Monday, April 5, 1999
today's calendar
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W O R L D | Monday, April 5, 1999 |
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NATO attacks unabated, 3
killed |
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Passports returned to
suspects
Protest
over Pak Editor’s arrest
Buddhist
temple at centre of scandal
A
heartbreaking decision: Suu Kyi Anwar’s
wife launches party |
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NATO attacks unabated, 3 killed BELGRADE, April 4 — NATO followed through on a promise to target Yugoslavia's infrastructure when it struck at targets in the capital and several other parts of Serbia early today. Yugoslav media said at least three persons including an elderly woman, were killed and 17 wounded in pre-dawn attacks in Belgrade and other areas. There was no independent confirmation. Air raid alarms sounded in Belgrade again this morning only four hours after the all-clear. Refugees poured out of Kosovo and the misery along the province's border worsened. President Slobodan Milosevic's forces have purged Kosovo of 300,000 ethnic Albanians so far, with perhaps an equal number soon to follow. The state-run Tanjug news agency reported that two oil refinery employees were killed and four injured when NATO missiles hit a plant at Pancevo northeast of Belgrade. A 73-year-old woman was killed and seven people were injured in an attack on the industrial town of Cacak, 80 km south of Belgrade, Tanjug said. The latest strike came one day after missiles destroyed the Yugoslav and Serbian Interior Ministries in downtown Belgrade. NATO blasted the new Belgrade district, a modern industrial-residential complex across the Sava river from the centre of the Yugoslav capital. The police academy in the Banjica suburb of Belgrade also was hit. Three persons were injured when a fuel depot near the town of Kraljevo, 120 km south of Belgrade, was also hit, news reports said. Also, a previously bombed factory in the central town of Cacak was targeted again. A power plant in the town of Pancevo, 16 km northeast of Belgrade, was hit. Media said four persons were hurt. NATO Air Commodore David Wilby said earlier that alliance forces were targeting communications and transport links in their escalating campaign to force Mr Milosevic to stop his offensive in Kosovo. WASHINGTON: Three U.S. Soldiers captured by Serb forces will not be put on trial and will be freed when the NATO bombing ends, a Serb Cabinet minister said today. "Of course they will not be tried and they will be back in their homes as soon as this stupidity stops," Mr Milan Bozic, Minister without portfolio in the Yugoslavian Government and Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, said on the ABC programme this week. Last week, unnamed Serb officials said they had begun collecting evidence for a trial of the captive U.S. Soldiers — Christopher Tone, Steven Gonzales and Andrew Ramirez. But Mr Bozic said reports of a trial were false, attributing them to "malevolent communication from some media on the west." President Bill Clinton on Friday warned the Serbs not to try the three soldiers. U.S Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today the USA was determined to press ahead with a sustained air attack against Yugoslavia and that the throng of ethnic Albanian refugees must be allowed to return to Kosovo under the protection of NATO peacekeepers. Ms Albright also said the European Union was prepared to airlift as many as 100,000 refugees out of the region with several thousand going to the USA as part of a temporary relief effort. Ms Albright said on NBC’s "Meet the Press,’’ that while some refugees may be airlifted out of the region, but it was important for them not to be too far away from Kosovo so they would return.’’ Ms Albright confirmed that President Bill Clinton is considering sending Apache helicopter gunships to Albania, along with some U.S. soldiers to support the air effort. She would not say how many troops, but reiterated the administration’s opposition to sending ground troops into Kosovo. The President has said he has no intention of sending in ground forces in anything but a permissive environment,’’ Ms Albright said. Also yesterday, Air Force C-17 cargo plane flew from Dover air force base, Delaware with 30,000 high-calorie packaged meals destined for Albania, via an air base in Germany, for displaced Kosovar Albanians. Over the next several days military and Pentagon-contracted civilian planes are to ferry 500,000 meals to Albania. The air force also dispatched a C-5 transport carrying forklifts and other cargo handling equipment to Albania. Another C-17 plane was to carry a team of people with equipment to set up air traffic control operations in Albania to help manage the influx of humanitarian relief supplies. BRUSSELS: Seven countries have agreed to take a total 100,000 refugees from Kosovo, with Germany accepting by far the highest quota of 40,000, NATO sources said here on Sunday. Other countries accepting refugees were the USA (20,000), Turkey (20,000), Austria (5,000), Greece (5,000), Canada (5,000) and Norway (6,000). Some refugees are already
