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| Monday, November 6, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Gore, Bush make last-minute efforts Window on Pakistan West Asia peace hopes shift to USA Parliament approves
new Yugoslav Govt |
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Resettle Chagos islanders, UK
told Rabuka denies hand in mutiny Putin merges rival arms agencies Yet another LTTE
attack on harbour
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Gore, Bush make last-minute efforts WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Reuters) — Dashing across battleground states in the final weekend of the presidential campaign, Democrat Al Gore wooed Black voters while Republican George W. Bush pointed to the endorsement of a teamsters union official and a sign signifying Democratic support. With just three days until the election, Bush’s lead against Gore fell by 2 percentage points from 46 to 44 in the latest Reuters/MSNBC poll yesterday. With a 3 per cent margin of error, the two candidates are in a statistical dead heat. Separate polls in each of nine key battleground states showed a totally unpredictable election. Bush made a charge in the crucial state of Florida, cutting Gore’s lead to a single point, and overtook Gore in Wisconsin. But Gore drew level with Bush in his home state of Tennessee and stretched his small advantage in Washington. Both candidates campaigned across key swing states in a final sprint before the election, taking swings at each other in the hope of picking up undecided voters. At rallies in Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Bush rallied the troops and appealed for new recruits as he worked to win their combined 56 electoral votes in the closest presidential race in 40 years. Spotting a sign in the crowd in Pittsburgh reading “Democrats for Bush,” Bush said: “You’re not alone, brother. There are Democrats all around the land who understand there can be a better day in Washington D.C.” In Dearborn, Bush received the endorsement of a local Teamsters union president, Larry Brennan, which he said would send a “chilling signal” to Gore that working people in the Democratic Party supported the Republican ticket. Seeking to boost voter turnout and to overtake Bush’s slight lead, Gore began the final weekend of the campaign in his home state of Tennessee with a prayer breakfast attended by many Blacks, including Martin Luther King III, the son of the slain civil rights leader. With African-American turnout considered a key factor in the election, a series of Black religious leaders at the breakfast threw their support behind Gore. Gore annoyed the Texas Governor’s camp with a comment at the Memphis breakfast that they interpreted as a slight. West Virginia is a state that has voted Republican only three times in the last 65 years but Gore has been hurt by his environmental stands. In an effort to give the vice president a boost, the Gore campaign rolled out one of the state’s icons: 82-year-old Democratic U.S. Senator, Robert Byrd, who warmly endorsed Gore. Both Gore and Bush steered clear of commenting on the flap surrounding revelations on Thursday of Bush’s drunk driving arrest 24 years ago. Earlier, Bush linked Gore to his boss President Bill Clinton, declaring, “I’m running against the incumbency.” Pointing out Clinton was campaigning for Gore and recalling his rival had tried to step out of the President’s shadow, Bush added: “guess what, the shadow is back.’’ Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton today continued efforts to energise minority voters ahead of Tuesday’s election as he addressed a campaign rally in the Bronx, one of the five New York City boroughs. “Al Gore has done more for the American people as Vice-President than any other in American history,” the President said. Mr Gore is locked in a neck-and-neck race against Texas Governor George W. Bush, with the latest polls showing he is trailing his Republican rival by several percentage points. “Al Gore has more experience: he has more ability to make decisions; he understands the world; he understands the future,” Mr Clinton stressed. “He is a good man who will make good decisions and who will be a great president,” he added. According to Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx is already “the most Democrat” region in the nation where 85 per cent of the population vote for the Democratic Party. Mr Clinton’s decision to stump for Gore there reflected the need for the democrats to mobilised their own political base as they head for the November 7 vote. The President also urged Bronx residents to vote for his wife, First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is running for the US Senate from New York state. The First Lady has been leading in the polls her Republican rival, Congressman Rick Lazio, but of late her lead has narrowed as Lazio stepped up his campaign. |
