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| Wednesday, February
28, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Bodies of 118 migrants found in Borneo Tigers to give up
demand for state Bhutto plea put off on lawyers’ stir Sanctions: Powell gets Syrian nod India producing N-weapons, says CIA report |
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Labour votes to join Sharon Govt Putin backs Korean unity
New evidence of life on Mars
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Bodies of 118 migrants found in Borneo Jakarta, February 27 An unknown number of people were injured in the clash at the central Kalimantan river port town of Sampit, about 750 km northeast of Jakarta, Inspector-General Didi Widayadi told newsmen. ‘’It was a misunderstanding between police and soldiers ... There were some shooting casualties but at this stage I can’t confirm the number.’’ Widayadi also confirmed indigenous Dayaks had massacred 118 Madurese immigrants trying to flee the bloodshed at the weekend, adding the police sent to protect the refugees fled when the attack took place. “They (the dayaks) were in a trance... Running amok. They did not realise what they had done. There were 118 (dead) victims from the incident,’’ he said, adding 10 policemen guarding them had run away. Estimates of the total number of dead — almost all Madurese — in nine days of killing vary widely, and it is not clear if the 118 massacre victims are included in earlier estimates of 400 killed. Many of the dead have been beheaded and hearts have been ripped from some corpses by the Dayaks, descendants of Borneo’s fearsome headhunters. Earlier, mobs of Dayaks torched homes in the provincial capital, Palangkaraya, but residents said an uneasy peace had been restored by late afternoon. Screaming ‘’long live Dayaks!’’, they swept through the outskirts of Palangkaraya, burning homes abandoned by Madurese. After doing almost nothing to stop the violence since it started, security forces began seizing weapons, fanning through the city and confiscating hundreds of swords and spears from Dayaks. ‘’No one is now allowed to bring weapons onto the streets. This operation will go on,’’ Palangkaraya police chief J.A. Sumampouw said on the telephone. Special forces from the army’s airborne unit are on their way to Borneo to reinforce extra battalions of police and soldiers already sent in to try to restore order. The Dayak rampage has forced more than 30,000 Madurese from their homes. Some remain trapped on Borneo in squalid refugee camps with little or no food as they await evacuation. The influx of outsiders with different culture and religion and a loss of land and jobs has stirred Dayak resentment, frequently boiling over into bloodshed. Hundreds died when tensions spilled over in West Kalimantan previously in recent years. Officials said the province was relatively calm at the moment. Despite what is some of the worst communal bloodshed since he took office 16 months ago, President Wahid has refused to cut short an increasingly criticised two-week trip to Africa and West Asia. ‘’He went abroad when the situation... Is very serious and he didn’t make any instructions to his assistants or the chief of the armed forces or the chief of the army,’’ parliamentary Speaker Akbar Tandjung said. ‘’He only said ‘don’t worry’...the Vice-President will handle the problem”, said Tandjung, who heads the former ruling Golkar party, Parliament’s second biggest. The massacres have given Wahid’s growing number of enemies fresh ammunition to attack the Muslim cleric, already under pressure after a parliamentary censure over two graft scandals. Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, herself criticised for inaction, would visit central Kalimantan soon to assess the situation, Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said. He also said Jakarta would support a declaration of civil emergency — one step short of martial law — there if local authorities deemed it necessary. Meanwhile, with the discovery of 118 more bodies, brought the death toll to 386. The state-run Antara news agency, citing its own figures, has reported that more than 400 people have been killed. “The situation in Sampit has greatly improved, however,” Sardjono told reporters by telephone. “But in the outlying areas and remote areas there is still violence”.