on the way to their new destination countries. Relief
aircraft arriving in Skopje, Macedonia, are taking
Kosovars with them on their return flights. |
Russia to supply T-90 tanks to India from May MOSCOW, April 4 (PTI) — India is likely to receive the first batch of state-of-the-art T-90s battle tanks from Russia next month, Russian defence sources said here yesterday. Under the US $ 225 million deal signed this year, Russia will supply 255 T-90s tanks and 50 recovery vehicles fitted on the chassis of T-72 tanks to the Indian Army. Russia would deliver 124 tanks by the year end fully assembled at "Uralvagonzavod" plant, while the remaining tanks would be assembled at Avadi factory in India currently producing T-72 tanks under Soviet licence, sources told PTI. The tanks are expected to be deployed in Rajasthan and Punjab by June to counter Ukrainian T-80UD tanks acquired by Islamabad, the sources said. As per the deal, Russia is also expected to transfer technology for producing T-90s tanks in India under licence, they said, adding most of the vital hi-tech components would, however, be supplied directly from Russia, as their production in India would not be financially viable. Meanwhile, two Russian engine manufacturers — Chelyabinsky Tractor plant and Transmash — are competing to bag the tender for supplying high-performance diesel engines for the Indian tanks, Itar-Tass quoted "Uralvagonzavod" Director General Nikolai Malykh as saying. Diesel engine was the
weakest point of the T-80ud tanks supplied to Pakistan,
Russian experts claimed, adding the newly developed
engines for extremely hot climate of the Indian
Subcontinent were successfully tested in Rajasthan during
‘Shiva Shakti’ military exercise. |
Serbs massacred 40, say refugees WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) — Yugoslav forces shot and killed 40 ethnic Albanian men in the Kosovo town of Velika Krusa on March 26, Human Rights Watch reported yesterday, quoting six witnesses interviewed at the Albanian border. The US-based human rights organisation said the three women and three men had driven through the mountains on a tractor for seven days before crossing into Albania at the Morina crossing point near Kukes, Albania. The refugees said Yugoslav infantry raided their village, on the main road between Dakovica and Prizren on the afternoon of March 25, the day after NATO began its air strikes against Yugoslavia. One of the men, who was in the fields tending cattle, was shot and wounded as he ran toward the village. He and the five others hid that night but were discovered by Yugoslav security forces wearing green camouflage uniforms the next morning. They were rounded up along with others from the village. Human Rights Watch said the five other witnesses, aged from 47 to 77, gave similar accounts. Reports of the alleged massacre at Velika Krusa, which the US human rights body described as “consistent and credible,” follow earlier eyewitness accounts from refugees, who said they had seen at least 15 ethnic Albanians killed on the road around the town. Human Rights Watch said a separate massacre appeared to have occurred at the nearby village of Mala Krusa. CNN had interviewed a badly burnt refugee from the village, who said he had been placed in a pile of 112 bodies that were covered with gasoline and set on fire by Yugoslav forces. Meanwhile, Mr Haris Silajdzic, co-chairman of the Bosnia’s government, urged NATO to augment its air strikes against Yugoslavia with ground troops, saying such a move could help save many lives. Mr Silajdzic, who served as Foreign Minister and Prime Minister during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, applauded NATO’s intervention to halt Yugoslavia’s campaign of terror against ethnic Albanians but said he was worried about those left behind in Kosovo. Atrocities allegedly committed by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s Serb troops bore the “same signature” as Serbian attacks against Bosnians and Croatians, Mr Silajdzic told CNN’s “Larry King Live” yesterday. Meanwhile, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia were a mistake that would lead to a new arms race. Mr Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” programme that Russia was being humiliated by the strikes. CNN released a transcript of the interview yesterday in advance. Countries should step up their efforts to find a political solution to the crisis in Yugoslavia’s rebel province of Kosovo and the air strikes should be stopped, he said. He pointed out that the position of the U.N. Security Council had been undermined. “And now Europe has been shown who is the boss and I know this because I hear it from the Europeans. Russia is being humiliated”, he added. LONDON (AFP): The BBC showed what it said were the first pictures of alleged massacres by