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| Tuesday, December 12, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Sharif’s exit
draws flak from Pakistanis Now asylum
for Asif Zardari?
Clinton
lauds role of Kerala-born doctor |
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Hungarian
gypsies a deprived lot PECS, (Hungary): Zsolt Janos (namea changed) wants to train as a NATO fighter pilot. The competition will be intense and he may well not make it but that is not entirely the point — Zsolt is a Hungarian gypsy and, in a part of Europe notorious for dumping gypsy children in schools for the mentally challenged simply to be in contention is remarkable 1. Russia
welcomes India’s move “Afghans
in N. Zealand had terrorist links” USA, S.
Korea fail to revise military accord Rajan’s
ex-lawyer to bring key witness Probe
into West Asia bloodshed begins Indo-China
security dialogue delayed Iliescu returns
to power
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Sharif’s exit draws flak from Pakistanis ISLAMABAD, Dec 11 (AP, PTI) — Pakistanis were disappointed yesterday with the army’s surprise decision to free deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and send him into exile in Saudi Arabia. The announcement generated widespread criticism among Pakistanis, who said the army’s anti-corruption drive has been badly damaged. “When I heard this news, I couldn’t believe my ears,” said Hanif Khan, a taxi driver in the federal capital. “The entire world will make fun of this country and its judicial process,” he said. “How can they pardon a convicted man, accused of corruption?” Asked Mohammed Tariq, a young man. “This shows that the government’s tall claims about accountability are a fraud,” he said. Tariq said the army has lost credibility. “You let Nawaz Sharif go, who is a big fish, with truck loads of luggage, and then you keep his aides and other businessmen in jail. How can they justify this?” he asked. One of the first steps taken by the military government after it took charge was to establish a National Accountability Bureau with sweeping powers to arrest and hold suspects for up to 90 days without charging them. Anwar Raja, a college student, said he had high hopes for a better Pakistan when General Musharraf took over, but those hopes had been shattered with Mr Sharif’s exile to Saudi Arabia. There has been no explanation from General Musharraf for the announcement to let Mr Sharif leave the country. There were reports that Mr Sharif’s health was poor and that he was suffering from high blood pressure and a heart ailment. However, a government spokesman said Mr Sharif’s condition was stable. General “Musharraf has proven himself no different from others who came to power before him. He has struck a deal with a politician whom he himself removed from power, calling him corrupt,” he said. Even Mr Sharif’s supporters were disappointed. “No one likes to see him go like this,” said Mr Talib Hussain, a supporter of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML). “If he had done this for the people, at least in his constituency, there would have been some rallies in his support.” Abu Hilal, a spokesman for Kashmiri militant group Jehad-e-Islami, said a great injustice has been done to Pakistan by allowing Mr Sharif to go abroad. “This shows that whoever has wealth in our country and connections abroad can walk free after paying money,” Hilal said. Abu Ibrahim, a spokesman for militant group Harkat-ul Mujahideen, called Mr Sharif’s freedom from jail and exile a tragedy. “At least the government should not have allowed him to take his luggage. It should have been put on public display,” he said. Meanwhile, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) recently forged an anti-military regime alliance with the PML, has expressed “surprise” over the deposed Premier’s sudden exit from the country. In a statement published in Urdu daily Ausaf yesterday, Ms Bhutto said she never expected “such a baffling move” from the PML. She said an explanation would be called for on this issue from Mr Sharif’s party, which is now a part of the anti-regime Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD). “It is strange that we were not taken into confidence about such a clandestine deal,” she said. ISLAMABAD, Dec 11 (DPA) — Pakistan’s military ruler General Pervesh Musharraf left Islamabad today on a day-long visit to the United Arab Emirates in a haze of rumours spawned by the expulsion of convicted ex-premier Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia yesterday. Islamabad’s daily The Nation quoted an official as saying that “no hidden objective” was involved in General Musharraf’s planned talks with UAE President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahayan. But the city was rife with speculation that the talks may involve a deal on freeing another Pakistani political prisoner, Asif Ali Zardari, husband of former premier Benazir Bhutto. Interior Minister Moinuddeen Haider told reporters in Islamabad today that he did not know if General Musharraf would meet Ms Benazir during his UAE visit but said Zardari could be released if he surrendered the assets he is being tried for acquiring illegally. A spokesman for Ms Benazir in Islamabad denied that her departure for UAE “had anything to do with Zardari’s case. Neither Ms Benazir nor her husband has any illegal funds”. While the Sharif family had friends in Saudi Arabia, Ms Benazir’s close relations with UAE royalty go back to the days of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was overthrown by the Army in 1977 and subsequently hanged. Zardari has been in jail since Ms Benazir was dismissed in November 1996 on charges of misrule and corruption. Both of them were tried and convicted by the succeeding Sharif government, forcing Ms Benazir to go into self-imposed exile. She set her children up with her mother in UAE but herself lived mostly in London from where she ran her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). But according to London’s daily Telegraph she had shifted to the UAE after the British government put heat on her to help the Pakistani government’s probe into the millions she and her husband are alleged to have amassed during her days in power. Political elements angry with the Pakistani military regime’s decision to pardon Nawaz Sharif and send him with his entire family into exile to Saudi Arabia in return for a part of their allegedly ill-gotten wealth, think the Bhutto family can similarly “buy” Asif Zardari’s freedom. |
