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| Wednesday, January 3, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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West Asia peace talks face doom A historic journey completed Benazir ready to return home Yahya order led to B’desh debacle NATO helps free Serb hostages |
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| Way cleared for Khmer leaders’ trial President rejects Trinidad PM’s men Oppn-called stir peaceful in Nepal Hindu festival in Malaysia
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| West Asia peace talks face doom EGYPT, which has been at the heart of negotiations, on Monday declared the West Asia peace plan initiated by Mr Bill Clinton to be virtually over as five Palestinians, including two children, were killed and a car bomb exploded in Israel, injuring more than 40 persons one critically. The Israelis and Palestinians marked the start of the new year by clashings all over the region, with elements on both sides vowing revenge attacks. Militant Palestinian group Hamas threatened a resumption of suicide bombings and Palestinians were braced for a punitive strike from Israel in retaliation for the latest bombings. Mr Amr Moussa, Foreign Minister of Egypt, speaking after a meeting with the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, said there were “no indications’’ that a deal could be sealed in the 19 days left before Mr Clinton leaves office. Mr Arafat told the Egyptians that he wanted a meeting with Mr Clinton in Washington to clarify the US proposals and look at detailed maps of the territorial arrangements. If such clarification was not forthcoming, he would reject the plan. An adviser to Mr Arafat who travelled with him to Cairo gave a stark warning to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak. He said that if Mr Barak fulfilled his threat to separate Israel and the Palestine Authority forcefully, taking big chunks out of the West Bank in the process, it would be war. Meanwhile, the car bomb in Israel, near the coastal city of Netanya, about 12 miles from Tel Aviv, marks the second time in a week that Palestinian militants have struck inside Israel, which normally avoids the worst of the violence. Mr Moshe Seff, Mr Netanya’s fire chief, said three blasts occurred in rapid succession, smashing shop windows. Palestinians marked the anniversary of the New Year’s Day founding of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation with a call for attacks on Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian legislative speaker, Mr Ahmed Korei, back from failed talks in Washington, said: “If the Americans continue to insist on their position, then in the near future there will be no agreement. ’’The European Union foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, met Mr Barak to discuss Mr Clinton’s proposals.“I think we have a narrow window of opportunity and everybody has to do their best to grasp this opportunity that will never be back,’’ he said. (The Guardian) AFP adds: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he doubted a deal could be reached with the Palestinians before US President Bill Clinton’s term ends on January 20.His office said he had given instructions to the army “to prepare for a possible unilateral separation from the Palestinians in case of need.” “President Clinton has only got three weeks left. It’s not logical to think that he can push through an agreement in the last week of his mandate,” Mr Barak said on military radio. “Yasser Arafat has lost precious time by asking for all sorts of clarifications of the US proposals,” he added. He did not think a peace deal could be reached ahead of the Israeli Prime Ministerial election on February 6.Mr Arafat left overnight for talks with President Clinton at the White House today. Meanwhile, violence continued in the Palestinian territories today when Israeli soldiers shot dead an Arab farmer after explosions at two Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian farmer Sabri Awad Khudr (52) was killed as he was working near Dugit settlement in the northern Gaza Strip, hospital officials said. Witnesses said the soldiers opened fire in the direction of the farmers after an early morning explosion at Dugit. Khudr’s death brought to 367 the number of people who have been killed since the Intifada, or uprising against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, started September 28.The Knesset (Israeli parliament) has passed a Bill put forward by the right-wing opposition aimed at making it harder for Palestinian refugees to return home in the event of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, public radio reported. According to this law, passed on Monday, an absolute majority of 61 out of the 120 members of the Knesset will be needed to authorise the right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israeli territory in the context of an eventual peace deal. |
