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| Tuesday, December 26, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Blasts outside churches in Indonesia kill 15
Indonesian firemen estinguish a burning car after a bomb blast outside a Catholic school in Jakarta on Sunday. — Reuters
photo Pak regime
rejects PML charge |
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Chinese spy quizzed
on Taiwan links Tenzing a ‘Tibetan, not Nepali’
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Blasts outside churches in Indonesia kill 15 JAKARTA, Dec 25 (Reuters, AP) — Indonesia has warned there could be more bomb attacks after a spate of explosions near churches on Christmas-eve that killed at least 13 persons (15 according to AP). “Information from police intelligence indicates that there could be similar bombings at other places of worship and at other public facilities.” Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters today. He said the blasts were an act of terrorism designed to stir religious tensions. Indonesian President Abdurahman Wahid said the bombings were aimed at destabilising his already troubled government. “Their steps are to destabilise the government and create fear and panic,” he told reporters before flying to the eastern province of Irian Jaya for Christmas. Inspector-General of Police Sutiyono said the police had questioned two people and declared them suspects in the explosions. The explosions did not deter Christians from attending mass celebrations on Monday. Hundreds flocked to the main Catholic cathedral in Jakarta — one of the targets of Sunday’s attack — amid tight security. “I am sure we are blessed by God and the security situation is pretty tight so I am sure nothing will happen,” said one parishioner before attending morning Mass. Another said” This bomb business has got nothing to do with us, the Christians, that’s why we are still coming here for the Mass... This is just a temporary act of terror in
relation to politics”. Dozens of police screened people before entering the church compound which lies opposite the country’s main mosque. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country with an estimated 90 pc of its 210 million people followers of Islam. In a conciliatory gesture, members of a Muslim student group handed a floral wreath to a church leader outside Jakarta’s main Catholic cathedral. “We give these flowers to express our condolences,” a member of Indonesian Muslim Students Movement said. Jakarta’s most senior Catholic leader on Monday asked Indonesia’s minority Christian community not to lay blame for the spate of attacks, which claimed the lives of people on various religious denominations. “The explosions have claimed victims, be it the ordinary people, the Muslims who just happened to be passing by and the Christians,” Cardinal Julius Darmoatmodjo told reporters. “Christians please don’t be so easy to judge before we know who the perpetrators are,” he added. Mr Wahid, facing mounting pressure to quit or face impeachment for his inability to tackle the country’s myriad political and economic problems, has not specifically accused anyone but described it as a blatant attack on Christians. “Clearly this is an attempt to destroy Christians by using Islam,” Mr Wahid said. He called for calm and expressed his sympathy to the victims’ families. “For the dead, on behalf of the government and Indonesia I offer my deepest condolences and to those who are hurt, I express my deepest sympathy,” he added. Jakarta police chief, Inspector-General Mulynono Sulaiman said some 17,500 security personnel would be on the standby to safeguard churches and other places of worship after the explosions. The timings of so many blasts outside churches in Jakarta and other cities pointed to a coordinated campaign of terror. It is likely to throw suspicion on elements of the military who have been blamed for much of the sectarian violence, especially in the eastern spice islands where thousands have died in two years of fighting between Christians and Muslims. But a military spokesman denied that it was behind the violence. “There is no indication of military involvement,” he said. Yesterday a spate of bombs exploded in front of the Roman Catholic cathedral and other churches in Jakarta and five other towns and cities, the police and witnesses said. A total of 15 persons were killed and many were injured in the blasts that happened as prayer services were about to get underway tonight. Four of the dead were police officers, who tried to disarm a bomb in Pekanbaru on Sumatra island, the official Antara news agency said. One civilian was also killed there. Five Catholic and Protestant churches were targeted in Jakarta, where three persons died. One bomb, thought to be planted in a parked car, blew up near the cathedral, located close to the main mosque and the presidential palace. Other churches were evacuated after receiving threats. The Jakarta bombs exploded within an hour and within a radius of about 2 km. Two persons were killed in a blast at a Christian-owned house in Badung, west Java, Indonesia’s main island, the police said. The police said at least 15 persons were killed and more than 50 injured in 18 blasts in eight cities and towns, including the capital, Jakarta. National police chief Gen Suroyo Bimantoro said the mainly crude, home-made devices exploded within minutes of each other in what appeared to be a coordinated terror campaign. |