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Clinton lauds role of Kerala-born doctor Washington, Dec 11 — U.S. President Bill Clinton has lauded Kerala-born cardiologist Zachariah P. Zachariah and five other awardees of the 2000. Ellis Island American Legends Awards, saying that “each of you in different ways has made a contribution that is distinct to the progress of our nation.” In a videotaped message from the Oval Office of the White House that was played at the gala black-tie awards dinner here, Mr Clinton declared: “Your contributions have so much enriched the diversity of our national heritage.” Dr Zachariah was the only Asian American among the six awardees and only the second physician, after the famous Dr Michael E. DeBakey, to receive the award, which is sponsored and held under the aegis of the National Ethnic Coalition of Organisations (NECO). The other awardees were Senator John McCain, Arizona Republican John Catsimatidis, Chairman and CEO of Red Apple Group Inc., Mr John J. Sweeney, President of the 13-million member AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labour and Confederation of Industrial Organisations); Mr Lois Berrodin Pope, founder and President of the Life Foundation and LIFE organisation (Leaders in Furthering Education); and Mr Helen Thomas, known as America’s first lady of journalism. Previous awardees include former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, former Chrysler chairman Lee A. Iococca and former President Ronald Reagan. The awards ceremony was attended, among others, by Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo and several CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Over 60 members of the Indian American community in Florida, colleagues, friends and family of Dr Zachariah, flew in for the event in a specially chartered aircraft from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Mr William Denis Fugazy, chairman of the Board of Ellis Island American Legends and founder and president of NECO, said the awardees”embody the spirit by which the USA was built.” In his acceptance speech, Dr Zachariah said: “As I reflect upon what it means to me to receive this prestigious award, I am filled with gratitude and appreciation. Gratitude for the limitless opportunities offered to me in this great nation of ours, for in our system of democracy all one needs is the desire to achieve and it can be done!”
— IANS |
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Hungarian gypsies a deprived lot PECS, (Hungary): Zsolt Janos (namea changed) wants to train as a NATO fighter pilot. The competition will be intense and he may well not make it but that is not entirely the point — Zsolt is a Hungarian gypsy and, in a part of Europe notorious for dumping gypsy children in schools for the mentally challenged simply to be in contention is remarkable 1. Zsolt is lucky. Both his parents belong to the 1 per cent of their people who have completed secondary education, and he attends Gandhi Secondary School in Pecs near the Croatian border in southern Hungary, the only school in Europe devoted exclusively to producing a gypsy educational elite as an agent of social change. And Hungary believes change is needed. The gypsies are Europe’s most deprived and fastest-growing ethnic minority and Hungarian specialists fear a demographic time bomb is ticking away within Hungarian society. Although gypsies account for less than 10 per cent of the country’s 10-million-strong population, they make up more than 65 per cent of the Hungary’s prison population; unemployment among gypsies in Hungary, at more than 60 per cent, is more than six times the national average and their life expectancy - a vital measure in describing health, economic and social conditions - trails the national average by as much as a decade. The Council of Europe has also called on east Europeans to end discrimination. And a Geneva-based UN commission on racial discrimination has called for a legal review across Europe to ensure equal treatment for gypsies. The commission’s latest report does not name offending countries but does refer to the mass murder and expulsion of gypsies committed by Albanians in Kosovo in revenge for their alleged collaboration with the Serbs, the denial of citizens rights in the Czech Republic to gypsies who cannot speak the official language or have been found guilty even of minor offences, and the recent clearance of gypsies from slum settlements near Athens executed with gratuitous brutality to make room for commercially more desirable development. Many gypsies are seeking their own, desperate solution. Cases brought by groups of gypsies claiming racial discrimination are constantly pending before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Thousands of families have sold all their possessions and fled to western Europe and North America in search of refugee status and a decent life. Most of them are being turned back, but some have found a haven in generous countries such as Canada. The Hungarian Government is putting money where its mouth is and has committed $ 24 million this year towards improving the plight of the gypsy minority with promises from the secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice, Csaba Hende, that spending will be increased in future budgets. Further funds are available also from the EU’s Phare assistance programme. Some gypsy leaders have called for a 