abandoned them, wary of government attacks.

In Jordan, officials who defected from the Syrian government announced that they had formed a new opposition group led by Mr. Assad’s former prime minister, Riyad Farid Hijab, one of the highest-ranking officials to desert during the conflict.

The group, called the National Free Coalition of the Workers of Syrian Government Institutions, aims to keep state structures intact if Mr. Assad’s government falls, Reuters reported.

The group includes Abdu Hussameldin, the former deputy oil minister, and others, who, at a news conference in Amman, expressed support for the Free Syrian Army and the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, recently recognized by the United States and others as the legitimate representative of Syrians.

Fighting continued east of Damascus; activists reported airstrikes in Beit Saham, near the Damascus airport. The government claims to have pushed rebels out of some southern suburbs after heavy shelling, and is now focusing attacks in the east in an effort to seal off the capital.

While rebels appeared to make many some gains in a semicircle of suburbs around the capital in recent weeks, those were followed by a fearsome government counterattack, and some analysts have suggested that what began as a victory for the rebels has become, as has happened several times before, a defeat.

The government may have led rebels into a trap, reported the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, a left-leaning publication that often supports the pro-Assad Lebanese group Hezbollah. Citing informed sources, the newspaper said that the government intentionally withdrew forces from some Damascus suburbs to draw rebels in, stretch their supply lines and later wipe them out.

Syrian state news media reported that Leila Zerrougui, a United Nations special representative, visited camps for families displaced by the fighting and called on all sides to protect children affected by the conflict.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, and C. J. Chivers from Antakya, Turkey. Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut.

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Google+ app for Android updated with new photo-sharing features, emoticons, GIFs and more

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Kelly Clarkson Is Engaged

By Mike Fleeman

12/15/2012 at 05:30 PM EST

Brandon Blackstock and Kelly Clarkson

Rick Diamond/Getty

Kelly Clarkson's wait for a ring is over.

"I'M ENGAGED!!!!!" she announced Saturday on Twitter. "I wanted y'all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night! I am so lucky and am with the greatest man ever."

The Grammy-nominated pop star, 30, and freshly minted fiancé Brandon Blackstock, a Nashville-based talent manager, began dating a year ago. Blackstock is the son of Clarkson's manager, Narvel Blackstock, who is married to Reba McEntire.

Earlier this year Clarkson joked that she was so happy it was "ruining my creativity" and that she was now "writing all this happy" stuff.

The only thing that had been missing, she said in November, was the wedding bling, and even then she was sure it would be arriving. As for her ceremony plans, she told Ellen DeGeneres: "We will totally, probably elope."

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."

Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.

"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.

"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."

With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.

Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.

"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.

"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."

Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.

BEWARE OF THE WITCH

This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.

"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.

RETHINKING APPLE

Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.

Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.

On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.

"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.

But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Syrian Rebel Seeks Prisoner Exchange to Free Hostages

Lebanese Captives in Syria Speak Out:
C.J. Chivers, a correspondent for The New York Times, spoke with two Lebanese men held captive in Syria for seven months. Syrian rebels accuse them and seven others of being members of Hezbollah.

BAB AL-SALAM, Syria — When Syrian rebels stopped two buses of Lebanese travelers in the spring and took 11 passengers hostage, they set off a cascade of fallout: riots at the Beirut airport, retaliation kidnappings against Syrians in Lebanon and a deepening of the sectarian character of the war.

Since that day in May, as civil war has raged and opposition fighters have gained momentum in their bid to oust President Bashar al-Assad, the rebels have continued to detain most of their prisoners, having released two as a good-will gesture. The rest, nine men who the captors insist are members of Hezbollah — which the prisoners deny — will be released only as part of a prisoner exchange, the rebel commander holding the group said.

The commander, Amar al-Dadikhi of the North Storm brigade, which has been holding the prisoners at an undisclosed location in Syria’s northern countryside, said in interviews that he would free the hostages if the Syrian government released two prominent opposition figures and if Lebanon freed all Syrian activists in government custody.

The men’s prospects for freedom, he said, are “in the Syrian government’s hands, and the Lebanese government’s hands.”

Their detention began after they were removed at gunpoint from buses driving though Syria while returning from a Shiite religious pilgrimage to Iran. The case has remained stubbornly unresolved, even as it has raised questions about the character and criminality of some of the rebels whom the West has hesitatingly backed.

The hostage-taking also sullied the reputation of the Free Syrian Army, the loosely organized antigovernment fighting groups. Without any public evidence to support the claim that the hostages are members of Hezbollah, the case has exposed the limits of the Free Syrian Army’s influence over rebels who fly its banner.

The Free Syrian Army’s leadership appears not to have been able to persuade Mr. Dadikhi to release the men, even as it seeks international recognition and tangible military aid, two desires undermined by the hostage case.

Mr. Dadikhi, a large and scarred man who is alternately praised by many opposition activists for battlefield bravery and whispered about as an accomplished smuggler who once maintained extensive ties to the government, claims to have 1,300 armed fighters and a network of cross-border contacts. His control of the border crossing that leads to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, makes him a power broker by default.

Col. Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi, a former Syrian military officer and one of the Free Syrian Army commanders in the Aleppo region, declined to comment on the case beyond saying that he was aware of the demands of Mr. Dadikhi, whom he called Abu Ibrahim.

“Abu Ibrahim has his requests,” he said. “If they are taken care of, he will free the Lebanese.”

Relatives of the hostages, reached by telephone in Beirut, expressed deep anger upon hearing Mr. Dadikhi’s demands. “Let them capture someone from the regime. Why abduct Lebanese? What do we have to do with the revolution?” said the wife of one of the hostages. “They are liars; they won’t release them. It is just blackmail.”

Mr. Dadikhi allowed two journalists from The New York Times to meet with two of the hostages — Ali Abass, 30, and Ali Tormos, 54 — for about 30 minutes on Thursday afternoon. The men appeared to be in good health, and they said they and the other hostages had not been harmed.

They expressed weariness and asked that Lebanon and Syria meet their captors’ demands. “It has been a long time, and we want to go home,” Mr. Abass said.

The interview was held in a former government office at the border crossing from Syria to Kilis, Turkey. Mr. Dadikhi agreed to leave the room while the hostages spoke. The meeting remained all but scripted.

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

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