Reuters, DPA |
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Tigers to give up demand for state
Colombo, February 27 The Peace Council said in a statement the meeting last week between members of the LTTE’s political wing and an inter-religious peace delegation from the south of the country was a “positive example of a civic peace initiative”. The Peace Council further insisted a positive response soon made by the government with the LTTE extending its unilateral ceasefire for the third successive month. The meeting took place in LTTE-controlled territory after the peace delegation received approval from both the government and the LTTE. The statement said, “As an organisation that seeks to promote a negotiated political solution to the ethnic conflict, the National Peace Council participated in this meeting between the LTTE and the inter-religious peace delegation”. Regrettably, the LTTE leaders who met the peace delegation are reported to have narrowly escaped being ambushed by suspected government forces shortly after leaving the meeting place. The permission given by the government to the peace delegation to cross over into LTTE-controlled area at this time when the government has refused to reciprocate the LTTE’s unilateral ceasefire needs to be appreciated. “But we see the attempted ambush after a peace meeting as a blow to civic efforts to build bridges of goodwill and understanding between the conflicting parties. We believe that peace making will require restraint and a willingness not to take mean advantage of each and every situation,” the statement said. Meanwhile, hundreds of Sri Lankans, led by Deputy Minister of Social Welfare Mervyn Silva took out a march to the British High Commission office and handed over a petition demanding a ban on the LTTE in the United Kingdom. Earlier, the marchers assembled at the Bandaranaike statue and held a picket campaign addressed by the minister. The march was taken out to press the British authorities in the backdrop of a new anti-terrorist legislation which was introduced by the British Government last week. A list of terrorist organisations which are to be banned by Britain have been submitted to its Parliament. Yesterday, hundreds of cricket fans protested with placards near the venue of the match being played between Sri Lanka and England, demanding that the British Government ban the LTTE activities on its soil. Protesters also walled the Galle Fort stadium and showed their placards, posters and banners including a lengthy banner urging the UK Government to include the Tamil Tigers on a list of terrorist organisations banned under Britain’s new Anti-Terrorism Act. The Cricket Board and the police have enforced stringent measures including a ban on political banners, at the Galle Fort stadium.
— UNI |
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Bhutto plea put off on lawyers’ stir Karachi, February 27 Lawyers for Ms Bhutto, who lives in exile, and her jailed husband, Asif Ali Zardari, did not appear in court in line with the national strike called by Bar Associations throughout the country. “The strike has been successful in the high court level and the lower level. All court proceedings have been adjourned,” Sindh High Court Bar Association president Rashid A. Rizvi said. He said lawyers held meetings around Pakistan and called on the military government of General Pervez Musharraf, to step aside for a new civilian government. The Supreme Court yesterday started hearing Bhutto’s potentially explosive appeal against her 1999 corruption conviction. It was adjourned until tomorrow. The seven-member Bench will hear five different petitions from Bhutto and Zardari. Zardari, a former Senator, is still in prison with failing health, Bhutto has divided her time in exile between London and Dubai and remains at the helm of the Pakistan People’s Party. Success would pave the way for Bhutto to end her exile and lead the democracy movement against the military government.
AFP |
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Sanctions: Powell gets Syrian nod Damascus, February 27 Mr Powell said here last night that tight controls on weapons shipments to Iraq would remain in place even as the burden of economic sanctions on Iraqi people was eased. “I have every reason to believe we are able to keep the box as tightly closed as we have for the past 10 years without receiving the baggage that goes with it,” Mr Powell said after leaving Syria at the end of a six-nation tour of the Middle-East and Persian Gulf areas. The pipeline problem had festered for months. Syria had resisted
US inquiries on reports that it was taking in Iraqi oil, selling its own and sharing the revenue with Baghdad in violation of the un sanctions. Mr Powell said Syrian President Bashar Assad had promised that he would submit to the un sanctions committee both operations of the pipeline through Syria to the Mediterranean Coast and its revenues. Mr Powell further said
US President George W Bush told him that he was pleased with the commitment. Mr Powell said he was convinced in talks with Arab leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria that the sanctions regime could be modified for consumer and even some dual-use goods. He admitted to risk in the second category, civilian items with potential military applications such as water pumps that were vital to poor villages but banned under the sanctions. Mr Powell also stressed that modifications in the sanctions must involve tightening of questionable exports to Iraq from front-line states, neighbours like Jordan and Syria. He said he planned to take soundings from the
NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, where he flew from Damascus and to consult further with the Arabs with the aim of deciding on a new sanctions regime by late March when Arab leaders hold a summit meeting in Jordan’s capital Amman.
