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| Wednesday, June 14, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Syria grieves as Assad buried in home village QARDAHA, Syria, June 13 — Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was buried in this Alawite village today after an outpouring of grief for a man whose unyielding brand of Arab nationalism won him the respect of friend and foe alike. Assad’s brother to return home SUVA, June 13 — Fiji’s military ruler said today he would name a civilian government within days, and it would not include coup leader George Speight or his supporters. |
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ISKCON
charged with child abuse DALLAS, June 13 — More than 36 former students of Hare Krishna boarding schools filed a $ 400 million lawsuit against leaders of the religious community, alleging sexual, physical and emotional torture. Sharif ‘chained’ during flight
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Barak govt in minority
JERUSALEM, June 13 — The ultra-orthodox Shas Party quit Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s ruling coalition today, leaving the Israeli leader struggling to form a new one while a deadline looms for final peace with the Palestinians. 
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Syria grieves as Assad buried in home village QARDAHA, Syria, June 13 (Reuters) —
Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was buried in this Alawite village today after an outpouring of grief for a man whose unyielding brand of Arab nationalism won him the respect of friend and foe alike. Men wept and fought to kiss Assad’s coffin inside a lavish mosque that the Syrian leader had built in memory of his mother in Qardaha, where he was born 69 years ago. Assad’s son and presumed successor Bashar(34) stood tall and composed as mourners surged around him in a nearby mausoleum where the flag-draped coffin reached its final destination. The funeral was as much a pledge of loyalty to Bashar as a ceremony to mourn Assad, who had groomed the British-trained ophthalmologist to succeed him after the death of his elder son, Basel, in a car crash in 1994. Dr Bashar was flanked by Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam, Defence Minister Mustafa Tlas and army Chief of Staff Ali Aslan, as well as Lebanese President Emile Lahoud — one of the few foreign leaders to follow Assad’s cortege to Qardaha, 320 km northwest of Damascus. Foreign dignitaries, including US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, French President Jacques Chirac and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, earlier paid their last respects to Assad at a state funeral in the Syrian capital. In New York, the UN Security Council observed a minute of silence and the UN flag flew at half-mast. “With our blood and souls, we sacrifice for you, Bashar,” chanted tens of thousands of near-hysterical mourners lining the route to Qardaha as an army truck drew Assad’s coffin on a gun carriage from an airport 12 km away. A convoy of black limousines carried Dr Bashar and his entourage across the fertile coastal plain and up into the hills that are home to Mr Assad’s minority Alawite community. Mr Assad, who rose from the poverty then typical of the area, died in Damascus on Saturday after ruling Syria for 30 years. His body earlier lay in state at a hill-top palace in Damascus after an emotional procession through the streets. Foreign leaders paused to pray or meditate at the coffin, then sat with Dr Bashar, who few of them know well. Ms Albright stood for 25 seconds, head bowed, over Mr Assad’s casket, bidding farewell to a man who said he had chosen peace but refused to dilute his demand for Israel to return all the Golan Heights captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. “I was very impressed by his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps,’’ Ms Albright said of her meeting with Dr Bashar. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdallah, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, along with almost all Lebanon’s political and religious leaders, offered Bashar their condolences. Mr Arafat, despised by Mr Assad for his 1993 interim peace deal with Israel, stood misty-eyed by the coffin and saluted twice. Taha Mohieddin Ma’Rouf, Vice-President of Iraq, whose Baathist leaders spent years feuding with their ideological rivals in Syria, paid his country’s respects. European Commission President Romano Prodi and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook also attended. Mr Assad, an autocrat who brought his people stability but little prosperity, carved for Syria a role far larger than its military power or state-dominated economy justified. Inflexible on the Golan, he saw himself as the embodiment of Arab nationalism. He brooked no dissent at home and made himself the arbiter of Lebanon during and after its 1975-90 civil war. The ruling Baath party nominated Bashar for President and Khaddam, who is acting President, on Sunday named him Armed Forces Commander. Parliament is due to meet on June 25 to set a date for a referendum to confirm him as President. Dr Bashar walked directly behind the coffin as it was taken from Assad’s modest residence to the city’s Umayyad Square, where a sea of mourners wailed and chanted in homage. Women shrieked at the death of the austere man who had ruled Syria with an iron hand since 1970, the only leader most of its 17 million people have known. Dozens of mourners fainted. |
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Assad’s brother to return home ROME, June 13 (AFP) — Rifaat al-Assad, the exiled brother of Hafez al-Assad, will return home to challenge the “illegal” new regime of the late President’s son, Mr Bashar, an aide was quoted today as saying. Hareth al-Khayer, adviser to Mr Fifaat, told the Italian newspaper La Republica that “he will return to Syria to impose constitutional legality.” Mr Rifaat al-Assad “does not recognised Bashar’s regime because it is illegal, having violated
procedures enshrined in the Constitution,” the official said. The brother believed that “Syria the time has come to establish democracy, respect of human rights, and peaceful changes in power,’ the adviser said. But he denied there were any plans by Mr Rifaat for a coup, saying that “constitutional legality is not achieved by a military coup d’e tat.” |
