News Digest Edited by Jennifer O'Cilka
Kurdish rebels retreating into mountains
OUTSKIRTS OF DOHUK, Iraq -
Kurdish rebels Monday retreated on
foot into their traditional mountain
strongholds, surrendering more ur
ban centers under a steady onslaught
by Iraqi loyalist forces.
Also Monday, Iraq said it captured
documents proving the complicity of
more than one foreign government in
unrest designed to unseat Saddam
Hussein and accused the United States
of 92 “provocative” reconnaissance
flights last weekend.
Baghdad said its troops had re
taken Dohuk, Erbil and Zahko.
Low on morale, frightened refu
gees asked why President Bush and
his allies were allowing Saddam to
use artillery and helicopters to break
the rebellion.
“Why have they abandoned us to
Saddam?” refugees repeatedly asked
Western reporters.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds
fearing government reprisals were
fleeing by any means possible into
the mountains along the Iranian and
Turkish borders, turning roadways into
ribbons of humanity.
Many women and children were
forced to walk. Some laid on the
roadside without food or water. Refu
gees camped in the mountains, with
out protection from rainstorms and
the cold.
In Washington, State Department
deputy spokesman Richard Boucher
said heavy fighting continued in north
ern Iraq.
The oil center of Kirkuk “seems to
remain in government hands despite
renewed fighting in that city late Fri
day and Saturday,” he said. Govern
ment forces had taken control of Erbil
and Dohuk, and have also moved
against rebel forces in the Zahko area
along the Iraqi-Turkish border.
Boucher also said there had been
additional fighting near Basra and in
the lower Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
U.S. officers said Iraqi troops had
crushed uprisings by Shiite Muslims
in southern Iraq, and some units were
being redeployed north to put down
the Kurdish uprising.
“Whoever is revolting is losing,”
said Lt Col. John Kalb of Bay Vil
lage, Ohio, whose 3rd Armored Divi
sion units operate a refugee camp
inside allied-occupied Iraq.
One of the senior U.S. Army
commanders along the border area,
Col. Bill Nash of the 3rd Armored
Division’s First Brigade, said some
Iraqis arriving at the camp or nearby
checkpoints claim to be resistance
leaders and have asked for arms to
combat Saddam’s forces.
The Bush administration last week
said it would not help the rebels,
although it remains hopeful that Sad
dam’s forces have been weakened
enough that the Iraqi leader could be
deposed at some point.
Both the Kurds and the Shiite
Muslims of southern Iraq rose against
the Iraqi government after U.S.-led
coalition forces routed Saddam 's troops
from Kuwait in February. Iraqi troops
moved against the Kurds after beat
ing back the Shiites.
“Iraqi forces attacked the towns of
Erbil and Dohuk with air and artillery
shellings. Helicoptergunships, fixed
wing aircraft and multiple rocket
launchers were used indiscriminately,”
Hoshyar Zebari of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party said in London.
The umbrella Iraqi Kurdish Front
on Sunday accused loyalists ol using
napalm, phosphorous bombs and other
weapons in Erbil.
INA quoted the government-run
newspaper Al-Joumhuriya as saying
Monday that searches Friday in Erbil
and Kirkuk produced “weapons,
equipment and documents that con
firm the involvement of more than
one foreign party in the events of
March in the region.”
In other gulf developments Mon
day:
•The U.N. Security Council sched
uled its First consultations on the
proposed gulf war cease-fire resolu
tion.
•Ayatollah Mohammed Taki Mo
daresi, a Shiite Muslim rebel leader,
claimed in Damascus, Syria, that
southern rebels made a nighttime at
tack on government headquarters in
the holy city of Karbala.
Iraqis still in control
of Kuwaiti territory
ABDALY, Kuwait - More than a
month after President Bush declared
Kuwait liberated, Iraqi forces still
control a small pocket of the emir
ate’s territory, a Kuwaiti tank com
mander said Monday.
About 300 Iraqi soldiers remain
inside Kuwait, just south of the Iraqi
port of Um Qasr, Capt. Nasser Al
Duwaila said. He badly wants to get
them out.
“This is our land,” said Al-Duwaila,
the acting commander of Kuwait’s
7th Armored Battalion. “Kuwait is
not free if there is one Iraqi soldieron
our land.”
Al-Duwaila said there were no
Kuwaiti officers in authority when
allied units first moved into the area,
apparently producing brief uncertainty
about the border’s location.
“This is a big mistake here,” Al
Duwaila recalled telling allied offi
cers when he reached the area later.
“They said, 'No, there’s a cease-fire.’”
Bush called off the pursuit of Iraqi
forces on Feb. 28, declaring that
'“Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is
defeated.”
The area in question covers about
two square miles directly south of
Um Qasr, and was attacked by Iraq
once before, in 1973, Al-Duwaila said.
He said the Iraqis occupy scattered
Kuwaiti military facilities, including
a barracks and an observation post.
They have built new roads “so
they can say to the world, ‘there are
our roads, this is our area,’” he said.
“Their plan is to cut up our land piece
by piece.”
