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| Tuesday, June 13, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Rebels asked to return weapons Shots fired at Speight’s car Sharif’s lawyer asks for transfer
of case Hostage crisis: Manila delays talks with rebels Warrant issued for Rifaat al-Assad 5 killed in suicide
car attack |
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Rebels asked to return weapons HONIARA, June 12 (Reuters) — The Solomon Islands Government threatened today to call off a parliamentary no-confidence vote later this week if rebels controlling the capital did not return stolen police weapons. The Government brokered the release of Prime Minister
Bartholomew Ulufa’Alu on Friday on condition Parliament would be recalled on Thursday for a vote of confidence in his Government. But a senior government minister told Reuters Parliament might not meet if the Malaita eagles force did not return weapons stolen from the police armoury last week. Eagles Force Leader Andrew Nori had told a commonwealth ministerial delegation on Saturday that all weapons stolen from the police armoury last week would be returned before Thursday’s planned parliamentary sitting. The Solomons capital
Honiara was calm today as a two-week truce prevailed for a fourth day. A simmering dispute between rival militia groups from Guadalcanal and Malaita islands boiled over last week when the Eagles Force militia seized Ulufa’Alu and key installations in Honiara on the main island Guadalcanal. The Isatabu from the main island of Guadalcanal — scene of one of the World War II bloodiest battles — are resentful of migration to their island by Malaitans, who have taken top jobs in Honiara. SYDNEY: Warring rebels have been offered a multi-million dollar land deal to buy peace in the Solomon Islands, New Zealand officials said. A compensation package, which would be financed mainly by Australia and New Zealand, emerged as the key point of a treaty proposed by a Commonwealth delegation which visited the capital Honiara at the weekend. |
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Shots fired at Speight’s car SUVA, June 12 (AFP) — Fiji coup plotters accused the military of trying to assassinate their leader George Speight today when warning shots were fired at a convoy of vehicles carrying Speight which refused to stop at an army checkpoint. The coup leader was uninjured in the shooting, which an army spokesman described as a “grave misjudgment on the part of the soldiers” manning the checkpoint. Speight’s car was hit by at least two rounds of M-16 fire while another car took multiple hits, witnesses said. “This was a grave misjudgment and
excessive use of force,” said army spokesman Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini. He said the country’s martial law authorities had apologized to Speight, who took the government of Fiji’s first ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, hostage in Parliament on May 19. “I have assured them (Speight’s men) that we are in control of the situation on our side now.” But Speight’s spokesman Joe Nata said the shooting was no accident. “We believe it was an assassination attempt by the military because those shots could not have been fired without orders from above,” he said. As the shots rang out, witnesses inside Parliament said several of armed men, not seen before now, suddenly emerged from hiding. Fiji TV said some people inside Parliament fired down a road, but did not cause injury. Nata said Speight was a “bit shaken” but “we will not be retaliating, although there was a knee-jerk reaction from our people here”. Fiji’s military has been seeking a peaceful resolution to the political crisis sparked by the takeover, and Speight has been allowed to leave the Parliament complex on numerous previous occasions for talks. He left today to visit former Vice-President Ratu Josefa Iloilo and his own nominee for President, Ratu Jope Seniloli. Martial Law Commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama was also there at one point. A military statement said Speight then left to go to hospital. Nata said the coup leader left to see the head of the Methodist Church. When the convoy drove through a checkpoint “warning shots were fired into the air,” Tarakinikini said, and when the vehicles still refused to stop shots were fired at the tyres of the front car, which was not carrying Speight. In a statement, the military said “soldiers had signalled for the vehicles to stop but they forced their way through. LAUTOKA (Reuters): At least 100 terrified ethnic Indians fled from their village by pretending to be going to a wedding after abuse at the hands of indigenous Fijian neighbours following last month’s coup attempt, military and other sources said on Tuesday. An organiser of the evacuation said the ethnic Indian men, women and children from Muanaweni near the capital Suva claimed to have been terrorised and hit with sticks and stones by Fijian men who were believed to be supporters of coup leader George Speight. “These victims lost most of their belongings, crops and farm animals to thugs and they have had to spend many sleepless nights in the jungle (near their homes),” the organiser, who declined to be named, told Reuters at a refuge in Lautoka, west of the capital Suva, where the families arrived on Monday. Indian-Fijian trade union leader Diwan Shankar said his home had been set on fire early on the weekend in what he believed was retaliation for his outspoken support of trade bans on Fiji to press for the release of the hostages. Meanwhile, a planned 200 km march through Fiji to call for the release of Chaudhry and the 30 other hostages was called off on Monday due to fear of reprisals. Organiser Ben Padarath said he cancelled the march after a warning that his mother, Lavenia, a former Chaudhry government minister among the hostages in the parliamentary complex in Suva, could be at risk if it went ahead. The Fiji Post newspaper reported on Monday that a Speight deputy, Ratu Timoci Silatolu, had warned of a backlash in the parliamentary complex, where hundreds of Speight supporters have gathered, if the march went ahead. |
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Sharif’s lawyer
asks for transfer of case KARACHI, June 12 (AFP) — Defence lawyers today challenged the jurisdiction of a High Court Bench to hear ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s appeal against conviction in a hijacking and terrorism case. Barrister Azizullah Sheikh asked a full Bench of the Sindh High Court to transfer the case to a normal two-judge appellate court. He also successfully requested Mr Sharif and his six co-accused to be present in the court when it meets here tomorrow. Mr Sharif is being held in custody in Attock Fort, near Islamabad, where he is on trial for corruption. “This Bench is illegally constituted by the Deputy Registrar of the Sindh High Court who is not empowered to order the constitution of a full Bench to hear the anti-terrorism appeals,” Mr Sheikh said. He said the appeal should be heard by a two-judge Bench of the High Court. Chief Public Prosecutor Raja Qureshi said he would submit his comments on the application later. |
