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| Friday, June 9, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Civil war erupts in Solomon islands USA denies report on mediation British attaché
shot dead UN women conference: delegates fail to agree ‘Deranged’
Mugabe to seize more land
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Sangma in team for
Zimbabwe poll Army recaptures town Suicide squad kills 27 Madonna’s London
house burgled
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Civil war erupts in Solomon islands SYDNEY, June 8 (DPA) — Chaos ruled in the Solomon islands today as rival militias engaged in pitched battles, a peacemaker’s plane was shot at and navy ships were despatched from Australia and New Zealand to evacuate foreigners from the tiny south pacific nation. The escalating violence also forced commonwealth diplomats to delay a mission seeking a negotiated settlement between ethnic groups battling for control of Gudalcanal, the main island. The civil war pits Gudalcanal islanders grouped in the Isatabu freedom movement against settlers from neighbouring Malaitan island recruited into the Malaitan Eagle Force. The collapse of law and order put paid to hopes that a deal between Eagles leader Andrew Nori and Prime Minister Bart Ulafa’Alu would bring an end to 18 months of violence that has cost at least 100 lives and forced 20,000 to flee their homes. Nori took Ulafa’alu hostage on Monday, releasing him yesterday on condition that he resign at a special session of Parliament next week. Both Ulafa’alu and Nori are Malaitans, as are most of the police and paramilitary in the capital Honiara. Nori, in an interview with Australia’s ABC radio, put the death toll at more than 100 and said he could see no immediate end to the conflict. |
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USA denies report on mediation WASHINGTON, June 8 (PTI) — The USA has denied reports that it has been engaged in secret diplomatic mediation between India and Pakistan to settle the Kashmir dispute, using for that purpose the services of two Kashmir-Americans. “No, we are not involved in any kind of mediation and have not done any such thing,” US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said yesterday, reacting to a report on the web site Jane’s Intelligence Digest that Washington was on a peace shuttle mission between New Delhi and Pakistan. Mr Reeker said: “We continue to urge both countries to practise restraint and do what we can, certainly, to
encourage the parties to resolve their differences. But we do not see ourselves as mediators.” “I think President Bill Clinton said it best when he stated there is no military solution to Kashmir and that we believe there should be a process by which the legitimate grievances of the Kashmiris can be addressed,” he said. Asked whether they were using the services of two Kashmiri-Americans to settle the dispute, Mr Reeker said he had seen those reports. “Those gentlemen would be acting on their own behalf. The USA has not changed its approach on Kashmir”. “What we have called for in the Kashmir
situation is restraint, respect for the Line of Control, renewal of dialogue, rejection of violence and
resolution of the matter peacefully,” he said. Asked whether Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, when he visited India and Pakistan recently, was asked by either country to take a
message to the USA calling upon it to mediate in the Kashmir dispute, Mr Reeker said: “I am not aware of any such thing.” The USA also remained non-committal on reports that the country’s intelligence had now concluded that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and means of delivery were more effective, more sophisticated and larger than India’s. Mr Reeker pointed out that the NBC News’ despatch yesterday related to an intelligence matter (on which US spokesmen rarely comment). Mr Reeker said while he could not comment on intelligence matters “let me say this is not a question of a numbers game. The right number is zero on both sides”. “Exactly how many nuclear missiles each side should assemble and deploy if it chose to do so is not as important as avoiding an arms race. Engaging in a numbers game will only make matters even worse and inflame tensions which already create a very dangerous situation,” he said. NBC News, quoting US officials, had reported that Pakistan not only had 25 to 100 nuclear warheads more than India but “has more capability to actually use them.” Gen Anthony Zinni, Commander-in-Chief of the US Central Command, told the network: “Don’t assume that the Pakistani nuclear capability is inferior to India’s”. Initially, Pakistan’s arsenal was considered inferior to India’s but two years of intelligence gathering had led US officials to believe that the
initial assessment “overstates the capabilities of India’s home-grown arsenal and understates those of Pakistan whose programme has relied on generous Chinese assistance,” NBC said. Earlier assessments had said Pakistan had somewhere between 10 to 15 nuclear weapons while India’s capability ranged between 25 and 100, it said. |
