GENEVA – With Roman Polanski's arrest and a recent crackdown on Americans illegally stashing money in Swiss bank accounts, this Alpine nation further shed its image as a legal refuge where wealthy fugitives and tax evaders live genteelly above the law.
But growing cracks in the Alpine nation's cherished legacy as a safe haven — one that has also shielded countless political refugees — has been met with widespread anger by those proud of its independence.
The accord to go after thousands of tax cheats, the first-ever to pry open Swiss bank secrecy, was reached only after heavy legal and political pressure from Washington.
"Swiss neutrality is about not taking sides," said Julien Grollier, a Geneva resident. "They're doing a favor for the United States that they wouldn't do for another country.
Another Swiss citizen put his anguish at Polanski's arrest more bluntly.
"I'm ashamed to be Swiss," said Ernest Scherrsz, the Grand Palace Hotel owner in Gstaad, where the 76-year-old Polanski owned his chalet.
Polanski's attorneys on Tuesday asked that the director be released from custody, the first step in a legal battle to avoid extradition to the U.S. to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
The anger echoing across the political spectrum is not a simple case of America-bashing or defending an internationally acclaimed artist whose tragic past includes losing his mother at Auschwitz and an eight-month pregnant wife in a crazed attack by the Charles Manson cult.
The Swiss criticism largely stems from an inherent fear of losing sovereignty and a tradition of restrained governance that places a supreme value on individual rights.
The famously independent Swiss have fought off foreign invaders for centuries, and still credit their neutrality for escaping invasion from neighboring Nazi Germany during World War II.
From the center of the continent they have rebuffed the European Union, and welcomed in recent decades countless political refugees and famous cultural figures such as Charlie Chaplin, who found a home here after he was refused re-entry into the United States in 1952 over charges he associated with Communists.
It also bucked Washington in the 1980s when the U.S. sought the extradition of Marc Rich, the fugitive trader known as the "King of Commodities" who was controversially pardoned in 2001 by Bill Clinton just hours before he left office as U.S. president.
Rich fled the U.S. for Switzerland in 1983 after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on more than 50 counts of fraud, racketeering, trading with Iran during the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis and evading more than $48 million in income taxes.
Switzerland didn't regard tax evasion as a crime and, as a neutral country, didn't have any embargo against Iran. It refused to treat Rich — a billionaire trader in oil, metals and other commodities — as a crook or hand him over to the United States despite strong diplomatic pressure. He remains there today.
Switzerland's independent streak has faded in recent years as globalization made it increasingly difficult to preserve its lofty perch of isolation.
In 2002, it finally joined the United Nations and has been forced to tighten its venerated banking secrecy laws after a series of international flaps over dictator cash, Jews who couldn't access their Holocaust-era accounts and, most recently, wealthy Americans who stashed billions of dollars in UBS.
It has become a world leader in returning potentate money, sending back hundreds of millions in Swiss accounts linked to dictators, including the late Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. And reforms — prompted by foreign pressure — have made it much harder to open up confidential accounts from abroad.
"We don't make any difference between criminal acts," said Guido Balmer, spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry. "The basic principle is whether the act is criminally punishable in both countries."

Balmer said Polanski's case is different from Rich's because sex with a minor is a criminal offense in Switzerland and the United States. But coming so shortly after a U.S.-Swiss deal to help U.S. authorities prosecute nearly 5,000 American account holders, a number of politicians weren't so sure.

"Maybe Switzerland wanted to serve the United States," Green Party chief Ueli Leuenberger noted on the radio panel providing a rare moment of accord between Switzerland's main right-wing and left-wing parties.

Jean Ziegler, a former Socialist politician and author who advises the United Nations on human rights issues, called the arrest a "political action."

"The government is so traumatized by the IRS and whole UBS scandal," said Ziegler, a frequent critic of the U.S. government and Swiss banks. "If any American authority asks for anything in Switzerland, they get it in 24 hours. They could call and say 'Please send the gold of your national bank to America,' and (the government) would do it right away."