AP |
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India producing N-weapons, says CIA report
Washington, February 27 The agency in its report submitted to the US Congress said there are evidence that New Delhi obtained some foreign assistance for its civilian nuclear power programme during the first half of 2000 primarily from Russia. The US State Department has recently criticised Russia for providing assistance to India’s nuclear
programme. |
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Labour votes to join Sharon Govt Tel Aviv, February 27 Approximately two-thirds of those voting supported the idea and only around one-third voted against, last night. But less than half the Central Committee’s 1,700 members bothered to vote in the secret ballot or to show up for the debate which preceded the voting. Labour elder statesman Shimon Peres, a leading advocate of a unity government, said after the vote that the result was an unequivocal decision for good of the country and good of the party. Peres expects to be named Foreign Minister in the new government. However, the Central Committee also decided that it ,and not party leaders ,should decide on who would serve as ministers in the new government. The committee would convene soon to decide on Labour’s list of ministers. Yesterday’s exceptionally unruly central committee session which preceded the voting reflected how the party was split on the unity government issue, with both opponents and supporters of the move shouted down by members of the audience opposed to their views. The party’s legal advisor presented the government guidelines agreed upon with the Likud and list of portfolios Labour would receive: foreign affairs, defence, transportation, agriculture, trade and industry and science, culture and
sports. The Labour would also be allocated two ministers without portfolio. Meanwhile, the party’s constitutional body decided that a new party head - even a temporary one - had to be elected in accordance with party protocol which determines that others should also be allowed to challenge for the position.
DPA |
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Putin backs Korean unity Seoul, February 27 The two leaders were expected to issue a joint declaration at around (10.30 pm IST) after their meeting that would emphasise
wide-ranging cooperation in trade, diplomacy and investment. “Russia considers North Korean and South Korean relations very important for Russia’s view of the region’s geopolitical framework,” Mr Putin told a gathering of Korean businessmen, adding Moscow would work to promote a thaw on the peninsula. Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Putin placed incense on a flame before a monument to South Koreans who died fighting the Communist North — a clear symbol of how Moscow’s role has changed from Cold War patron of Pyongyang to eager trading partner of Seoul. Mr Putin acknowledged economic ties between Moscow and Seoul had been disappointing so far, but promised to improve conditions for investment by reforming tax policy, land-ownership and currency exchange rules for foreigners. South Korea is becoming an important market for Russian exports — especially of oil and gas — but Korean firms have been slow to make major direct investments in Russia. “South Korea’s investment in Russia has not been smooth,” Mr Putin said. “Korea had planned to carry out 126 investment projects worth $273 million, but in reality, only 91 projects worth $137 million are under way.”