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Hostage crisis: Manila delays talks with rebels MANILA, June 12 (Reuters) — Talks to free 21 mostly foreign hostages held by Muslim rebels for 51 days suffered a new delay today when the Philippines Government said it needed a few days’ cooling off period to study new guerrilla demands. “We have decided that we are going to take three or four days off to review (the situation) and then we would see what has to be done,” Presidential Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora told reporters. He said yesterday’s meeting of President Joseph Estrada’s security advisers decided “it might be a good idea to let things cool off for us to examine these new demands that they have made”. A second round of negotiations was to have been held on Saturday but was scuttled after the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf rebels demanded the replacement of Presidential Adviser Roberto Aventajado as chief government negotiator. The demand came after Mr Aventajado suggested the government might consider a military rescue if the rebels became unreasonable in their demands. The guerrillas, who are holding their captives in a heavily fortified camp on Jolo Island, 960 km south of Manila, also renewed their demand for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of this mainly Catholic country — a demand the government has consistently rejected. The guerrilla emissaries have demanded, through media, a ransom ranging from $ 15 million to $ 20 million but government negotiators said they had not received any such demand and would not pay anyway. The protracted hostage crisis has embarrassed the Estrada administration, which is under growing international pressure to quickly resolve the situation. The Officials have said it could be several weeks before the hostage issue was resolved. A resurgence of fighting with the main separatist group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Southern Mindanao Island and bomb attacks in Manila have added to the embattled Mr Estrada’s woes and given him his biggest security challenge since becoming President two years ago. Also today, Press Secretary Ricardo Puno stressed the need for the government and the rebels to remain in contact. “The important thing here is to resume the negotiations, that the lines of communications remain open rather than shut down right now,” Mr Puno said in an interview broadcast on DZMM radio. Mr Puno added the government had received information the rebels might be eyeing journalists visiting their camp on Jolo as their next kidnap victims. “Over the weekend we got some information that among media men going there, they seem to be
targeting one group,” he said. He did not identify the group. A dozen foreign journalists, mostly German, were held for 10 hours by the rebels on June 2 and threatened with guns. They were released after paying the guerrillas about $ 25,000, Germany’s DZF television station said. The incident prompted an appeal from Germany for journalists to stay away from the rebel lair. The hostages — nine Malaysians, three Germans, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, two Filipinos and a Lebanese —were abducted from a Malaysian diving resort on April 23. The Doctors who have visited the camp say the hostages are suffering from a range of ailments, and that the long ordeal was driving some of their companions to thoughts of suicide. The Abu Sayyaf also holds a separate group of at least seven Filipino captives, most of whom are schoolchildren. Mr Estrada said peace in the south was vital to the economy but it should not be at the cost of fragmenting the country. “We will never allow the nation that our heroes fought to be dismembered by those who want to separate from the Philippines or who are engaged in violence in a direct challenge to our government,” he said in an Independence Day speech. “We have only one flag...One government. This can never be compromised,” he said. |
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Warrant issued for Rifaat al-Assad LONDON, June 12 (Reuters) — Syria has issued a warrant for the arrest of Rifaat al-Assad, disgraced brother of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, to stop him from entering the country, a Syrian official was quoted today as saying. The Saudi-owned newspaper Al-Hayat quoted a very senior Syrian official, whom it did not name, as saying the army and intelligence services were granted “full powers to arrest Rifaat and do anything to stop him from entering the country’’. Rifaat al-Assad has been living in exile in France and Spain since 1986, when his “Defence Brigades’’ militia was disbanded after an apparent challenge to Assad’s rule. He was stripped of the title of Vice-President two years ago. He commanded the security forces in a bloody crackdown on a Muslim fundamentalist uprising in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982, in which human rights groups say some 10,000 persons were killed. Although Rifaat is no longer considered a serious political force in Syria, a decision to return to attend his brother’s funeral tomorrow could upset plans for a smooth succession of power to his nephew Bashar al-Assad. The 34-year-old Bashar, was nominated sole candidate for President following the sudden death of his father on Saturday. Family sources said earlier that Rifaat, who was at his home in Marbella, Spain, was weighing his options and considering the security implications of attending the funeral in Assad’s hometown of Qardaha. The Syrian security forces last year cracked down on supporters of Rifaat in the coastal town of Latakia and closed down a private port he owned in an apparent bid to crush his residual influence. DAMASCUS (AFP): The modest list of participants expected for Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s funeral took on a greater air of respectability on Monday with announcements that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami would attend. Mr Arafat’s chief adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said on radio that Mr Arafat, who was on bad terms with Assad for the past 25 years, had put off a meeting with US President Bill Clinton for 24 hours to go to the funeral. |
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5 killed in suicide
car attack
MOSCOW, June 12 (Reuters) — Chechen rebels said a former Russian soldier turned separatist fighter had blown up a car bomb at a checkpoint yesterday, killing himself and four Russian servicemen. Rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov, speaking by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location, said the attack had occurred in the shattered Chechen capital Grozny in the evening. Russian media made no mention of such an incident and officials were unavailable for comment. “The attack occurred close to the bus station. Dzhabrailov Sergeyev, previously known as Dmitry, blew up the car when Russian servicemen came over to check what he was doing,’’ Udugov said. |
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