Witnesses fail to testify against Mandela
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
(AP) - Two key state witnesses said
they feared reprisals and refused
Wednesday to testify against Winnie
Mandela, dealing a severe blow to the
prosecution’s case.
Kenneth Kgase and Tabiso Mono
appeared in the Rand Supreme Court
but their refusal to give evidence left
the state without its main witnesses in
die trial against Mandela, wife of
African National Congress leader
Nelson Mandela.
She and three others have been
charged with four counts each of
kidnapping and assault. '
Prosecutor Jan Swanepoel said the
state’s case was based on the testi
mony of Kgase, Mono and Gabriel
Mekgwe, three of the four young men
allegedly abducted and beaten at
Mandela’s Soweto home in Decem
ber 1988. The fourth, 14-year-old
Stompie Seipei, was found dead in a
field a week later.
Mekgwe disappeared Sunday.
Swanepoel said he was kidnapped,
and Kgase and Mono said they fear
for their own lives.
The South African Press Associa
tion, meanwhile, reported that a man
claiming to be Mekgwe called the
news agency Wednesday night and
said he was in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The caller said he did not feel safe in
South Africa, SAP A said. Asked why,
the man responded, “Because I know
if you don’t want to give evidence in
South Africa, you can be detained.”
The independent news agency said
the man spoke to a reporter familiar
with Mekgwe, and the reporter said
the caller’s voice was similar to the
missing witness’.
Kgase and Mono could receive up
to two years in prison for refusing to
testify, but Kgase said he preferred
that to possible physical harm.
“I really like my life, I want my
life,” Kgase said.
Kgase’s lawyer, Paul Kennedy, said
his client had been prepared to testify
until the disappearance of Mekgwe.
He argued that his client should not
be imprisoned because the case was
extraordinary, with Kgase facing
possible recrimination long after its
completion.
Judge M.S. Stegmann said he would
rule Thursday on whether the wit
nesses would be imprisoned, which
could effectively halt the trial.
The case could damage relations
between the ANC and the govern
ment as they prepare for negotiations
on a new constitution to end white
minority rule.
Mandela flew to Cape Town on
Tuesday and held a lengthy meeting
with President F.W. de Klerk. In a
joint statement, they said they had
ironed out problems in the ongoing
talks between the ANC and white-led
government. Mandela has given no
indication the talks will be jeopard
ized by his wife’s trial.
Gas tanker truck overturns,
fire threatens suburban homes
(JAKMiLHAfcL, Calif. (AP) -
A seven-alarm fire erupted early
today when a gasoline tanker truck
overturned, setting off 100-foot
high walls of flame and threaten
ing “a country block” of homes
and apartments.
Flames licked up from opened
manhole covers in cul-de-sacs in
the Sacramento suburb as burning
gasoline spilled into storm drains.
“We were asleep in our apart
ment and heard stuff blowing up
outside. We looked out and it was
cars exploding in the parking lot,”
said Michelle Sumrall, who fled in
her bathrobe and boarded an evacu
ation bus at dawn.
“It looked like the Fourth of
July,” she said.
More than 100 firefighters evacu
ated an area of two square miles,
including a convalescent hospital.
Several homes and apartments ’
burned, Sacramento Fire Protec
tion District officials said.
A firefighter, the tanker truck
driver and one resident suffered
minor injuries, said Battalion Chief
Dennis Plessas of the American
River Fire Protection District.
“We saved two homes. When
we rolled up, the flames were 60
80 feet out of a ditch behind the
houses. The spa was starting to
melt, the fence was smoking and
we hit it with water,” said Fire
Capt. J. Daugherty.
The fire started at 3:05 a.m.
when the tanker loaded with 8,400
gallons of gasoline turned over near
die Sacramento River, fire offi
cials said.
“1—
Sacramento
Carmichael: 100
firefighters evacuate ^
2-square-mile area
Calif.
Bakersfield
Knight-Ridder Tribune News
Centrum store owners to4 stick it out’
By Cindy Kimbrough
Staff Reporter
Managers of Centrum businesses
said they were disappointed at Mayor
Bill Harris’s announcement last Thurs
day that redevelopment of the shop
ping center has been discontinued,
but plan to “stick it out.”
Lori Ruhl, manager of Braun’s
Fashions in the Centrum Plaza, 11th
and O streets, said that in the back of
their minds. Centrum occupants were
expecting the redevelopment plans to
falter.
But, she said, business managers
are keeping a positive attitude and are
not giving up and moving out.
“We’ re going to do the best we can
and play it by ear,” Ruhl said.
The announcement to halt the $ 1.5
million renovation plans came in a
letter to Steve Watson of Centrum
Partners, ending a 1 1/2-year state of
limbo.
Plans had included moving back
the north wall to build a glass-en
closed plaza, leasing the plaza for
festivals and moving the Lincoln
Children’s Museum from the Atrium
to the Centrum. •
Diane Cunningham, manager of
Seiferts at the Centrum, said she didn’t
expect the end of redevelopment plans
to affect business very much.
Business in the Centrum hadn’t
changed much since Dillard’s closed
its downtown store last spring, she
said, and retail everywhere has been
slower anyway.
“We were so hoping it (the reno
vation plans) would go through, but
we will stick together and stay here,”
she said.
