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Monday,
March 4, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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21
Israelis die in two Palestinian attacks Mugabe’s
72 ‘torture’ camps Pakistan
towns, Kabul rocked Pervez
wants India to check violence Pak
military regime harsh on Press |
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Syria’s
misgivings on Saudi plan 10
Maoists shot
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21 Israelis die in two Palestinian attacks
Jerusalem, March 3 It said a lone gunman with a sniper’s rifle had opened fire on the checkpoint, near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, north-east of Ramallah, from a hill. The gunman escaped, it added. The statement listed the dead as seven soldiers, two of them officers, and three civilians. The ambush was one of two deadly attacks carried out by Palestinian militants after a devastating Jerusalem suicide bombing, raising to 21 the number of Israelis killed in 24 hours in one of the worst surges of violence in the West Asia conflict. Later, Israeli Apache helicopters fired shells at the Palestinian Authority headquarters and a small factory in Bethlehem which the military said was in retaliation to the suicide strike. The attack came barely 12 hours after a suicide bomber blew himself up killing nine Israelis and injuring over 40 others as people were coming out of the synagogues marking the end of the Jewish Sabbat yesterday. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said it was behind the strike.
Al-Aqsa, the military wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and Hamas have claimed responsibility for the gun attack. Shortly after the shooting attack, an Israeli was killed and four injured in an ambush by armed Palestinians at a security fence near the Kissufim crossing point between Israel and the central Gaza Strip, Channel One television reported. A building was damaged in the suicide attack, initially thought to be a car bomb. Al Jazeera television identified the bomber as a 19-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Dararmeh, from the Deheisheh refugee camp near the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Palestinian authority promptly condemned the suicide strike but held the Israeli government responsible for the “latest escalation” in violence. The USA condemned the attack and called on Mr Arafat to stop those responsible. “The USA condemns in the strongest possible terms this terrorist outrage,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Reuters, PTI  |
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Mugabe’s 72 ‘torture’ camps Bulawayo, March 3 Faced with defeat for the first time since his party came to power in 1980 after overthrowing white minority rule, the 78-year-old President is turning on his own people in an orchestrated campaign of violence and intimidation. As Commonwealth leaders meet in Australia, an Observer investigation has uncovered evidence that Mugabe’s state-security apparatus has created dozens of camps where civilians are being tortured for suspected “disloyalty” to the ruling Zanu-PF government. Mugabe, who last month reassured the international community that the elections would be “free and fair”, has barred British newspapers from reporting them. The Observer entered the country illegally last week and found scores of incidents where ordinary Zimbabweans had been shipped to the camps, beaten and in some cases even killed after being branded opponents of the regime. During a 625-mile trip through Matabeleland, we saw villagers displaying horrific wounds after being held at camps by gangs of youths dubbed the “Taliban” by local people. The youths, whose ages range from 10 to 30, are officially members of the National Youth Training Programme, a supposedly voluntary organisation formed last year by Mugabe’s government to instil “patriotism” in young people and remind them of the sacrifices made in the war against Ian Smith’s Rhodesian army. Instead, after training at military camps, the 20,000-strong militia has been deployed to set up camps and round up suspected dissidents, “re-educating” them by means of psychological and physical torture. In what one leading Zimbabwean academic described as an attempted coup d’etat by Mugabe, youth militias last week seized dozens of suspected opposition sympathisers identified by agents of the Central Intelligence Organisation, the Stasi-trained secret police force. (E. German) Fearing exposure by international election observers in Zimbabwe ahead of the poll, the youths were operating after dark, blocking roads leading to rural areas away from the main cities and terrorising residents of small villages. With blood still oozing from his ears, his arm