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British attaché shot dead ATHENS, June 8 (Reuters) — Britain’s defence
attaché in Athens died of his wounds after he was shot at on his way to work by assailants today, a hospital spokesman said. “The British military
attaché has passed away”, the spokesman told reporters. Brig Stephen Saunders was taken to hospital with serious abdominal wounds after two assailants fired at him in his car on the busy Kiffisias Avenue. The police said the attack bore the hallmarks of the deadly November 17 urban guerrilla group which had killed several Greeks and foreigners since 1975. According to a London report, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Robin Cook today said he was shocked and angered by the attack. “I think we’re all shocked by this brutal, totally pointless attack,” Mr Cook told BBC Radio’s today programme. “It makes me very angry and also at the same time very sad that anybody should carry out such a violent attack with no possible gain from it and only suffering to the individual and his family concerned,” Mr Cook said, speaking from Sierra Leone where he is on an official visit. Mr Cook said he was in touch with the Greek authorities and “offering my full cooperation in making sure whoever perpetrated the brutal attack is brought to justice”. |
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UN women conference: delegates fail to agree UNITED NATIONS, June 8 (Reuters) — Women activists blamed the Vatican and some Islamic nations for stalling UN Negotiations on women’s rights while abortion foes said the West foisted ‘’sexual colonialism’’ on the rest of the world. At issue is the idea of sexual rights, which supporters say simply means women have a right to determine their own sexual life. However, opponents say it would sanction abortion, prostitution, homosexuality and encourage pornography. Activist women from organisations in India, Turkey, Colombia and Nigeria yesterday expressed frustration and disappointment over the slow progress of negotiations on this and other matters at a global UN conference, which ends tomorrow. They said the Vatican, Nicaragua,
Libya and Sudan and others were watering down language in a document which is supposed to review action programmes adopted at a landmark global women’s conference five years ago in Beijing. Human rights activists have previously mentioned other countries as slowing progress, including Iran, Algeria and Pakistan. ‘‘Right now they should just stop delaying and move forward ...Let the document get completed,’’ Ms Gita Sen, of the Indian group Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, said at a news conference. She noted that countries that did not wish to join the consensus of the vast majority could register their disapproval by filing a formal objection on specific points rather than delay the entire negotiations. But the vagueness of the draft document disappointed Nalan Hodoglugil of the Hacettepe University Medical Facility in Turkey. She cited marital rape, which she said was an important issue for Turkish women. Decried in a platform for action that was agreed on at the Beijing meeting, now it is being reconsidered, she said. Ana Gonzalez of the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network in Colombia said her country and others were being pressured by what Ms Sen called the ‘’hard-core’’ countries and the Vatican. Even background material on obstacles to change on such subjects as teen sexuality, which was accepted in Beijing, is being questioned now, according to Bene Madunagu, of Nigeria’s Girls’ Power Initiative. But anti-abortion advocates said at a subsequent news conference that rich western countries were responsible for the delay in agreeing to the women’s document. ‘‘The real reason this document is not finished is because of radical language being pushed by the rich western states,’’ said Mr Austin Ruse. ‘‘This document could have been complete last March if not for the radical nature of the western proposals on sexual rights, homosexual rights, abortion and many others.’’ Mr Ruse also blamed western nations for ‘‘a new kind of colonialism abroad in this world ... Sexual colonialism’’ which ‘‘attempts to spread to the developing world a kind of personal immorality that has utterly failed the rich West.’’ He said this ‘‘cultural imperialism’’ meant smaller countries, like Nicaragua, were threatened with the loss of aid and jobs while others were called rogue states. PTI: Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma A Heptullah has asked women and parliamentarians to join forces to fight obscurantism and fundamentalism raising their heads in some part of the world as they constitute a threat to democracy and women’s struggle to gain equality with men. “Women can and must play an important role in reversing these unfortunate developments and in pushing for ever more robust democracy,” she asserted while opening a tripartite meeting of representatives of government, parliamentarians and United Nations system. But securing democracy demands developing parity and partnership between men and women in politics, she said. The meeting was held on sidelines of the special UN General Assembly session reviewing the platform of action adopted at the Beijing women’s conference five years ago. Ms Heptullah, who is also President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), stressed on the need to educate members of Parliament in different countries on women’s rights and acquaint them with platform of action as they are the ones who are going to take action and force governments in granting equal rights to women as also appropriate funds for various schemes of women uplift. |
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‘Deranged’ Mugabe to seize more land ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe said on Wednesday that his government would seize all the country’s land, and if any whites were allowed to continue farming it would be out of “our own charity”. He was giving a pep talk to his party’s 120 candidates for the parliamentary elections due on June 24 and 25. Mr Mugabe told leaders of Zanu-PF that his government was planning to take more than the 841 farms it had already designated for redistribution. “It’s not just the 841 farms we are looking at,” Mr Mugabe said. “We are looking at the totality of our land. If we allow others to have portions of it, that must be on the basis of our own will, our own desire, our own charity. It will not be on the basis of our colonial history.” He said the government had succeeded in its campaign to take land away from white farmers as a result of help from the veterans of the war against Rhodesian rule. “Thanks to our veterans and the nation must thank them,” Mr Mugabe said to enthusiastic applause. His statements were attacked by the leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Its President, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, dismissed Mr Mugabe’s pledge to seize all farmland as “deranged’’. “The land policy is being determined by a man who is no longer rational,” Mr Tsvangirai said. He said the illegal occupation of 1,400 white-owned farms by the war veterans and other Zanu-PF supporters was planned by Mr Mugabe. “It was an orchestrated plan to invade the farms and intimidate the Opposition. The war veterans and other Zanu-PF thugs carried out those orders. But the majority of the war veterans are law-abiding people who respect order.” Three prospective MDC candidates for parliament were killed by Zanu-PF supporters last month and Mr Tsvangirai said that several of the Opposition party’s new candidates had been threatened. “Zanu-PF and state operatives are targeting some of our candidates,” he said. “They are not safe and we are taking steps to protect them. We face a resurgence of violence to dissuade voters from voting.” The MDC’s secretary-general, Mr Welshman Ncube, excoriated Mr Mugabe’s praise of the war veterans. “It is irrational to ask Zimbabweans who have lost 29 lives to political violence to thank the so-called war veterans responsible for that violence,” Mr Ncube said. “It is irrational to expect the families of the women who have been raped to thank the war veterans. The 7,000 to 10,000 people who are homeless in their own country as a result of violence will not thank the war veterans. Nor will the thousands of teachers who have had to flee their schools. All the people who have suffered intimidation and have been beaten have no reason to thank the so-called war veterans.” — Guardian News Service |
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Fernandes, Clinton attend funeral TOKYO, June 8 (PTI) — India today joined foreign dignitaries from 180 countries in paying tributes to former Japanese Premier Keizo Obuchi here. Defence Minister George Fernandes and US President Bill Clinton were among several heads of state who attended Obuchi’s state funeral along with 6,000 mourners. Immediately upon his arrival here yesterday, Fernandes met Foreign Minister Yohei Kono. He met his Japanese counterpart Tsutomu Kawara today and the two discussed security issues affecting their countries. Meanwhile, US President Clinton today paid glowing tributes to Obuchi, who died last month following a stroke, as a man who “touched hearts around the world”. “Prime Minister Obuchi touched hearts around the world in simple human ways,” Clinton said, adding. “He represented to the whole world the Japanese virtues of honour and loyalty, vision and determination, love for and commitment to ordinary people. Our world is a better place thanks to the life that he lived and the work he did.” During his eight-hour visit to Japan, Clinton also met Japanese Premier and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. |
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Sangma in team for
Zimbabwe poll