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Musharraf harps on end to ‘brutal acts’ in valley Islamabad,
Dec 25 (PTI) — Despite the Indian ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan’s military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf continues to harp on the ceasing of “brutal acts” in the valley before militants can halt their operations. In a desperate attempt to justify militants, who have not responded to the ceasefire, General Musharraf told reporters in Karachi yesterday that the “Indian forces were committing atrocities on the Kashmiri people, which were being countered by these groups.” The General, who responded to the ceasefire with restraint along the LoC,claimed, “I have done what I could have.” To a question, about storming of Delhi’s Red Fort, General Musharraf said he would not comment on the issue, it being their (India) internal concern. He said both Pakistan and India had taken initiatives to start a dialogue on Kashmir “but what remains to be seen is how much sincere India is in resolving the Kashmir issue,” he added. “As far as we are concerned, we have taken greater initiatives than India has done, and are also sincere in getting the Kashmir issue resolved,” he claimed. He said he was not going to India, and it was not possible unless and until he was extended any invitation in this regard. To a question about any terms pertaining to talks with the
APHC delegation due to arrive in Pakistan next month, General Musharraf said there were three parties to the Kashmir dispute — India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris. “We will talk to the
APHC and ask them to ensure that all three concerned sit together and hold dialogues for finding a solution to the Kashmir issue,” he added. The General said Pakistan had already taken enough initiatives along the LoC. “We have indicated our intentions. It’s up to India now to come forward,” he added. To another question, he said the un sanctions against Afghanistan were unjust. “Unfortunately, ground realities were not considered while taking the decision,” he said, and added that such measures would rather worsen the situation in Afghanistan. “Osama bin Laden is an issue between Afghanistan and the US, and Pakistan should not be involved in it,” he said, making his stand clear. |
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Pak regime
rejects PML charge islamabad,
Dec 25 (dpa) — Pakistan's
military regime has rejected the charge by the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) that it acknowledged India’s supremacy by unilaterally withdrawing Pakistani troops from the
LoC in Kashmir. An official spokesman said the decision increased pressure on India “to initiate the peace process” as even the Indian Prime Minister now favoured a two-track dialogue on Kashmir. “It was ironical that those who had compromised on the Kashmir issue for the sake of their personal interests have now chosen to criticise a right step in the right direction,” the spokesman said, referring to the
PML Chief and former Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif. The PML information Secretary Mushahidullah Khan said yesterday that the Army had accused Nawaz Sharif of betraying the Kashmiris fighting for separation from India by calling off a near-war in Kashmir and by attempting to make peace with India. “If a civil government initiates dialogue with India on the basis of equality and mutual respect to solve contentious issues and brings an Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan without wasting a single bullet, it is betrayal and treachery. “But if a Military government could not bring India to the table despite losing hundreds of troops and gunpowder worth billions of rupees and unilaterally withdraws troops from the border, then it is in the great national interest,’’ Mr Khan said. |
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Temple Mount ‘should remain’ with Israel Jerusalem,
Dec 25 (AFP) — Israel’s top religious authority has insisted that Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple
Mount, must remain under the Israeli sovereignty, despite reported us proposals that Israel cede the area to the Palestinians. “The Jewish people’s right to the Temple Mount is indefeasible,” Israel Lau, the head Rabbi for the country’s Ashkenazi Jews, said yesterday. “To renounce this right would be to renounce the right of a greater Israel founded on the Bible,” Lau said, quoted by the Itim news agency. The Temple Mount site is also the third holiest place for Muslims, who call it Haram al-Sharif, or the noble sanctuary. The chief Rabbinate issued statement after reports that us president Bill Clinton was proposing Israel hand the Palestinians sovereignty of the Temple Mount in exchange for a renunciation of Palestinian refugees’ right of return. The Jewish tradition holds that King Solomon had built a temple on the Jerusalem site, but it was destroyed by Babylonians in 586 B.C. King Herod reconstructed it five centuries later, until the Romans demolished it in 70 A.D. |