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Rebels threaten to kill hostages SUVA, June 13 (AP) — Fiji’s military ruler said today he would name a civilian government within days, and it would not include coup leader George Speight or his supporters. Commodore Frank Bainimarama would announce the makeup of Fiji’s new administration by the end of the week, said military spokesman Capt. Eroni Volavola, confirming local radio reports. Hours after the announcement, a bomb threat was made by a telephone call to the Telecom Fiji head office in Suva. A number of workers were evacuated from the building and bomb squad experts sent in. Military and fireman cordoned off the immediate area around the six-storey concrete building. It was not immediately clear who issued the threat, said military officer overseeing the evacuation. He declined to give his name. The bomb scare came as traders, most of the them ethnic Indians, began reopening shops in the city. Many stores were looted and burned by a rampaging mob shortly after Mr Speight staged a coup on May 19. Negotiations between Cdr Bainimarama and Mr Speight, who is holding 31 hostages including deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, have been deadlocked for more than a week over the makeup of Fiji’s next administration. Although Cdr Bainimarama’s martial law regime has taken steps that meet a number of Mr Speight’s demands — including throwing out Fiji’s Constitution and offering an amnesty to key supporters — Mr Speight has said he will hold onto his hostages until the military agrees to a plan, including him as a candidate to lead the new government. Captain Volavola said Cdr Bainimarama was picking a Cabinet made up of people “totally outside both the military and the people inside Parliament,” where the hostages are being held. “That’s just something George Speight will have to live with,” Captain Volavola told AP. Cdr Bainimarama said he wanted to install a civilian government to oversee changes to the Constitution and, eventually, new elections and a return to democratic rule. Earlier today, Mr
Speight cancelled a planned trip to his home village fearing further attacks a day after soldiers peppered his car with bullets as he sped through a roadblock. He said the attack, which occurred yesterday afternoon as he was returning from a meeting with a church leader to Fiji’s Parliament where he holds 31 hostages, was a deliberate attempt by the country’s military rulers to kill him. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini blamed the incident on misjudgment by soldiers at the roadblock, saying they had acted with excessive force in firing around 20 shots and would be disciplined. “It was an assassination attempt,” Mr Speight said today and demanded a written apology from Cdr Bainimarama. Mr Speight said he had cancelled a trip to his village, about one hour’s drive from the capital of Suva, after his security advisers told him not to leave the parliament. Mr Speight also warned that the hostages would be harmed had he been injured in a military attack. |
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ISKCON
charged with child abuse
DALLAS, June 13 (AP, Reuters) — More than 36 former students of Hare Krishna boarding schools filed a $ 400 million lawsuit against leaders of the religious community, alleging sexual, physical and emotional torture. The 44 plaintiffs in the suit alleged child abuse over two decades at boarding schools in the USA and India. The federal suit, filed yesterday in Dallas, names the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) as the lead defendant, along with 17 members of the group’s governing board of top leaders and the estate of the movement’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Plaintiffs’ attorney Windle Turley called the abuse “the most unthinkable abuse and maltreatment of little children we have seen. It includes rape, sexual abuse, physical torture and emotional terror of children as young as three years of age.” Last year, Hare Krishna leaders announced that they would pledge $ 250,000 a year to investigate past child abuse and aid survivors. Turley said the abuse started in 1972 with ISKCON’s first school in Dallas, and continued in six other US schools and two in India. |
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Sharif ‘chained’ during flight KARACHI, June 13 (AFP) — Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif complained in court today that he was handcuffed and chained to a seat during a flight from Attock fort to Karachi this week. “He is the former Prime Minister and a respected citizen of the country, Sharif’s lawyer, Azizullah Sheikh, told the three-judge panel during a hearing of an appeal against Sharif’s sentence to life for terrorism in April. “A judicial commission should be constituted to probe this matter.” Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court Syed Saeed Ashhad said the complaint was serious and demanded an explanation from the security agencies responsible. This is a very serious matter and we will not let it go unnoticed,” he said. “None of the respondents should be handcuffed or chained as they should be given fair treatment.” |
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Solomons PM to quit on Thursday HONIARA, June 13 (AP) — Facing threats from rebels who have captured the Capital, the embittered Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands said today that he will resign in two days, a move he warned that could cause more fighting and the breakup of the South Pacific nation. Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alu told the Associated Press that he had no safe choice but to stand down on Thursday regardless of the outcome of a parliamentary vote of
no confidence on his leadership set for that day. The vote was the result of a deal with rebels who held Ulufa’alu at gunpoint yesterday and demanded that he resign. A few days later, they released him and allowed him to stay in office until the Parliament decided his future. Ulufa’alu said the planned vote was just an attempt to give the change of leadership the appearance of legitimacy. He called the entire process “a sheer mockery of democracy,” because he was still resigning under duress, fearing that the rebels would harm his family and Cabinet ministers if he stayed in office. “I don’t want to be part of the new government,” Ulufa’alu said in his small wood-paneled office. “This (the vote) is an insult to my integrity, to my family and the people in my constituency.” Chain-smoking and looking despondent, Ulufa’alu said he comes from a big tribe and his “people are not going to just sit back.” When asked if they might take up arms and seek revenge, the Prime Minister said, “others can do it. Why not?” Ulufa’alu, who moved around his office with his shirt half untucked, said he was angry with Australia and New Zealand for refusing to send peacekeepers when his government requested them months ago to calm tensions between rival islanders. |
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Barak govt
in minority
JERUSALEM, June 13 (Reuters) — The ultra-orthodox Shas Party quit Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s ruling coalition today, leaving the Israeli leader struggling to form a new one while a deadline looms for final peace with the Palestinians. The 17-seat Shas Party’s decision came nearly a week after it sided with opposition members of Parliament and voted for a preliminary Bill to dissolve the 120-member Knesset which could lead to early elections and end Mr Barak’s 11-month-old tenure. “The Council of Torah Sages has told the Shas ministers and its deputies to submit resignation letters in the upcoming Cabinet meeting and to quit the coalition,’’ said Rafael Pinhasi, Secretary of the council. The Cabinet is due to meet on Sunday and it would take 48 hours for the resignations to take effect. Mr Barak now has to form a new coalition, and his options include ruling with a minority secular government supported from outside by Arab parties. |
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