LONDON, June 8 (PTI) — Former Lok Sabha Speaker and MP Purno A. Sangma has been appointed member of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Zimbabwe parliamentary elections due to be held on June 24 and 25. Announcing the setting up of the group, Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said today the group headed by General A.A. Abubakar, former head of state of Nigeria, would leave for Zimbabwe immediately. The 30-member group, which is to act impartially and independently, includes Rauff Hakeem, MP from Sri Lanka, Feroz Hassan, Secretary-General, Fair Election Monitoring Alliance,
Bangladesh, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman, National Electoral Commission, Ghana, and Sandy MacDonald, Senator, Australia. This is the 30th observer group constituted by the Secretary-General since October 1990. It is also the second time that the Commonwealth would have observed elections in Zimbabwe. The group has no executive role. Its function is not to supervise but to observe the process as a whole and to form a judgement accordingly, Commonwealth sources said, adding it is free to propose to the authorities concerned such action on institutional, procedural and other matters as would assist the holding of such election. |
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Army recaptures town ROGBERI JUNCTION (Sierra Leone), June 8 (AFP) — The Sierra Leonean government forces have recaptured Lunsar town from the Revolutionary United Front rebel forces, who had seized the town last week, the army’s head of operations Col A.C Nelson-Williams said. Colonel Nelson-Williams said the town had been recaptured late yesterday. He could not give any casualty figures for the fighting, but a soldier said some rebels had been killed in the battle for the town. Lunsar, 80 km northeast of Freetown, had been taken by government forces on May 29, but they were forced to withdraw a day later after coming under attack from the rebels. |
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Suicide squad kills 27 MOSCOW, June 8 (AFP) — Two female Chechen separatists mounted the rebel’s first suicide bomb attack on a Russian position in the breakaway republic, marking a new and deadly switch in tactics. A rebel spokesman, Movladi Udugov, told AFP that at least 27 Russian troops wee killed when two women drove a truck packed with high explosives into an Army base yesterday in Alkan-Yurt, 20 km south of the Chechen capital Grozny. Udugov had earlier claimed only 17 soldiers were killed, but increased his estimate after Russian denials. Russian generals initially denied his claims but Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky later confirmed a suicide attack had taken place, although he said that only two paramilitary police were killed and five injured. “The two Kamikaze-terrorists were blown into pieces,” said Yastrzhembsky. The Kremlin said a military lorry packed with explosives had raced through a checkpoint, crashed through a fence and ploughed into a building occupied by a unit of OMON troops, the elite interior ministry paramilitary police. As seven troops rushed towards the truck it exploded, killing both bombers and two of the Russian, Yastrzhembsky said. Both sides have repeatedly exaggerated casualties among their opponents and played down their own losses during the conflict. “Around 2.00 p.m. two women, including the cousin of warlord Arbi Barayev, Khala Barayeva, smashed a lorry packed with TNT into the Russian base in Alkhan-Yurt,” said Udugov, who was speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location. Udugov also said that a Chechen ambush on a federal convoy destroyed a dozen armoured vehicles and killed some 30 soldiers in the southeastern Nozhai-Yurt district, and that other clashes took place in the western Urus-Martan region and Gehki, some 40 km southwest of Grozny. Russian commanders told Interfax that four federal troops had been wounded by rebels in fighting yesterday at Alkhan-Kala, 10 km southwest of Grozny, not far form the scene of the suicide attack. |
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Madonna’s London
house burgled
LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) — Pop Madonna’s luxury home in London was burgled while she was celebrating the premiere of her new film, The Sun said today. Pregnant Madonna, who had dinner with her boyfriend British film director Guy Ritchie and actor Rupert Everett after the showing of “The Next Best Thing,” returned home in the early hours yesterday to find the police at her door step. But The Sun said nothing was stolen. Officers told the 41-year-old American superstar that the thieves had forced their way through the front gate of her £ 2 million mansion, but had failed to gain entry into the house. The thieves, however, broke into her gardener’s quarters from where they stole a bag which contained a credit card, a wallet and some keys, the police said. |
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