Serbs of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The BBC said its reporter on the Albanian border with Kosovo obtained the video from a Kosovo Albanian who filmed his home village of Krusa-Emahde, near Prizren in southern Kosovo. After Serb units apparently killed around 100 men there on the night of March 25. The film, which the BBC said was too gruesome to broadcast in all but far-off glimpses till later in the evening, showed a number of blood-soaked bodies of men lying in in streets and fields. The film-maker, who was identified as Milain Bellanica, said he had returned to his town after hiding for seven days when the Serbs had passed through. He made the film and then smuggled it to Macedonia. He said the bodies he found were those of men who had been executed with a single bullet to the back of the head. They were killed after being separated from women, children and the aged. Some were shot as they tried to escape. He insisted they were mainly farmers and not involved with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). ROME (AFP): Up to 80,000 demonstrators took to the streets here against NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in response to a call for protest issued by Italian political parties, trade unions and peace groups. The demonstrators from all over Italy yesterday, chanted: “Enough of NATO bombing. No to war, yes to peace,” during the peaceful demonstration in the centre of the Italian capital. Italy is a NATO member,
and many alliance aircraft had been taking off from
Italian bases on bombing missions, hundreds of pacifists
demonstrated yesterday at the NATO airbase of Aviano. |
Anti-India poll rhetoric in Nepal KATHMANDU, April 4 (IANS) — Come election and Nepali nationalism appears to find expression only at India’s expense, with the Himalayan kingdom’s giant neighbour invariably being described as “expansionist” and “hegemonic”. As parties set out to seek the people’s mandate on May 3 and May 17, rhetoric against India is sharpening. Conventionally it has been the Communists who launch the diatribe against India. But this election almost all parties have taken up anti-India rhetoric and incorporated harsh words against the country in their manifestos. “When in power, we will review the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship with India and replace it with another one based on Nepal’s national interest and on equality. Other unequal treaties with India will also be reviewed,” the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), a member of the ruling coalition, has promised in its manifesto. Only one party — the Nepali Sadbhawana Party (NSP) — has moved against the tide by saying it will work for “special” and expanded relations with India. The 1950 treaty and Kalapani are the issues all parties have raised. The Treaty of Peace and Friendship has since its inception been an issue of debate in Nepal. Its provision for “equal treatment” of the nationals of each other’s countries is opposed by many in Nepal who feel it is really “unequal”. The Nepali Congress (NC), another ruling coalition partner, has also focused on the 1950 treaty in its manifesto. “The treaty of 1950 will be reviewed and made equal and the Indian Army will be sent back from Kalapani,” it claims. The Communist Party of Nepal-Marxist Leninist (ML) has gone one step ahead by promising the “introduction of a visa system for Indian citizens.” India and Nepal currently allow each other’s citizens in without visas. “No foreign nationals will be allowed to work in Nepal without acquiring a work permit,” the ML says. Termination of the 1950 treaty and withdrawal of Indian troops from Kalapani also feature in its manifesto. Both factions of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) have followed suit. The faction led by former Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa has pledged to replace the 1950 treaty and involve India in settling Nepal’s Bhutanese refugee problem with Thimphu. The small communist group,
the Nepal Workers and Peasant Party (NWPP), in its
manifesto accuses India of “annexing” territory
in Nepal’s southern and western regions, including
Kalapani. |
Lockerbie blast CAIRO, April 4 (AP) — Libya has provided passports to the two suspects in the 1988 Pan Am bombing, a sign their promised handover was in the works, Arab diplomats said yesterday. The move followed reports that chief UN legal counsel Hans Corell had left for Europe on Friday on his way to Libya to arrange for the handover. Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi are to be tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands. The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said both men had received their passports, which were taken from them by the Libyan Government following their 1991 indictment by a US court. Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi ordered the passports returned, they said. Officials at the Libyan External Information Department reached by telephone from Cairo refused to comment on the reports or provide details about the much-anticipated handover. The December 21, 1988, bombing of the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 persons, mostly Americans and Britons on the air and the ground. The two Libyans, allegedly former intelligence agents, were suspected of planting a suitcase bomb on the plane. After a decade of insistence that Fhimah (42), and Al-Megrahi (46), be extradited to the USA or Britain for trial, the USA agreed in August to a trial in the Netherlands. Libya agreed last month to turn the men over by Tuesday. Terms of the deal call for the UN Security Council to suspend sanctions imposed in 1992, including an air embargo, as soon as the suspects arrive in the Netherlands. Details of the handover have been kept confidential so much so that the UN isn’t expected to announce it has taken place until after the men have left Libya. In a related development,
Libya is sending the head of its national airlines to
Egypt this week to prepare for the resumption of flights
between the countries once sanctions end. |
25 die in riots on Indonesian isle AMBON (Indonesia), April 4 (Reuters) — Christians and Muslims fought with spears and machetes in Indonesia’s far eastern islands today, as the death toll from several days of communal bloodshed climbed to 34, officials and witnesses said. South east Moluccas regent Husain Rahayaan said that hundreds of armed Muslims and Christians were still fighting in villages on the outskirts of Tual, main town in the remote Kai islands group. Moluccas military commander Colonel Karel Ralahalu told reporters last night that 25 persons had died in fighting between Muslims and Christians around the islands but residents and witnesses put the death toll at 34. Christians make up 75 per cent of the population and Muslims the rest in the regency of south east Moluccas. The area is at the eastern extremity of Indonesia’s violence-wracked Maluku province, also called the Moluccas and known to history as the fabled spice islands. Earlier today, two bodies
with severe lacerations were found in a drain in Tual and
a local hospital said two persons had died from gunshot
wounds. |
Protest over Pak Editor’s arrest ISLAMABAD, Apr 4 (PTI) — Editor of the Peshawar-based Frontier Post Rehmat Shah Afridi, arrested by Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) yesterday on charges of drug trafficking, has been remanded in custody for three days amidst protests by the media fraternity and the Opposition. A Lahore magistrate remanded Afridi to allow the army-controlled ANF to complete investigations into the high-profile case that has once again put the Sharif government on a collision course with the media. The move evoked howls of protest from the Fourth Estate as well as the Opposition with former Prime Minister and Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto dubbing it “a revengeful act to punish him for his courageous policy of exposing anti-Pakistan and anti-people elements in the country.” Ms Bhutto said Afridi’s arrest was meant to prevent him from printing the truth. “After the government’s row with the Jung group, it has now selected The Frontier Post — this is highly deplorable and uncalled for.” Meanwhile, The News, the
English daily of the Jung group, in an investigative
report claimed that Afridi’s arrest was preceded by
more than a month of close monitoring of his movements by
ANF personnel. |
75 Sunni extremists arrested MULTAN, (Pakistan), April 4 (AP) — In the latest crackdown on religious militants, the Pakistan police today arrested 75 members of a Sunni extremist group in eastern Punjab province, a senior police official said. The police swept through Jhang, about 180 km south-west of Lahore, arresting suspected militants from their homes, many as they slept, he said on condition of anonymity. The police raided homes and offices of activists belonging to the Sunni group, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, before dawn today. This group often is blamed for killings of rival Shias. The crackdown is an attempt to prevent violence during the Islamic month of Muharram, which begins on April 17. In retaliation for the
arrests, the Sipah-e-Sahaba has threatened a
“violent reaction”. “These arrests have
further fuelled the passions of our members,’’
Sheikh Hakim Ali, president of Sipah-e-Sahaba said in a
statement. |
Buddhist temple at centre of