| A historic journey completed XIAMEN (China), Jan 2 (AFP) —The first three officially sanctioned passenger ships to sail directly from Taiwanese territory to China arrived today, officials said. Two boats, “Tai Wu” and “Wu Chiang”, made the two-hour 41 km journey from Kinmen island to the booming southern Chinese port of Xiamen. Separately another passenger boat, “Taima”, carrying 500 followers of a Taoist sea goddess arrived in Mawei, down river from the provincial capital of Fuzhou, on a maritime pilgrimage. The arrivals inaugurated the “mini links” between China and Taiwan, the first direct contact between the two since the nationalist island split from the Communist mainland in 1949. Matsu (Taiwan) (AP): Amid the sounds of gongs and crackling fireworks, about 500 Taiwanese left this tiny island and set sail for China today, a trip that could be the first legal direct voyage to the mainland in more than five decades. The trip came a day after another Taiwanese boat tried to inaugurate Taiwan’s relaxation of a ban on direct shipping between two outlying islands and China. Many hope that easing restrictions on the travel will help bring peace between the rivals that split amid civil war in 1949.More than 500 residents stood on the deck of the ship “Taima”, which means “Taiwanese horse”. Matsu and Kinmen are the only parts of Taiwan that are opening the direct trading and shipping links with China. Gusty winds and high waves forced yesterday’s boat from reaching its destination, the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen. Another boat plans to leave Kinmen today, carrying a delegation led by Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Shui-tsai. Those boarding the boat in Matsu were thrilled to be testing Taiwan’s new policy. “I got up at 2 am for this trip. I want to see my relatives and I want to see China,” said Mr Chen Pao-chu, 60, a pharmacist. |
| Benazir ready to return home ISLAMABAD, Jan 2 (AFP) — Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is ready to end her self-exile from Pakistan at “short notice” to fill the political void left by her ousted rival Nawaz Sharif, a media report said today. “I have a suitcase ready to return home at short notice,” she was quoted as saying during an interview with the Nation daily. “The date of my return will be announced well in time. ”Ms Benazir Bhutto has lived in London since shortly before her conviction for corruption in 1998. Her appeal is pending in the supreme court. Military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who ousted Prime Minister Sharif in a coup in October 1999, has condemned both former leaders as corrupt and incompetent and promised to keep them out of politics in future. Mr Sharif was pardoned of lengthy jail terms for hijacking and tax evasion last month and sent into exile in Saudi Arabia under a deal barring him from political activity for a decade. Ms Bhutto has said she wants to take advantage of the “political vacuum” created by Sharif’s ouster. Her Pakistan People’s Party and Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League recently joined hands in a new multi-party opposition front, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), to press for a general election. Ms Bhutto said the timing of her return depended on two factors — “the decision of the ARD to begin a political movement and build up the tempo (and) the testing of protests on other issues by my party to gauge public opinion.” |
| Yahya order led to B’desh debacle ISLAMABAD, Jan 2 (PTI) — A show of courage by just two Pakistani Generals for a few hours in December 1971 could have saved troops from ignominy and public humiliation unprecedented in history, the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report, made public recently, has said. The daily, The Nation, quoting the report, said both Generals Yahya Khan and Niazi, were “unfortunately corrupt to their bones both morally and professionally, and heaped humiliation upon their countrymen while pursuing their personal greedy objective and lusty desires. “We are at a loss to understand what induced him (General Yahya) to authorise, even advise, General Niazi to surrender,” the report said. The report observed that Gen Yahya was stubborn and brought humiliation to the whole nation. To perpetuate his rule over the country, he denied the biggest political party access to the government. “This bullheadedness of a single person caused the break-up of the country, brought an everlasting shame to the nation and instigated a surrender which had no parallel in the 1400 years in the history of Islam,” the report said. |