broken and a gap where his front teeth had been knocked out, Trust Sibanda (31) slumped under a tree as the sun rose and gave a chilling insight into the militia, whose members receive wages and food from the government. Twenty youths approached him, waving a piece of paper with his name at the top. They accused him of being a supporter of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition party tipped in unofficial polls to win the elections, and demanded to know why he was not carrying a Zanu-PF membership card. One man kicked him in the crotch. As he collapsed, four others grabbed each limb and threw him into the back of a waiting truck. Not only are youths lacking patriotic memories of the liberation struggle being terrorised: Eddie Nhlanga, (45) fought for Mugabe’s guerrilla force during the war of independence, which ended in 1979 with victory against white minority rule. Last week, Nhlanga was again living in the bush. This time he was hiding from his former comrades after being denounced as a traitor with suspected MDC sympathies. More than a dozen other victims gave accounts of similar violence and intimidation. Their testimony was yesterday backed by human rights groups in Zimbabwe. The militias have established 72 base camps across the country, according to the Human Rights Forum. “In many cases the militia are living at the bases and in other cases using them as launch pads for raids on villages in the rural areas or suburbs in the cities,” a spokesman said. Independent human rights monitors have recorded similar beatings, tortures, rapes and killings, in both rural and urban areas. There was evidence that food supplies were being manipulated for Mugabe’s benefit. Crowds gathered outside a shop known as a meeting place for MDC members. The windows had been smashed after an attack by more than 100 militiamen. Maize, the local staple, had not been delivered for more than 48 hours. Fifty miles away, beside a 600-strong camp of Zanu militia, lorries were unloading sacks of maize. Opposition politicians said locals were allowed food only if they swore to vote for Mugabe; this could not be confirmed. The President is battling for his political life. Amid unconfirmed reports that he has made contingency plans to leave the country aboard a helicopter on 24-hour standby at his palace in Harare, political analysts, opposition groups and local journalists believe Mugabe is using terror to create a low turn-out at the election, which begins on Saturday. Yet there is widespread confidence among the opposition that Mugabe, who narrowly avoided defeat in parliamentary elections two years ago, is facing humiliation at the polls. “There is no question about who will win,’ said Gibson Sibanda, the MDC’s vice-president, at the party’s Bulawayo headquarters, earlier this year. “The MDC will win: the people want change.” It may not prove that simple. Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist whose fiftieth birthday is on the day the polls close on Sunday, and Mugabe’s sole threat for the presidency, was arrested last week and charged with plotting to assassinate his opponent. The man behind the tapes was later shown to have links with Mugabe. The MDC, formed with the backing of white businessmen after farm seizures began two years ago, has been criticised by Mugabe as the stooges of white racists intent on overthrowing legitimate black rule. Although funded by white money, the MDC has a strong streak of black support and a network of local activists who no longer see race as an issue affecting the country’s future prosperity.
The Observer, London |
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Pakistan towns, Kabul rocked
Islamabad, March 3 The tremors, which lasted for several seconds, were felt here around 5.45 p.m. The shocks were felt twice in succession, forcing people out of their buildings and also rattled windows. The tremors were also felt in a number of towns and villages in the country, including northwestern town of Peshawar. However, there was no report of damage to life and property due to the quake. Kabul: Residents of Kabul fled into the streets in panic as a strong earthquake shook the Afghan capital this afternoon. The severe quake hit around 1740 IST and lasted about three minutes. Shopkeepers closed their shops and residents fled their homes as the quake struck. Some houses appeared to have been damaged as a thick cloud of dust was thrown into the air. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The quake had its epicentre in Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, about 250 km north of the western Pakistani city of Peshawar, seismological officials in Islamabad said. They said the quake measured more than 6.0 on the Richter scale but that an exact reading was not yet available.