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Window on Pakistan EXTREMIST organisations, exploiting the masses in the name of religion, have little regard for the laws of the land. They consider themselves as a law unto themselves. They have their own agenda to implement. It is not their concern if in the process they turn Pakistan into another Afghanistan. The Nation of October 26 carried a write-up by Mr Aziz-ud-Din Ahmed containing startling details about the activities of these organisations. Here the focus is only on three of them: the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the Harkatul Mujahideen (HM) and the Tanzeem al-Ikhwaan (TAI). Known for its anti-Shia stance, the SSP has declared that to begin with, it has selected 20 towns where it will try to implement its agenda. In its scheme of things, the people belonging to the Sunni sect of Islam have primacy over those of all other sects or religions. That is
perhaps why it wants Pakistan to be declared a Sunni state. It will not hesitate to use strongarm tactics to achieve its objective. Does the law allow this? Obviously, it does not. But the SSP is not bothered about “man-made” laws! Maulana Samiul Haq of the HM, whose madarsa has acquired the reputation of being the primary nursery of the Taliban, has urged the managements of all religious schools to include in their curriculum military training as a subject. Does this not show that in the days to come each sect or organisation in Pakistan will have its own militia? A Lebanon or an Afghanistan in the making? Since the Musharraf government is taking such activities very lightly, anything can happen. According to Mr Aziz-ud-Din Ahmed, the writer of the alarming article, Maulana Akram Awan of the Tanzim al-Ikhwan has announced plans to force the government to implement the sharia laws in the country. Soon he will take out a procession of thousands of his followers to “occupy” Islamabad. If the government comes in the way of the organisation’s move, it will retaliate by using all the weapons it has in its custody. Does this not amount to giving a call for anarchy? Another Bhutto in the limelight It was the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s most charismatic Prime Minister, who brought the Bhutto clan into the international limelight. The name Bhutto continues to make waves because of his daughter Benazir’s decision not to change her original surname after her marriage in the Zardari family. But Ms Benazir Bhutto, a former Prime Minister and the most popular member of the clan, so far had nothing to do with its affairs. For a long time its chief had been Sardar Wahid Bux Bhutto, a bachelor, till he was done to death a few days ago. The new chief of the clan will be the younger brother of the late Sardar, Aamir Bhutto (26). An announcement to this effect was made at Larkana, Sindh, the other day. He is supposed to be close to Ms Benazir Bhutto, though Aamir denies it. The denial has a background. The young Sardar of the Bhutto clan is not mature enough to discharge his new responsibilities. He is believed to be a dummy for Ms Benazir Bhutto. The former Prime Minister, it is feared, may try to dominate clan politics through the new chief. Nawaz Sharif, Benazir: the common factor Besides the fact that they are former Prime Ministers of Pakistan and face corruption charges, what is common between Mr Nawaz Sharif, now in jail, and Ms Benazir Bhutto, living in London in self-imposed exile? According to one revelation, a World Bank chauffeur pays more tax than either Mr Nawaz Sharif or Ms Benazir Bhutto. The information, one hopes, is correct as it has been made public by no less a person than the Chairman of the Task Force on Tax Reforms, Syed Shahid Hussain. He has been quoted by various newspapers to say that the ruling politicians in the past had a similarity in the method of amassing wealth. When in power, Pakistani politicians would draw huge loans from all available sources, never bothering to pay back. They would buy government buildings or land at cheap rates through their dummies and sell the property when the time was appropriate to make a quick buck. They were found to have been ready to bend any rule to make easy money. After all, they could not be sure if another such opportunity would knock their door. — Syed Nooruzzaman |