scandal AFTER a final blessing from the abbot, the 40,000 worshippers at the Dhammakaya Buddhist temple rose from their motionless meditating position and filed out of the hall, promising to return the following week for further spiritual fulfilment. Whether they will be able to make such a weekly promise for much longer is a matter of considerable doubt. Thailand’s most popular temple, with ambitions of becoming the Mecca of Buddhism, is struggling to survive a torrent of allegations. Those who run it are accused of teaching a heretical doctrine, over-aggressive solicitation of hundreds of millions of pounds, embezzlement, sexual affairs, brainwashing and posing a threat to national security. “There has never been anything like this in Thai Buddhism,” Den Tohmeena, chairman of a parliamentary committee that investigated the temple, said. “What we have is a Buddhist cult that is using deception and illusion to take money from people by pretending to fill their spiritual void caused by the economic crisis.” Earlier in March, the committee recommended the ousting of the abbot if he does not correct the temple’s interpretation of the Buddhist canon, tone down his mobilisation of followers and stop making unjustified solicitations for donations. Phra Phrommolee, one of the country’s most respected monks and an investigator for the Supreme Sangha Council, Thailand’s highest religious authority, has also made a report. His 200-page report concluded: “We do not want any black sheep in Thai Buddhism.” But Dhammakaya, in Pathum Thani on the outskirts of Bangkok, has not taken the attack lying down. Manit Rattanasuwan, chairman of the temple’s marketing association, said the temple was “a culture not a cult”. He said the attacks had become so bad, particularly in the media, that the temple had decided to start suing. Buddhist scholar Suwana Satha-Anand agrees that jealousy is a significant factor in the controversy. “The fact that they’re being so heavily criticised is because they’re being so successful, especially in this time of economic crisis.” The scale of the success is a sight to behold. What began as a small pavilion in a quiet village in 1970 is now an 800-acre site that includes a 1.8 million sq ft meditation hall that can accommodate 2,00,000 people, and condominiums for the 900 monks and 300 novices. — The Guardian,
London |
Measles claims 32 lives in Nepal KATHMANDU, April 4 (AFP) — At last 32 persons have died of epidemic measles in various villages in Dailekh district, 370 KM north-west of Kathmandu in the past one week, state radio said today. Health officials said medicine supplies had been rushed to the affected areas. In north-western districts
lying in the foothills of Tibet and the Himalayas, nearly
700 persons, mostly children, have so far died of a viral
influenza epidemic which began in February, local press
reports said in Kathmandu. |
A heartbreaking decision: Suu Kyi LONDON, April 4 (AFP) — Myanmar Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke of her decision not to visit her husband before he died in an interview published today. Suu Kyi told The Sunday Telegraph that her sons Kim (21), and Alex (25), urged her to return to Britain while their father, academic Michael Aris, was on his deathbed. Aris, her British husband of 27 years, died on his 53rd birthday in an Oxford hospital last weekend of prostate cancer, a day after the Yangon authorities finally offered Suu Kyi the chance to fly to Britain to join him. “Imagine how hard it was to say no to them”, she said. In the interview with Matt Frei, the BBC’s South East Asia correspondent, Suu Kyi said she had been convinced the military government would not allow her to return. Accusing the junta of
“political blackmail”, she said: “They
were desperate to get me out and they thought my
husband’s illness gave them the perfect
opportunity”. |
Anwar’s wife launches party KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 (AFP) — The wife of Malaysia’s ousted Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim launched a new political party today and appealed to opposition groups to unite to oust Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad. “Political parties and non-government organisations must work together and set aside their differences in order to free Malaysia from continuing stranglehold of crisis and oppression,” Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, president of the National Justice Party, told a crowd of about 3,000 people. Mahathir (73) is the president of the dominant United Malays National Organisation. Anwar, once
Mahathir’s heir apparent, launched the reform
movement after he was sacked from his office and the
party last September. He was subsequently arrested and
has been charged with 10 counts of corruption and sodomy. |
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| Khaleda Zia gets bail DHAKA: A Dhaka court on Sunday granted bail to opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia after she appeared in a corruption case. Judge Fazlul Karim of the special divisional court fixed May 12 for indicting Ms Zia on a charge that she misappropriated 6.3 million taka (106,780 dollar) from national exchequer for decorating her private residence in cantonment barracks in Dhaka while in power from 1991-1996. The court exempted her personal appearance during the trial of the case in which she might face a maximum seven-year imprisonment if found guilty. — AFP Iran’s missiles Kyrgyz PM dead Tiananmen Square Sub missiles |
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