20-year, $ 670-million programme covering education alone. Others are more moderate in their demands but assert that only a fraction of the government funding actually reaches its target. A joint commission answerable to the government as well as the democratically elected, self-governing gypsy council will now be created to oversee the ministry’s spending. The Gandhi school was established in 1994, largely with funds from the Hungarian Government. Its first graduating class had 18 pupils, 16 of them seeking higher education. Next year, it hopes to produce 24 graduates. The experience gathered by the school may well prove invaluable for similar institutions elsewhere. The Hungarian Government is committed to increased efforts at various levels of gypsy education. Pecs University has just launched the country’s first post-graduate course in gypsy studies and a high school with special responsibility for gypsy education has been opened at Szabolcs, a deprived region of Eastern Hungary. A kindergarten catering almost exclusively for gypsy pupils has also been opened in Csepel, a poor Budapest suburb. Until these many initiatives begin to bear fruit, the situation for Hungarian gypsies is still bleak. “In Hungary only 0.3 per cent of gypsies hold post-secondary school diplomas and only one in four complete primary school,” says sociologist Miklos Haraszti, a professor at the University of California’s study centre in Budapest. But the evidence is Hungary is determined to increase the pace of change. — Observer News Service |
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MOSCOW, Dec 11 (IANS) — Russia has welcomed India’s proposal for a broad-based, comprehensive global convention against international terrorism, which it describes as a growing menace to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of many countries and to world security as a whole. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, told a U.N. Security Council meeting on combating international terrorism that his country “welcomes the beginning of a practical discussion on the Indian proposal for adopting a comprehensive convention against international terrorism.” Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee put the proposal forward during the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York in September and Russia is one of the few countries that has time and again extended support to India’s initiative on the issue. In his address, the gist of which was made available here, Lavrov said the question of international terrorism has a “direct bearing on the mandate of the Security Council since terrorism has emerged as one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.” He also appealed to all countries to join the existing anti-terrorist conventions. Lavrov said Russia attaches special significance to the draft convention against acts of nuclear terrorism, adding that Moscow firmly stood for promoting international cooperation in fighting global terrorism under the aegis of the United Nations. The Security Council meeting, convened at Russia’s initiative, later adopted a statement expressing deep concern over the increase in acts of terrorism in many regions of the world. It called on all states to consider the question of acceding to existing anti-terrorist conventions as a matter of priority. India and Russia, both victims of international and cross-border terrorism, have already agreed to strengthen their efforts to combat the menace. A joint statement issued at the end of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India in October had condemned cross-border and international terrorism in all their forms. |
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“Afghans in N. Zealand had terrorist links” SYDNEY, Dec 11 (IANS) — The Security Intelligence Service (SIS) of New Zealand has revealed that a clandestine cell of Afghans in Auckland was in constant touch with some suspect terrorist organization in Afghanistan during the recent Sydney Olympic Games. According to New Zealand Herald newspaper, SIS monitored this communication in August, a month before the Olympics in the neighboring Australian harbour city of Sydney. The annual report has once again supported the belief that the New Zealand security agencies helped their Australian counterparts foil one of the biggest security threats that the South Pacific country has ever faced. The SIS document has also mentioned that it was aware that money was being transferred by the Afghans to terrorist organisations in various parts of the world. An SIS report has also shed light on the suspected involvement of some migrant nuclear scientists who had come to New Zealand after working on weapons research programmes in other countries. “They become of some interest. There could be questions about what sort of contacts they maintain while in New Zealand,” New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said while talking to reporters on the SIS report which was tabled in Parliament on Friday. The revelations were made in an annual report of New Zealand’s premier intelligence agency. New Zealand Herald had made the sensational revelation just before the Olympics that some Afghan refugees in Auckland had set up a clandestine cell and were conspiring to blow up Australia’s only nuclear facility in Sydney during the Olympic Games. Security experts and media commentators had reacted to the news with degrees of skepticism. Residents near the Lucas Height nuclear plant and environmentalists had demanded that the facility be shut down to ward off any danger of sabotage by Afghan or other Islamic terrorists. |
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USA, S. Korea fail to revise military accord