Reuters |
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Bamiyan Buddhas face axe Islamabad, February 27 The first targets could be the collection of the national museum in Kabul — already suspected of being vandalised — and Afghanistan’s best-known archaeological site, the two towering Buddhas carved into a cliff face at Bamiyan. “There is a decision of religious scholars on this matter, this will be implemented — for sure,” Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban Ambassador in Pakistan, told Reuters TV after reading out the formal decree ordering the destruction. Zaeef dismissed criticism by the United Nations — which has placed the Bamiyan statues on its list of world heritage monuments — as interference in its internal affair and the Taliban’s religious beliefs. The action was necessary to ensure no one worshipped a statue. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar as being unyielding about protests: “I don’t care about anything else but Islam.” Zaeef read a statement sent from Taliban headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar after the decision of a religious committee ordering the smashing of all statues. “Even if the pieces of the destroyed statues made of gems, stones and metal can be of value to its owner, these remaining parts should also be smashed,” said Zaeef. The Taliban, which has vowed to create what it sees as the world’s purest Islamic state, has closed down television and banned photography of people in the more than 90 per cent of Afghan territory it rules. “As Islamic sharia (law) orders the destruction of statues and considers the drawing of portraits a mockery to the servants of Allah, the destruction of any site decorated with pictures is necessary,” the statement said. First news of the edict on statues came on Monday in an announcement by the Taliban’s radio that Omar had ordered the destruction of all statues. The Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation immediately urged all concerned, especially Afghans, to “stop the destruction of their cultural heritage.” “Situated at a crossroads of the ancient Silk Route, Afghanistan enjoys a unique cultural heritage marked by multiple influences from Persia, Greece, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam,” UNESCO said. But Zaeef said the destruction of statues, including those in Bamiyan that soar 53 metres (178 feet) and 38 metres (125 feet) respectively, would eliminate only “a small percentage” of the country’s heritage. Most statues date from nearly 2,000 years ago, when Afghanistan was a centre of Buddhist learning and pilgrimage. They were largely untouched for more than a millennium after the arrival of Islam, surviving even the onslaughts of Genghis Khan in the 13th century and Tamerlane in the 14th century. The decision to destroy all statues is likely to further damage relations with other governments as the announcement coincided with a visit to Afghanistan by a UNESCO delegation.
Reuters |
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Opposition-backed bandh draws flak Dhaka, February 27 In recent days even university authorities switched over to holding examinations in the evening if the shutdown is enforced during daytime. Usually rickshaws and autorickshaws ply during the hartal. However, sometime they fall victim to the anger of the picketers. Yesterday also two cars were set ablaze and many rickshaws damaged by the hartal supporters. The two-day hartal (shutdown) ended yesterday (Monday) without any major incident or clash with the ruling party. The ruling party leaders and the media criticised the programme of shutdown on these two days, as the reason given was not very convincing. The four-party alliance had to reduce the duration of the shutdown on Monday from 12 hours to seven hours beginning at 6 a.m. The ruling party was also considering, according to influential Weekly Dhaka Courier, to hand over power earlier than schedule — either on March 30 or on April 17 this year. They will try to catch the opposition off guard by doing this. The ruling party was claiming that they would step down only on completion of term on July 13, the last day of the present Parliament. The hint of handing over power ahead of schedule came from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Recently she urged the opposition leader Ms Khaleda Zia to shun street agitations, end Parliament boycott and ask for elections. |
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Japan PM to quit ‘on March 13’ Tokyo, February 27 The Asahi Shimbun reported that executives of three ruling coalition parties met on Monday and agreed that Mr Mori should announce his resignation at the Liberal Democratic Party’s convention on March 13. The executives of the three parties — the LDP, the New Komeito Party and the New Conservative Party — agreed that Mr Mori should step down in April, when the LDP would elect a new party president. The LDP president automatically becomes Prime Minister.
DPA |
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New evidence of life on Mars Washington, February 27 An international team of researchers working with a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica discovered magnetite crystals arranged in long chains within the potato-sized space rock. Those chains could only have been formed by once-living organisms, the US space agency said yesterday in a statement. “The chains we discovered are of biological origin,” Imre Friedmann of the NASA’s Ames Research Centre in California said in a statement. “Such a chain of magnets outside an organism would immediately collapse into a clump due to magnetic forces.” Each magnetite crystal in the chain was a microscopic magnet and they were strung together like pearls in a necklace, according to the researchers. Magnetite is an iron oxide, something like iron rust. The meteorite under study, known to scientists as ALH84001, was discovered in the Antarctic in 1984 Friedmann’s research team said the magnetite crystals formed inside organic material whose structure held the crystals together.
Reuters |
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