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India files complaint against US law Berlin, Dec 25 (PTI) — India has joined a group of countries, including Japan and the 15-nation European Union (EU), in filing a joint complaint with the World Trade Organisation (wto) against a new us law that would award the proceeds of anti-dumping sanctions to the affected US industry. The complaint made before the Geneva-based WTO recently challenges an amendment passed by the US Congress last month to the anti-dumping law barring the sale of foreign goods in US markets at prices below their cost of production. The other countries who are party to the complaint are Australia, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. Most of the complaining countries have been subjected to punitive levies for selling steel at prices lower than the production costs. According to WTO officials, a three-member WTO dispute settlement panel would review the joint complaint if no agreement was reached between the US and the complaining parties through consultations in the next 60 days. The existing US law, which has been invoked by the US industry against foreign imports, allows the us Government to impose tariffs against below-the-market price products. But the new amendment, known by it sponsor’s name Robert Byrd, a Democrat senator of West Virginia, goes beyond and would divert the tarrif revenues from the treasury and award them to the complaining industry. The complaint alleged that the diversion of tariff revenues amounted to giving the complaining us industry a subsidy, which is barred by global free-trade rules. It also said the amended law encouraged US companies to make claims of dumping because they would receive a “double reward” — less competition from imports and income from increased tariffs. Analysts said the revenues from anti-dumping levels could range from $40 million to $ 200 million a year, but it was uncertain because heavily taxed imports were less likely to be sold in the us markets, which would bring down any tariff income from them. The
USA has been dragged to the WTO in recent weeks through several complaints by countries questioning its steel import policy. The
EU said it wanted WTO consultations with the USA to negotiate on import restrictions on steel wire rod and welded pipeline that the Clinton administration had imposed this year. South Korea had already brought a complaint against the same measure. |
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Chinese spy quizzed
on Taiwan links WASHINGTON, Dec 25 (AFP) — Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist, previously accused by the US authorities of spying for China, is now under investigation for his ties to a military research centre in Taiwan, according to a report. Lee told the FBI that he was a paid consultant in the late 1980s and early 1990s to a Taiwanese businessman who later helped arrange for him to spend four weeks at Taiwan’s leading military research centre, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing sources close to the investigation. The Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology allegedly was involved in past efforts by Taiwan to develop nuclear weapons, the paper reported. |
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Tenzing a ‘Tibetan, not Nepali’ LONDON, Dec 25 (PTI) — Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who accompanied Edmund Hillary, the first Everester in 1953, was a Tibetan and not a Nepali, according to a new book. While Hillary and the expedition’s leader Lord Hunt both believed that the Sherpa had been born in a remote mountain village in Nepal, a new book “Snow in the Kingdom” by American mountaineer Ed Webster claims that not only was Tenzing born in Tibet, but he spent much of his childhood there. The world’s most famous Sherpa was not really a Sherpa at all. Even after Tenzing’s death in 1986, the truth was considered too sensitive to disclose, not least for fear of embarrassing the Indian Government which had supported Tenzing after his ascent. It would have handed a propaganda coup to the Chinese authorities in the Tibetan capital Lhasa that a “Chinese Climber” was the first to climb Everest. But now Webster has been given permission by the family to reveal the truth about Tenzing’s real origins, The Observer reported. Throughout his life, Tenzing remained vague about his background. In his autobiography “Tiger of the Snow”, he
obscured the truth of his childhood without quite denying it, telling ghostwriter James Ramsey Ullman that he grew up in the village of Thame in Nepal. In fact, his parents migrated there during the early 1920s after a period of financial hardship and debt to a local Tibetan Governor. Tenzing, however, was more forthcoming about his birthplace. He said, “I was born in a place called Tsa-Chu, near the great mountain of Makalu, and only a day’s march from the Everest”. |
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