Connie Mahaney, owner of From
Nebraska, one of the newer businesses
at the Centrum, agreed that business
at the Centrum has stayed the same.
From Nebraska has even grown, she
said.
Business managers had been wait
ing for something to happen and maybe
now a different plan will be devel
oped, Mahaney said. She said she
would like to see some new busi
nesses move into the empty spaces,
but now it may not happen.
“It’s a shame it is so empty,” she
said.
But she said she would “stick it
out” like everyone else.
Discovery
Continued from Page 1
have lived in marine water. Harwood
said that suggests large seas once
existed in areas that now are covered
with about two miles of ice.
On another trip, Harwood found
pieces of wood that were dated at
three million years. That discovery,
he said, did not convince skeptics that
Antarctica was once warmer because
it could not be proved that the wood
wasn’t brought there from another
climate.
The recently discovered leaves have
silenced many skeptics, he said, be
cause they could not have been trans
ported. Instead, the leaves were pre
served where they fell.
Harwood said graduate student
Richard Graham, who was with Har
wood in Antarctica, will work to date
the leaves more accurately with a
method that measures how long rocks
have been exposed to solar radiation.
The current dating of the leaf
bearing rocks is based on marine fossils
found among the leaves. But that age
determination will be challenged by
skeptics, and Harwood and Graham
are preparing for those challenges by
providing better evidence of the leaves’
age.
Harwood said the discovery of the
leaves will benefit other areas of sci
ence.
He said he is shipping 150 pounds
of the rocks bearing the leaves to a
colleague in Tasmania, who will study
the fossils to learn about plant evolu
tion. Comparisons will be made be
tween the fossil leaves and existing
plant life on other continents.
Other researchers arc waiting for
the fossils to examine them for in
sects and other'organisms, Harwood
said. They will look for the last survi
vors of an arctic cooling that led to
formation of a permanent Antarctic
ice cap about three million years ago.
Harwood has been at UNL for a
year and was previously at Ohio State
University. He still is working in
conjunction with scientists at Ohio
Slate’s Byrd Polar Research Center.
War
Continued from Page 1
said allied warplanes lasl Saturday
attacked their bus as it left Kuwait,
killing 30 of their countrymen.
At U.N. headquarters in New York,
where Third World diplomats sought
an open Security Council discussion
on the conflict, an African delegate,
Bagbeni Nzengeya of Zaire, said the
civilian deaths “will make everyone
think again about the scope of the
war.”
Iraq’s foreign minister, Tariq Az.tz,
will fly to Moscow this weekend to
meet with Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev, a Soviet spokesman said.
A Soviet envoy’s talks Tuesday witn
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in
Baghdad “give cause for hope,” the
spokesman said without elaboration.
The deadly Baghdad air strike was
among 2,800 sorties mounted by
Operation Desert Storm on Wednes
day in favorably clear skies.
About one-third of the missions
were directed at targets in southern
Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, aimed
at “softening up” the dug-in positions
of Iraqi troops before the expected
ground offensive by the U.S.-led alli
ance.
Saudi officers reported that one of
their attack planes, an F-5, was lost on
a bombing mission against ground
forces in Iraq, and the pilot was listed
as missing.
rNEWS BRIEFS
AIDS group meets
The AIDS Coalition to Un
leash Power-Nebraska will meet
for the first time Saturday.
ACT-UP Nebraska will be a
direct-action organization dedi
cated to challenging homopho
bia, discrimination and govern
mental and private sector re
sponses to AIDS. Its activities
may inc’ude boycotting homo
phobic activities and products,
picketing, demonstrating and
writing letters.
People of all sexual orienta
tions who support the cause are
encouraged to attend.
Two park rangers charged
in murder of British tourist
N AIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Two park
rangers were charged with murder
Wednesday in the 1988 slaying, dis
memberment and burning of a young
British tourist in one of Kenya’s best
known game sanctuaries.
Jonah T. Magiroi, 28, and Peter M.
Kipeen, 26, both Kenyans, remained
mute in a five-minute court appear
ance on charges of murdering Julie
Anne Ward, an amateur wildlife
photographer, in the Masai Mara Game
Reserve.
The prosecution told Chief Magis
trate George Omondi-Tunya docu
ments detailing the charges were
incomplete and the two were not
required to enter pleas. They were
ordered held for a further court ap
pearance Feb. 27. The two face the
death penalty if convicted.
Ward’s charred lower left leg and
lower jaw were found in the sprawl
ing game reserve in southwestern
Kenya on Sept. 13,1988, a week after
warn mm mm mm mm warn mm mm mm wm am i
she was reported missing.
The rented vehicle of the 28-year
old woman was found abandoned about
10 miles from her remains.
Police initially said the woman
was killed by wild animals as she set
out on foot from her disabled vehicle
to seek help, but were unable to ex
plain the burning of her remains.
Ward’s father, John Ward, insisted
his daughter was murdered and pressed
his own investigation. His efforts led
to a 23-day inquest in Nairobi in
1989. The presiding magistrate held
that Ward had been murdered, but
failed to establish how or by whom.
He ordered the case reopened.
Two Scotland Yard detectives who
were invited to help in the renewed
investigation recommended in March
1990 that two unidentified rangers be
charged with the murder.
They said the rangers were on duty
at the time Ward disappeared and
were in the area not far from where
her remains were discovered.
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