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West Asia peace hopes shift to USA JERUSALEM, Nov 5 (Reuters) — West Asia peace hopes shifted to Washington today as Palestinians and Israelis said they could visit the USA soon for talks on stopping bloodshed that has killed more than 170 persons. In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of Israelis gathered late yesterday to mark the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, killed by a right-wing Jew opposed to his swapping land for peace with the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told the rally he could go to Washington “as soon as next week” to try to bring “peace and calm” to the region. He urged Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to return to the search for a “peace of the brave.” Mr Arafat’s adviser, Mr Nabil Abu Rdainah, said US President Bill Clinton had telephoned Mr Arafat yesterday to invite him to the White House next Thursday, two days after the US presidential election. By law, Mr Clinton remains President until January 20. Palestinian officials said Mr Arafat was likely to accept the invitation — a step that Israeli officials said would open the way for Mr Barak also to meet Mr Clinton. Mr Danny Yatom, a senior adviser to Mr Barak, said today there were no plans for a three-way Arafat-Barak-Clinton meeting but the three would have to try even in their separate meetings to stabilise the situation. The new West Asia peace push gave fresh hope in the face of more than five weeks of clashes in which at least 171 persons, almost all Palestinians, have been killed. But near Bethlehem in the West Bank today, a Palestinian schoolboy, 16, was shot in the chest during a clash with Israeli troops, Palestinian hospital officials said. They said he had skipped school to lob stones at soldiers. “The Israeli side is continuing its aggression against our people and strengthening its siege on our cities, villages and (refugee) camps in all parts of the nation,” a statement issued by Mr Arafat’s office said yesterday. Mr Arafat again accused Mr Barak yesterday of failing to comply with undertakings to lift a closure on the Palestinian territories and reopen the Gaza Airport. Palestinian medical sources said at least 23 Palestinians were wounded yesterday in clashes at several flashpoints in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A 14-year-old Palestinian girl was shot in the head and critically wounded as she walked out of school and into a battle in a village near the West Bank city of Hebron. Hospital X-rays showed a bullet lodged in her brain. The leader of Mr Arafat’s Fatah faction in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouthi, meanwhile urged Palestinians to take their uprising, against Israel,” into every street and every Jewish settlement’’ on occupied land. |
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Parliament approves new Yugoslav Govt BELGRADE, Nov 5 (DPA) — The Yugoslav Parliament approved a new federal government last night, 40 days after an election and a month after massive national protests forced the country’s former leaders to accept electoral defeat. It is the first government not run by former strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialists since 1992 and the first in which the Democratic reformers have held a majority. In his inaugural address, Prime Minister Zoran Zizic set as his government’s priorities the return of Yugoslavia into the international community; the ‘harmonisation’’ of relations between Yugoslavia’s two combative republics, Serbia and Montenegro; the securing of international aid for recovery and its ‘fair distribution’, and speedier economic reforms, particularly privatisation. Describing it as ‘key’ to regional stability, he said Yugoslavia would move to establish and normalise relations with Bosnia and Slovenia, ‘on the same principles it was done with Croatia and Macedonia’, all independent countries that were once republics within of Yugoslavia. Zizic said his Cabinet would transform the Yugoslav army into a compact, professional service and seek to include it into the NATO’s partnership for peace programme. He stressed that Yugoslavia would honour all international commitments made by earlier governments. But he said cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague was ‘’not a priority’’. The Yugoslav Assembly was fully constituted only on Friday when 19 contested seats in the lower chamber and one in the upper were allocated among the parties. Zizic’s SNP was a member of the previous Yugoslav Government as a coalition partner of ousted President Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia. Dos conceded positions of the Deputy Premier in charge of Foreign Economic Relations and Agriculture Minister to the G-17 Plus Think tanks. In the cabinet of 16, dos and G-17 Plus hold nine ministries,
SNP has six and SNS one. |
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Resettle Chagos islanders, UK
told THE FOREIGN OFFICE suffered a humiliating blow during the weekend when the High Court in London ruled that Indian Ocean islanders were unlawfully evicted 30 years ago to make way for a US air base. The islanders are now free to return. In a stunning turnaround, the Foreign Office — after six hours of considering whether to appeal — caved in and began preparations to allow the islanders to go back. The US State Department had vehemently opposed resettlement, claiming it would create a security risk to their huge air base on Diego Garcia, one of the 65 islands that make up the Chagos archipelago, a British dependency. The USA
