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| Thursday, February 8, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Wahid backers set Oppn
party HQ ablaze Ershad barred from
politics Peace talks must go on: Arafat Poll by next Oct, govt assures
SC Rebels inducted into
Koirala Ministry Winslet, Brosnan ahead in Berlin
fest |
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Gore blamed Clinton for
defeat Bush nominates
3 to State Dept
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Wahid backers set Oppn
party HQ ablaze SURABAYA (Indonesia), Feb 7 (Reuters) — Heavily outnumbered Indonesian security forces fired warning shots and teargas today to quell angry protests by more than 50,000 supporters of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid. Wahid supporters also set fire to the headquarters of the Golkar Party in the nearby town of Probolinggo, the police said. The protests — the biggest since Wahid became Indonesia’s first democratically-elected leader 15 months ago — came as the frail leader faces mounting pressure to step down. But the influential military gave him something of a political respite by joining other key power brokers in rejecting calls for early impeachment hearings. And Wahid’s spokesman said Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri’s party — Parliament’s largest — would back him to the end of his term in 2004. Meanwhile, in a sign that Abdurrahman
Wahid’s government was cracking under pressure following a parliamentary censure, the president today sacked his justice minister for disloyalty, as thousands rallied to protest moves to impeach him. “Wahid said that i am not loyal to the government ‘so i replace you,”’ said justice minister
Yusril Mahendra after meeting the president at the state palace. Witnesses said the police fired warning shots and teargas as thousands of Wahid supporters tried to storm the local headquarters of the former ruling Golkar Party — which has been critical of Wahid — in the country’s second city of Surabaya, in east Java. They said one protester was shot in the neck. There were reports of at least two other injuries from the rampage. Yelling “Golkar is the tool of the New Order,” the mob stormed the party offices looting equipment and then setting the buildings ablaze. The New Order refers to the long rule of despot Suharto who was forced from office in 1998 as the country tumbled towards social and economic collapse. Golkar was his party. The police and troops fired warning shots and teargas when an estimated 50,000 people rallied in support of Mr Wahid. Street battles erupted and, in an ominous turn for Indonesia’s political crisis, many demanded death for those wanting to unseat Mr Wahid for alleged corruption. Thousands besieged the local legislature at java, where he is revered not only as the nation’s leader but also as a muslim cleric. Today’s
protest was the biggest seen in Indonesia in the 15 months since wahid became its first democratically elected head of state in more than four decades. Last week Golkar joined a majority of parties in backing a parliamentary motion censuring Wahid over his role in two financial scandals in what could lead to his impeachment. But one leader of the pro-Wahid protesters distanced his group from those attacking the Golkar Party offices and the crowd beat one man they accused of being a provocateur. |
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Ershad barred from
politics DHAKA, Feb 7 — A two-judge Division Bench of the High Court in a judgement yesterday on a writ petition declared the seat of former President of Bangladesh and Jatiya Party Chairman H M Ershad vacant as he was convicted of moral terpitude. The Constitution of the country provides for disqualification of a person for holding his seat and bars him or her from contesting any poll for five years if convicted of moral terpitude. Mr Justice Syed J R Modassir Hossain and Mr Justice Arayeshuddin passed the judgement on a writ by two leaders of the rival faction of the Jatiya Party — Zahidul Islam and Sadek Siddiqui — challenging the authority under which Ershad was acting as member of Parliament. Ershad was convicted in a corruption case involving himself and his wife, Ms Raushan Ershad, regarding purchase of a plot of land of the Dhaka Improvement Trust for construction of a building for his daily newspaper Janata. The Anti-Corruption Department in the popularly known Janata Tower case brought charges against Ershad of misusing power while he was President of the country. Both Ershad and his wife and others were convicted in the case. His appeal by the Supreme Court brought the final decision in this regard. The SC confirmed the conviction, opined that he was already in the prison for four years eight months, so he was exempted from further imprisonment. But it asked him to pay the fine of more than five crore takas or in default, undergo six months of imprisonment. Ershad surrendered before the District Judges Court of Dhaka, who sent him to Dhaka Central Jail on November 20, 1999, and is there since