Balmer called Polanski's arrest and incarceration a "legal process" and said the government had not been affected by lingering tension with American authorities. Similarly, he said it would not be swayed by pressure from France and Poland, where the 76-year-old filmmaker has citizenship and whose foreign minister have sharply criticized Switzerland for the arrest.

A number of questions remained. Polanski's friends and lawyers note that he has spent long periods of time at a chalet he owns in the luxury resort of Gstaad, and he was in Switzerland for an extended period this summer.

Asked why Polanski was not apprehended then, Balmer said the question was irrelevant.

"Last week, we received precise information when and where he would arrive, enabling us to make the arrest. That was the first time," he told the AP. He would not comment further on previous contacts with U.S. justice officials.

Ziegler said celebrities would now think twice before traveling or relocating to Switzerland if the government has "no choice" but to arrest people when asked by powerful governments like the United States.

"The Swiss image as such in the world will suffer," he said.

Their were some dissenting views, however, especially among Swiss legal experts.

"The extradition department at the Justice Ministry had no other choice," said Dieter Jann, a former Zurich prosecutor. "This was in no way an exceptional case. It is normal to follow up on tips from investigators and to inform border control."

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Associated Press writer Eliane Engeler in Geneva and Balz Bruppacher in Bern, Switzerland, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
U.S. President Barack Obama called for better ties between NATO and Russia on Tuesday and said the two sides should work together even as Moscow voiced suspicions about revamped U.S. missile defense plans.

Obama, who recently announced a shift in plans for an anti-missile system in Europe, said he and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen agreed on the need to improve relations with the military alliance's former foe.

"It is important for us to reach out to Russia and explore ways in which the missile defense configurations that we envision could potentially lead to further collaboration with Russia on this front," Obama said after meeting with Rasmussen at the White House.

"We want to improve generally not only U.S.-Russian relations, but also NATO-Russian relations, while making absolutely clear that our commitments to all of our allies in NATO is sacrosanct," Obama said.

Earlier this month Obama scrapped a Bush-era missile defense plan for Europe, bitterly opposed by Moscow, that would have included ground-based interceptors in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic.

The new plan, which the administration said was designed to address more immediate threats from Iran, would involve deploying U.S. ships with missile interceptors and, in a second phase, fielding land-based defense systems.

Russia originally welcomed Obama's shift, but the country's NATO envoy said on Tuesday Moscow still feared its strategic nuclear weapons could be threatened by the new system.

Obama said he and the NATO chief agreed the new plan was best for the alliance.

"We both agreed that the configuration that we have proposed is one that ultimately will serve the interests of not only the United States, but also NATO alliance members most effectively," he said.

"It allows for a full collaboration with NATO members, and we are very optimistic that it will achieve our aims and deal with the very real threat of ballistic missiles," he said.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

CONAKRY, Guinea – Soldiers reeking of alcohol menaced Guinea's capital Tuesday, a day after the military's presidential guard shot at pro-democracy demonstrators in the West African country, leaving at least 100 dead, a doctor said.
The soldiers fired into the air as they roamed the deserted streets of the normally bustling capital. Guinea's military leader, who rose to power in a December coup, said Monday's violence was beyond his control.
An Associated Press reporter said he saw halls full of wounded patients at the city's large Donka Hospital, some with bullet wounds, others who appeared to have been beaten.
A doctor at the hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media and because he fears for his life, said he had seen more than 100 bodies in the morgue.
Opposition politician Mutarr Diallo said he witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts during Monday's protests. He was arrested during the protest but released Tuesday morning.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said eyewitnesses also told them that security forces had stripped female protesters Monday and raped them in the streets. Other eyewitnesses said soldiers had stabbed protesters with knives and bayonets.
Tensions have risen in Guinea amid rumors that military leader Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara may run in presidential elections set for Jan. 31. Camara said that the shootings by members of his presidential guard were beyond his control.
"Those people who committed those atrocities were uncontrollable elements in the military," he told Radio France International on Monday night. "Even I, as head of state in this very tense situation, cannot claim to be able to control those elements in the military."
Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the killing of dozens of unarmed protesters is "shocking even by the abusive standards of Guinea's coup government."
"Guinea's leaders should order an immediate end to attacks on demonstrators and bring to justice those responsible for the bloodshed," she said.
The African Union, the European Union and the government of neighboring Senegal all quickly denounced Monday's violence. The AU had suspended Guinea's membership after Camara seized power in a December coup.
The African Union Commission condemned the "indiscriminate firing on unarmed civilians," and urged Guinean officials to respect the freedom of expression and assembly.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana called for the immediate release of arrested political leaders.
Opposition leader Sidya Toure, a former prime minister, was arrested during the protests and released Tuesday. When he returned home, he said he found it had been ransacked.
"I have come back to a broken home," he said. "What upsets me most is that they destroyed my library. All my books and souvenirs are gone."
Camara came to power in a coup hours after longtime dictator Lansana Conte died. Camara initially said he would not run in a presidential election set for Jan. 31 but recently said he has the right to run.
The opposition-led protest in the capital's main football stadium Monday drew some 50,000 people, with demonstrators chanting "We want true democracy."
On Aug. 27, police fired tear gas to break up a demonstration in the capital, and last Thursday tens of thousands of residents in a town north of Conakry took to the streets with no serious incidents.