Agencies |
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Pervez wants India to check violence
Islamabad, March 3 General Musharraf in a message here said the Indian Government must “strengthen” its measures to protect the minority community. “All those responsible for the violence need to be arrested and punished,” the message said. The Pakistan President said the “mayhem” in India once again highlighted the danger posed by politics of communalism and the forces of extremism and terrorism. He said the international community could not afford to be complacent or to take a biased view on this evil. It should be combated in whichever form it manifests and wherever it exists. General Musharraf said: “The attack on (a coach of the Sabarmati) train on February 27, which led to the loss of more than 50 lives, was deplorable, but it could (not) provide licence for the reprehensible brutalities and violence against the Muslim community.’’ The largescale deaths, destruction of property and desecration of religious places had caused distress and concern among the people of Pakistan, the message added. Meanwhile Pakistan has strongly condemned the ‘abduction, illegal detention and torture’ of two officials of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi by ‘Indian intelligence sleuths’ on Saturday. According to a press release issued by the Foreign Office, Indian intelligence operatives ‘attacked’ a Pakistan High Commission car in which the two officials were proceeding to New Delhi railway station. The officials were ‘dragged from the car’ and subjected to ‘severe beating’ while being ‘accused of pick-pocketing’. Their car was also badly damaged. They were kept in ‘illegal detention,
severely beaten and tortured’ which resulted in visible injuries on their bodies, the release said.
UNI |
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Pak military regime harsh on Press
Islamabad, March 3 Under the shadow of killing, detention and attacks on journalists the media also faces intimidation and threat. Over 25 incidents of attacks and arrests of mediapersons were reported in 2000, the International Press Institute (IPI) said in its latest report. The authorities have also stopped entry of Indian journalists into Pakistan in view of the border standoff between the two countries The foreign media representatives also faced harassment and victimisation while covering the developments in Afghanistan. Killing of Daniel Pearl, Wall Street Journal, being a stark reminder of possible consequence. Incidents of assault have also been reported, Mr Robert Fisk working with a London-based daily “Independent’’ was attacked by a mob of Afghan refugees near Chamman border. He suffered injuries in the head, face and hand. In a similar incident two photographers of The New York Times and Patrick Elaventurier of the Gamma Agency were beaten up by policemen with sticks and butts of their rifles in Quetta November last. Press people were also picked up by the authorities and harassed, Mr Jon Ingemundsew, Swedish newspaper photographer and Pakistani photo journalist Ghafar Baig were interrogated by the security forces near
Peshawar. UNI |
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Syria’s misgivings on Saudi plan
Beirut, March 3 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insisted in a joint statement there could be no compromise on a right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land and that Arabs should support the 17-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israel. It said Syria would remain committed “to reactivating a just and comprehensive peace” based on U.N. resolutions and the 1991 Madrid land-for peace formula, which, it said, stipulates Israeli withdrawal from all Arab lands occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem. The statement also called for “the elimination of all Jewish settlements and the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital Jerusalem and the withdrawal from the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel from Syria in June 1967. SIRTE (LIBYA): Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa held urgent talks on Sunday with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who has rejected the Saudi peace plan and threatened to quit the Arab body. On his arrival in Libya’s Mediterranean city of Sirte, Moussa said his trip came “at a very important time” ahead of the March 27-28 Arab summit, the Middle East News Agency reported. The hastily arranged trip to Libya follows a speech by Gaddafi on Saturday in which he rejected the Saudi land-for-peace plan and threatened to withdraw from the Arab League over what he considered lack of support for his own peace initiative.
Reuters |
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10 Maoists shot Kathmandu, March 3 The army also detained six suspected guerrillas and seized several weapons from hideouts, it said in a statement. On Saturday, five guerrillas were shot dead in Gorkha, four in Kalkot and one in Lamjung in western Nepal, a stronghold of the rebels battling for a Communist republic in the Himalayan kingdom. The guerrillas ended a truce and four months of talks with the government last November, prompting a state of emergency. More than 1,000 people, including security personnel and guerrillas, have died in the fighting since then. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who came to power last July pledging peace with the rebels, has rejected any fresh talks until the guerrillas lay down their arms.
Reuters |
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Jerusalem, March 3