then. He has not yet paid the fine. His party and family fears that as he is under trial in other cases the authority may not release him even if the fine is paid. He was removed to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases on Thursday last after he complained of pain in his heart. But it was later exposed by the media that for political negotiations he was brought out of the jail. His lawyer Barristar Rafiqul Huq admitted to the daily Manabjamin on Sunday that the Government made a proposal to Ershad through Huq. The proposal was that the government will pay 200 hundred crore takas as expenses of the coming Parliament elections for his Jatiya Party. In lieu, Ershad will ditch the four party alliance puting party candidates separately. Immediately, he will be allowed to go abroad on the plea of treatment. The lawyer expressed his ignorance about the reason why the negotiations failed and Ershad was sent back to Dhaka Central Jail on Saturday evening. The possibility of filing an appeal against yesterday’s judgement is not ruled out. But his lawyers were not present in the court yesterday to obtain a certificate authenticating them to file an appeal. DHAKA, Feb 7 (AFP) — A general strike affected life in Bangladesh today following a day of fierce clashes between Muslim hardliners and the police that left up to seven persons dead and 100 others injured. A huge police presence was enforced by paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles in Dhaka and the southeastern port city of Chittagong, and most offices and schools were closed after the two-day strike began at 6 a.m. In the eastern region of Brahmanbaria, where seven persons were reported killed yesterday during a strike demanding the release of jailed muslim leaders, the situation was tense but under control, a witness said. This took to 10 the number dead since violence first erupted on Saturday over a court verdict banning the use of fatwas, or religious edicts, by Muslim clerics. Brahmanbaria police chief Sarwar Alam said the situation was “under control, but tense and we hope everything passes off peacefully.” A four-party opposition alliance led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party had called today’s strike to demand the release of arrested opposition leaders. Two smaller right-wing Muslim groups have called for a second strike tomorrow on similar demands.
DHAKA, Feb 7 — The anti-government agitation by religious zealots reached a new dimension with a train mishap due to sabotage allegedly by students this morning killing two passengers and injuring nearly 2000. Six passenger coaches of an inter-city train bound for port city of Chittagong from southeastern town Sylhet sank into a small canal when the bridge collapsed after being hit by the derailed engine of the train. Two of the compartments were hanging. Two bodies were found floating in the canal water. Nine persons, including three railway staff seriously injured were rescued by nearby villagers who rushed to the spot on hearing the crash sound and hue and cry raised by the passengers. The accident dislocated train communication due to removal of railway track by the agitators at Brahmanbaria district town yesterday. The Deputy Commissioner of Feni, Mr Debashish Nag, told The Tribune on phone that it was a case of sabotage. He said Mazharul Islam, a student of Sarsadi Madrasha who was arrested admitted that fish plates were removed late Tuesday night. He named 12 others involved in the sabotage. They are supporters of the agitating Islami Oikyo Jote. Meanwhile, relief trains from Chittagong and Laksam junctions have also reached the spot for recovery of the coaches and restoration of train services. |
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Peace talks must go on: Arafat JERUSALEM, Feb 7 (Reuters) — When it was over and arch-hawk Ariel Sharon had staged the biggest comeback in Israeli history, Israelis left and right concluded today that no one bore greater responsibility for his victory than Yasser Arafat. Palestinian President Arafat said he hoped peace talks would go on — even though the Prime Minister-elect is perhaps his greatest foe. But Israelis across the political spectrum said it was Arafat himself who had hardened their views, prompting them to vote for Sharon, who looked unelectable only a few months ago. “Ariel Sharon is Arafat’s gift to the Israeli people and the Palestinian people,’’ the dovish author Amos Oz wrote in a front-page column for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Palestinians saw no contradiction in Arafat holding out for what they see as their minimum demands while his people waged their Intifada uprising, as both methods aimed at independence. But the combination proved fatal for Prime Minister Ehud Barak with voters, who dealt him a crushing defeat. Nearly-final unofficial results gave sharon an unprecedented 25 per cent point victory over the Labour Party leader. Meanwhile, President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement vowed to ensure that Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon could never keep his promise to make Israel secure. A statement from Fatah's leadership in the West Bank urged the Palestinian Authority not to negotiate with Sharon. "If the Israelis think that Sharon will make security for them, we say loudly that Israel will never have security at all," the statement said. "The Intifada and resistance are our strategic options to get rid of the occupation and to achieve freedom, return (of Palestinian refugees), national independence and sovereignty. We call for stepping up the Intifada and resistance in the face of the butcher Sharon," it added. “Palestinian tactics of pressing Intifada violence and putting forward maximalist negotiating demands hardened Israel,’’ said Dr David Makovsky, a former Israeli journalist and now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Arafat essentially crowned Sharon as Israel’s next leader,’’ Makovsky told reporters . “In the election aftermath, Arafat is likely to seek international sympathy. But this can only be equated to the joke of the boy who kills both his parents and then appeals to the judge that he is an orphan,’’ Mr Makovsky said. Arafat (71) and Sharon, 72, go way back. The Israeli Prime Minister-elect’s record of dealing harshly with
Palestinians goes back decades. As architect of Israel's 1982 Lebanon invasion, Sharon led a campaign to Beirut with the declared aim of driving guerrillas from Israel’s northern border. The following year an Israeli state inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by Israel’s Lebanese Christian allies. Sharon has long branded Arafat a ‘’war criminal’’ and refuses even to shake hands with the Palestinian leader’ until he desists from what Sharon terms ‘’terrorism’’ although as Foreign Minister little more than two years ago, Sharon did negotiate with
Arafat. Sharon, a 72-year-old ex-general reviled by Arabs, urged Palestinians in a victory speech to end their four-month-old Intifada, or uprising, and negotiate for a "realistic peace". Fatah is the driving force behind the uprising, which erupted in late September after Sharon visited a Jerusalem shrine revered by Muslims and Jews. At least 383 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in the revolt. Jibril al-Rajoub, Palestinian security chief in the West Bank, said Israelis would be the first to suffer if Sharon thought he could dictate peace terms. "I think it's the Israeli people who need to worry. If there is any mistake or craziness in your government, you will be the first victims," he told Israel Radio. |
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Poll by next Oct, govt assures SC ISLAMABAD, Feb 7 (UNI) — The Pakistani military government today assured a full Bench of the Supreme Court that the general election would be held in the country before October 12 next year to elect a representative government. The assurance was given by the Speaker of the suspended National Assembly to the 11-member Bench headed by Justice Irshad Hasan Khan, which is hearing the review petition. The senior adviser to the Chief Executive of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf, and renowned lawyer Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada informed the court that the government would fully comply with the Supreme Court’s earlier verdict in which it was asked to hold elections within three years. Mr Pirzada informed the court that the election schedule would be announced before 90 days of both the National and Provincial Assemblies’ elections as required under the election laws. Mr Pirzada said the Chief Executive had announced on May 25 last year that the government would fully implement the court orders and hold fresh elections. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Irshad Hasan Khan, had yesterday asked the government’s representative to give the apex court the exact date of holding the general elections and restoration of democracy in the country by today. The Chief Justice had asked Mr Pirzada to seek instructions from the military government as to when it was going to announce the election schedule. The Chief Justice had also observed that though the apex court legalised the military rule yet it never gave it an authority to carry out changes in the Constitution. Justice Khan had stated that the verdict of the court was meant to save the country from the imposition of another martial law and maintain the authority of the judiciary. |