leased the island from Britain. The Foreign Office, intent on ending an issue that has been a running sore, was working on a compromise that would see the islanders, most of whom were moved to Mauritius, return to two islands on the archipelago: Penhos Banhos and Salomon, but not Diego Garcia. The Foreign Office still faces the prospect of hefty payments in compensation to the islanders, thought to number between 400 and 4,000 who want to return. Mr Olivier Bancoult, who led the campaign on behalf of the islanders, insisted he was not interested merely in compensation but in going home. “We want to return to our motherland as quickly as possible,” he said outside court. The court awarded the islanders the costs. Lord Justice Laws ruled that a British ordinance of 1971 used to evict the islanders had been an “abject legal failure”. “I cannot see how the wholesale removal of a people from the land where they belong can be said to conducive to the territory’s peace, order and good government,” he said. Hundreds of previously secret Foreign Office papers that emerged during the trial show the British and US governments cheated the islanders out of their homes with a colonial disdain more appropriate to the 19th century than the latter part of the 20th, and then lied about it in Parliament and Congress for years. One British diplomat referred in a memo to the islanders as “a few Tarzans or Men Fridays”. The court ruling was a potential embarrassment for the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, who in opposition had supported the islanders but in government found himself caught between the rights of the islanders and objections to their return from the USA. But he escaped by pressing the USA into accepting the compromise. He pointed out that Britain’s treaty obligations covered only Diego Garcia and the USA had no legal claim to the rest of the archipelago. — The Guardian, London |
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Rabuka denies hand in mutiny SUVA, Nov 5 (Reuters) — Former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka today said he had been banned from entering military facilities after being accused by Fiji’s fractured military of involvement in a failed army mutiny. Mr Rabuka, leader of a coup in 1987 and former head of the South Pacific Nation’s armed forces, acted as a negotiator with rebel special forces soldiers during bloody gunbattles at the Fiji’s military headquarters which left eight soldiers dead. “I deny any involvement in the planning of the attempted takeover,” Mr Rabuka said. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra had received details of the deaths of the eight persons during the mutiny. Three regular soldiers loyal to military commander Frank Bainimarama and five
crew rebels died. “Apparently three of them were regular members of the Fiji military force who were shot in fairly cold blood by the mutineers,” Mr Downer told Channel Ten television. “Five of the mutineers were killed in a fairly brutal way in retaliation to that shooting.” Fiji Human Rights Commissioner Justice Sailosi Kepa said on Sunday that he would investigate how the rebels died. More than 20 persons were wounded in the gunbattles, including several civilians hit by stray bullets. |
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Putin merges rival arms agencies MOSCOW, Nov 5 (PTI) — In a bid to consolidate his hold on Russia’s most lucrative business, President Vladimir Putin has fired the heads of Russia’s two rival arms exporting agencies and merged them under a new director. In separate presidential decrees released yesterday, Head of Rosvoorouzhenie Alexei Ogaryov and Director General of Promexport Sergei Chemezov were dismissed and “moved” to other jobs. The newly created state Unitary Enterprise Rosoboronexport (Russian Defence Export), is to be headed by Andrei Belyaninov, previously Chemezov’s deputy. The merger of the two agencies will have no negative impact on defence cooperation with India as it will fulfill the obligations undertaken by them, a Kremlin source said. Yet another LTTE
attack on harbour COLOMBO, Nov 5 (PTI) — LTTE suicide boats launched an abortive attack on a key harbour in Sri Lanka’s east, the second in two weeks, in which a rebel boat was destroyed amid efforts by Norway to push for the resumption of peace talks between the government and the Tigers. Lankan army spokesman Brigadier Sanat Karunaratna said the boat was destroyed by the Navy which countered the attack on the eastern Trincomalee harbour with Israeli high speed Dovra craft last night when three LTTE boats tried to sneak into the port under cover of darkness. Two rebel boats managed to escape, he added. This was the second attack on the Trincomalee harbour since October 23. Three LTTE suicide boats were destroyed in the previous attack while rebels shot down an army helicopter and sunk a naval personnel carrier, killing four helicopter crew members and two naval sailors. |
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