| NATO helps free Serb hostages NATO is being dragged into a low-intensity war waged on Europe’s hottest border, as ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia seek to join UN-administered Kosovo and separate from Serbia. The latest demonstration of Nato involvement in the buffer zone with Kosovo — officially part of Serbia, but controlled by Kosovan Albanian rebels — comes after rebels snatched six Serbian hostages there on Sunday. The captives were released on Monday after intensive diplomatic efforts by Yugoslav and Nato authorities, and were said by Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Nebojsa Covic to be ``in good shape’’. Tension rose further on New Year’s Eve when villagers raised the Albanian flag in Veliki Trnovac, which sits right on the fringe of the buffer zone. Nato sent two peacekeepers into sovereign Serbian territory, in a move which calmed the situation but was in direct breach of the technical-military agreement signed after the Nato bombing. The six Serbs were taken from their cars at the Mucibaba checkpoint as they entered the buffer zone from Kosovo. The rebels then gave Belgrade a three-day deadline for the release of 120 Albanian prisoners held in Serbian jails. Serbia’s Prime Minister-Designate, Mr Zoran Djindjic, who was in southern Serbia when the kidnapping took place, said earlier that US Ambassador William Montgomery had given assurances to him that the six Serbs would be released and had called on the Serb police to exercise restraint. The US diplomat condemned the hostage-taking as an act of extremism. — The Guardian, London |
| Way cleared for Khmer leaders’ trial PHNOM PENH, Jan 2 (Reuters) — Cambodian lawmakers today approved legislation to bring former leaders of the notorious Khmer Rouge regime to trial, pushing forward a process that has been stalled for nearly a year. “Today the National Assembly has approved the draft law on the Khmer Rouge trial unanimously,’’ Vice-Chairman Heng Samrin announced in Parliament. Debate on the draft law began on Friday and resumed this morning following a three-day break for the New Year holiday. Ninety-two of the National Assembly’s 122 members were present. After nearly a year of negotiations, Cambodia and the United Nations reached agreement in principle last April on how to try former leaders of the radical Communist group, responsible for an estimated 1.7 million deaths during their 1975-79 “killing fields’’ rule. The tribunal, to be held here, will include both Cambodian and foreign judges and prosecutors and focus on crimes commited by senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge during their April 1975 to January 1979 rule. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998 as government troops were closing in on his jungle hideout, but many of his comrades are living freely near the Thai border. |
| President rejects Trinidad PM’s men PORT-OF-SPAIN, Jan 2 (AP) — Trinidad’s President has refused to swear in eight persons appointed as Cabinet members by the Prime Minister, deepening a political crisis after contested national elections. In the unusual move, President Arthur Robinson rejected the ceremonial role assigned to him by the constitution, abruptly leaving a government meeting room yesterday without swearing in eight of the newly re-elected Prime Minister Basdeo Panday’s Cabinet picks. Six of those who were rejected lost their parliamentary elections and two won the December 11 elections, but their victories are being appealed in court by the opposition. |
| Oppn-called stir peaceful in Nepal KATHMANDU, Jan 2 (AFP) — The second day of a two-day nationwide general strike in Nepal called by nine Left-wing parties to demand the resignation of premier Girija Prasad Koirala continued without any incident today, officials said. The nine leftist parties called the strike to demand Mr Koirala’s resignation for failing to maintain law and order, curb corruption and control inflation. The streets of Kathmandu were deserted today as motorists stayed off the roads for fear of being stoned by protestors, while most shops in the capital remained shut. Government employees for the second day in succession had to walk to their offices on foot due to the absence of transport services. Talks to avert the strike failed on Sunday after Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ram Chandra Paudel also refused to bow to calls for his resignation. Nepal Communist Party-Marxist and Leninist (NCP-ML) General Secretary Bam Dev Gautam had told reporters that the strike would go ahead “as Mr Paudel is not ready to take moral responsibility for the killings and terror last week and resign.” |
| Hindu festival in Malaysia PENANG, Jan 2 (Pool-Bernama) — Well-known Hindu festival of southern India, Thaipusam, in worship of Lord Muruga, brother of Lord Ganesha, will be celebrated here at a temple next month. As part of 42 tourism programmes, the “Pearl of the Orient”. Penang, will celebrate the festival at a temple on the Kebun Bunga road on February 7, according to a Penang Development Corporation brochure. |
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