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Rebels inducted into Koirala Ministry KATHMANDU, Feb 7 (UNI) — Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala — facing a stormy winter session of Parliament commencing tomorrow — today inducted three leading dissenters and axed a couple of his supporters while raising the strength of his less than 11-month-old government to a sizeable 37. a belligerent combined opposition already having demanded his resignation on grounds of “maladministration, failure to maintain law and order and promoting corruption’’ and a sizeable minority within the ruling Nepali Congress still ranged against him, the adroit Koirala appointed powerful rebel-camp leaders Khum Bahadur Khadka, Ram Sharan Mahat and Omkar Prasad Shreshtha to plum Cabinet posts. In the process, Mr Koirala dropped two prominent supporters — Health Minister Ram Baran Yadav and Minister of State for Water Resources Ram Bahadur Tamang — both of whom had performed badly during elections to the Central Working Committee held during last month’s 10th national convention of the party at Pokhara. Nevertheless, Mr Koirala inducted two loyalists — Gobind Raj Joshi and Mohammad Aftab Alam — both of whom had resigned under respective clouds within two months last year. Following today’s exercise, Mr Koirala raised his hitherto two-tier ministry to a full-fledged three-tier one and raised its strength from 21 to 37 — from the earlier 11-Cabinet Ministers and 1 Ministers of State, Mr Koirala today named 18 Cabinet Ministers, 14 Ministers of State (of them, three holding independent charges) and five Assistant Ministers. Prominent dissidents inducted today were Khum Bahadur Khadka as Physical Planning and Construction Minister (he was sacked by Mr Koirala in August last year as Water Resources Minister for initiating a revolt against the Premier), Dr Ram Sharan Mahat reappointed Finance Minister and Omkar Prasad Shreshtha, former Industry Minister named Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister. |
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Winslet, Brosnan ahead in Berlin fest BERLIN, Feb 7 (DPA)—There will be fewer Hollywood movies in competition at the 51st Berlin Film Festival, but there will be more big stars on the red carpet at Potsdamer Platz than this event has seen for some time, among them Kate Winslet, Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Pierce Brosnan and Anthony Hopkins. Topping them all in the glam department, Oscar-winner Kirk Douglas will be on hand to accept a Golden Bear lifetime achievement award, and a retrospective of his movies will unspool for the anticipated 4,00,000 fest-goers. A Fritz Lang retrospective will also be a highlight of the festival, featuring the 1927 classic “Metropolis’’ and a number of Lang classics not seen on the big screen for decades. A new documentary, Jan Harlan’s “Stanley Kubrick—a Life in Pictures’’ will also be shown. And a restored 70 mm print of Kubrick’s l968 epic “2001: A Space Odyssey’’ will close the fest on February 18. Besides the competition section, other festival sections will unveil some 500 films. One section alone, the forum of international films, will feature new features from Vietnam. In a stark departure from recent years, the awards competition line-up has veered away from the Hollywood “majors’’, opting instead for the “Indies’’ and the “Euros’’ in this, the final festival headed by 22-year veteran fest director Moritz de Hadeln. Four films from the USA will be competing for awards: Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled’’, Gus Van Sant’s “Finding Forrester’’ starring Sean Connery and F. Murray Abraham, Sean Penn’s “The Pledge’’ with Jack Nicholson and Sam Shepard, as well as Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic’’ with Michael Douglas and his new Welsh bride Catherine Zeta-Jones. |
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Gore blamed Clinton for defeat WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (DPA)— A few days after Al Gore conceded the 2000 presidential election, he and Bill Clinton exchanged accusations face to face about who was to blame for Gore’s election woes, the Washington Post reported today. For more than an hour, in what sources close to both men described as “uncommonly blunt language”, Gore forcefully told Clinton that his sex scandal and low personal approval ratings were a major impediment to his presidential campaign, the Post said. Clinton, according to people close to him, was initially taken aback but responded with equal force that it was Gore’s failure to run on the administration’s record that hobbled his ambitions. Only Clinton and Gore were present for the showdown session, which never appeared even on internal schedules distributed to White House staff. But people close to both reportedly have described its tone in similar language. “Tense’’ was the description of one adviser to Clinton, while a Gore aide called it “cathartic.’’ One Democrat who has worked closely with both men called the session “very, very blunt’’ |
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Bush nominates
3 to State Dept WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (PTI) — President George W. Bush has nominated three key officials to the State Department, picking veteran Marc Grossman for the department’s number three post, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer announced today. Mr Bush announced Richard Haas as Director of Policy Planning for the State Department with the rank of Ambassador and Grant S. Green for the position of Under Secretary of State for Management. |
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