SEOUL, Dec 11 (Reuters) — South Korea and the USA have failed to reach an agreement in the latest round of talks aimed at revising a controversial military treaty governing US forces in Korea. But a senior Foreign Ministry official said he hoped for a breakthrough in altering the pact, which Seoul views as discriminatory, before the end of US President Bill Clinton’s administration next month. “The two sides made some progress on most issues, including legal jurisdiction and environmental problems, but failed to resolve some thorny issues, because of difficulties in harmonising Korea’s legal system with military pacts in other countries”, Song Min-Soon, Director-General of the ministry’s North American Department, told reporters today. The talks to alter the treaty have been off-and-on since 1996. Song wouldn’t elaborate on which issues were blocking a final agreement on the military accord, which governs some 37,000 US troops stationed in South Korea. But local reports said the main issues were Seoul’s demand for greater jurisdiction over US criminal suspects and for including a provision on environmental regulations in the revised agreement. The current pact, last revised in 1991, allows US service personnel accused of crimes to remain in American custody until they are convicted by a local court. |
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Rajan’s ex-lawyer to bring key witness BANGKOK, Dec 11 (PTI) — Underworld don Chhota Rajan’s former lawyer has said he would produce a key witness to confirm that a 25 million bahts bribe was paid by the gangster to buy his freedom and supply further evidence to an inquiry panel probing the case. Lawyer Sirichai Piyapichetkul said his witness, currently overseas, would testify that a senior police official took the bribe. He claimed that Rajan after his escape had told him that he paid the bribe to the guard at a hospital from where the gangster escaped last month. Rajan and the Thai police both denied the allegation. Meanwhile, “The Nation” newspaper, in an editorial published today, pondered as to whether Rajan paid bribes to slip out or if he really did climb down a rope as he claimed. The editorial titled “With a plot like this, who needs bad movies”? said: “A powerful crime boss escapes an assassin’s attack with gunshot wounds. He ends up in a hospital in a foreign country where he feels anything but secure. So he hires a group of professional rock-climbers to sneak him out. A waiting car takes him to his yacht, which then cruises to an airport where a private jet is waiting and he is free”. |
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Probe into West Asia bloodshed begins JERUSALEM, Dec 11 (Reuters) — A US-led commission began investigating 10 weeks of Middle East bloodshed today, starting talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on a visit overshadowed by political turmoil. The five-member international team, led by former US Senator George Mitchell, met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem and was due to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the Gaza Strip later in the day. “We don’t want to be part of a problem. We want to be part of a solution to a problem,’’ European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, a member of the commission, told reporters. Yesterday, right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu turned Israel’s political establishment on its head, announcing he intended to challenge Mr Barak, Labour Party Prime Minister, in an election that will set the course of Middle East peacemaking. |
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Indo-China security
dialogue delayed BEIJING, Dec 11 (PTI) — The second round of Indo-China security dialogue would not take place this month as planned as the assigned Chinese official was in the midst of “difficult” boundary negotiations with Vietnam, official sources said. “At present, the two sides are consulting with each other on the specific time of the dialogue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue said when asked to comment on the apparent delay. The second round of the security dialogue was earlier scheduled tentatively for this month in Delhi. “Both sides will have an in-depth exchange of views on international and regional security and issues of common interest,” Mr Zhang said, adding that Assistant Foreign Minister Wang Yi would represent the Chinese side for the dialogue. Mr Wang also heads the Chinese negotiation team for the maritime border talks with Vietnam. As per a decision taken by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Lekha Phieu in 1999, the Sino-Vietnamese boundary issue should be settled by the end of 2000. Official sources said the security dialogue may not be held in January also as both sides would be busy preparing for the visit of the Chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, Mr Li Peng, who is set to visit India in mid-January. |
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BUCHAREST (Romania), Dec 11 (AP) — Leftist Ion Iliescu won a landslide victory for a third term as Romania’s President as voters rejected a radical nationalist whose denunciation of Jews, Gypsies and minorities would have threatened hopes for European integration. Official results from yesterday’s balloting showed Iliescu winning 66.89 per cent of the vote to 33.11 per cent for Corneliu Vadim Tudor. Today’s results were based on a count of 80.7 per cent of votes by central electoral bureau. Iliescu, a former Communist who led the 1989 uprising that toppled dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu, called his victory a “rebirth of hope” and promised to accelerate reforms aimed at winning membership in NATO and the European
Union. |
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14 die in bus
crash MIDDELBURG (South Africa), Dec 11 (DPA) — Fourteen passengers were killed and 60 injured today when two buses collided head-on in the Mpumalanga province, a police spokesman said. A bus loaded with passengers was on its way to Pretoria when it apparently overtook another vehicle and smashed into an empty oncoming bus, the SAPA news agency
reported. |
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