Hardly anyone had heard of Camara, an army captain in his 40s, until Dec. 23, when his men broke down the glass doors of the state TV station. He announced that the constitution had been dissolved and that the country was now under the rule of a military junta.

In the days after the coup, Camara was initially embraced by Guineans, thousands of whom lined the streets to applaud his arrival on the back of a flatbed military truck.

But many began to question his tactics when he authorized raids on the homes of well-known members of Conte's inner circle. Camara claimed the raids were intended to recoup money and property stolen from the state, but some residents complained officials were using heavy-handed tactics.

Since winning independence half a century ago from France, Guinea has been pillaged by its ruling elite. Its 10 million people are among the world's poorest, even though its soil has diamonds, gold, iron and half the world's reserves of the raw material used to make aluminum.

CONAKRY (Reuters) –
The African Union threatened Guinea's military junta with sanctions on Tuesday as the death toll climbed from a crackdown by security on opponents of military ruler Captain Moussa Dadis Camara.

The toll from Monday's violence climbed as eyewitnesses counted dozens more corpses on top of at least 58 bodies seen in a hospital in the capital Conakry after soldiers fired live rounds at protesters to halt a rally at a local stadium.

The clashes in the world's top bauxite exporting country were the worst since Camara seized power in a 2008 coup and followed months of wrangling between Camara and his rivals.

The African Union called on Camara to confirm he would honor a pledge not to stand in a presidential election due in January and so allow transition to civilian rule.

"In this respect the (AU) Commission is preparing a report on the developments in Guinea and possible measures to be taken, including sanctions," it said in a statement which did not elaborate what steps could be envisaged.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and former colonial power France condemned the killings, which eyewitnesses said were unprovoked and indiscriminate.

"Soldiers were firing at people and those who tried to get out (of the stadium) were caught and finished off with bayonets," Guinean human rights activist Souleymane Bah told Reuters of the clashes in the sports stadium.

Bah said he had seen dozens of lifeless bodies in the stadium after soldiers dispersed the crowd, and confirmed widespread reports of abuses by soldiers.

"I saw soldiers strip women naked, spread their legs and stamp on their privates with their boots," he said by telephone.

Camara has yet to make a formal announcement on whether he will stand for the election, but diplomats have said he has spoken in private of his plans to be candidate.

Cellou Dalein Diallo, leader of major opposition group the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), and several other politicians were arrested by the security forces.

Camara seized power after President Lansana Conte died in December 2008. He enjoyed initial support from a population hungry for change after decades of Conte's rule left the mineral-rich nation in disarray.

However, increasingly erratic behavior, including crackdowns on former backers in the military, attacks on mining companies the country is so dependent on and the likelihood he will stand in a poll due in 2010, have fueled instability.

Mining firms like UC RUSAL and Rio Tinto have not indicated they are ready to leave Guinea despite a series of disputes, but officials say government revenues from mineral exports will fall dramatically next year, putting the budget under strain.

(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Giles Elgood)