The matter has been brought to the
attention of allied headquarters in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
One of the senior U.S. Army
commanders along the border area,
Col. Bill Nash of the 3rd Armored
Division’s First Brigade, said he knew
of the Kuwuiu complaints but ex
pressed no interest in getting involved.
“Our task is to defend the DML
(the demarcation line established at
the end of hostilities), not the interna
tional boundary he said. “I’m where
I’m supposed to be, and nobody has
intruded into my space.”
Nash of Hayden, Ariz., said there
was no indication of significant Iraqi
military movements in the region as a
formal cease-fire becomes increas
ingly likely. “There’s no military threat
to my command,” he said.
Al-Duwaila said he was confident
that the U.S. commander, Gen. Nor
man Schwarzkopf, would eventually
| IRAQ
AP
ensure that Kuwait’s long-disputed
borders w ith Iraq were protected.
“We are a small country and we
can’t afford to lose any piece of our
land,” he told reporters visiting his
command post. “We want it back
immediately.”
Al-Duwaila said he told allied
officers at a weekend meeting that
they should oust the Iraqis themselves,
or allow Kuwaiti troops to reclaim
the area, or let Kuwaiti forces occupy
a similar-size portion of Iraq until a
formal cease-fire is signed.
Communists claim victory
TIRANA, Albania * Communists
claimed a convincing victory Mon
day in Albania’s historic multiparty
elections, but the opposition scored
wins in all major cities and beat Presi
dent Ramiz Alia .n his parliamentary
race.
The main opposition Democratic
Party conceded it had garnered fewer
than one-third of the seats in the leg
islature, but predicted the Commu
nists would soon lose their giip on
power anyway.
Sunday’s election effectively ended
one-party rule in Albania, which had
been the last hard-line Communist
holdout in Europe.
Official results were not yet avail
able. Transportation and communi
cations are primitive in the impover
ished BrJkan nation, which is strug
gling to emerge from nearly a half
century of Stalinist rule and interna
tional isolation.
The Party of Labor, as the Com
munists call themselves, said it won
about two-thirds of the 250 seats in
the People’s Assembly parliament.
Communist spokesman Xhelil
Ghoni said the results showed the
parly is “the major political party in
our country, and it enjoys the 4*11
trust of the people.”
The opposition had been euphoric
late Sunday as initial results showed
it doing well in Albania’s cities. But
when returns began coming in from
“44 --
Yesterday, we marked
not a Democratic vic
tory, but a victory for
democracy.
Pashko
Democratic Party leader
-» -
the countryside, it became clear the
Communists would keep the power
they have guarded for 46 years.
It was unclear whether the Com
munists and the opposition could
cooperate in the legislature after the
election, which split Albania’s 3.2
million people along geographic and
demographic lines.
One of the Democrats’ leaders,
Sali Berisha, told about 3,000 sup
porters at a rally outside party head
quarters that “there will be no coali
tion’’ with the Communists.
Berisha said his party would take
about 72 seats.
Official television said the Party
of Labor would win about 167 seats in
parliament. It projected the Demo
crats would win 65 seats. It said an
ethnic Greek party had won three
seals.
Elections were not held in one
district in the city of Pogradec be
cause of a controversy over the
Democratic Party candidate. Runoffs
will be held next Sunday in a handful
of districts where no candidate re
ceived a majority.
Opposition leaders urged their
supporters to be calm, fearing their
dashed hopes would translate into
violence, and predicted they would
eventually dislodge the Communists'
grip on power.
“Yesterday, we marked not a
Democratic victory, but a victory for
democracy,” said Democratic Party
leader, Gramoz Pashko, said. “The
Communists who sucked our blood
for 46 years are finished. Within two
months they will be in pieces.”
Their supporters greeted the
speeches by Pashko and Berisha with
shouts of “Down with the dictator
ship!” Some wept in disappointment.
Pashko and Berisha had strong leads
in the unofficial tally in their urban
districts in Vlora and Kavaje, party
officials said.
Alia, who succeeded Stalinist leader
Enver Hoxha, suffered an embarrass
ing defeat in his Tirana district race.
Sources said he won only 36 per
cent of the vote in his contest with the
Democrats’ Franko Krrogi, a little
known engineer, despite the fact that
soldiers had been brought in to vote in
his district. That is legal under Al
banian election law.
Nationwide price hikes
Moscow food stores close
MOSCOW - Food stores in the
Soviet capita] closed Monday to curb
panic-buying on the eve of whopping
nationwide price hikes. City officials
warned of unrest, and bakers boosted
output for an avalanche of shoppers.
“We haven’t had time to unload
the bread from one truck to another!”
said Nina Vorokina, controller at a
major bread store on Novoarbat
Prospect.
Elsewhere in the capital, long lines
formed outside bakeries, and the scene
was repeated in the Soviet cities of
Irkutsk, Tashkent and Leningrad.
On Tuesday, prices across the Soviet
Union were to double for milk, triple
for beef, pork and mutton and quad
ruple foi rye bread. Increases ranging
from 250 to 1,000percent were set for
such consumer goods as television
sets, refrigerators, clothes, shoes and
baby carriages.
I he price hikes were the govern
ment’s mostdecisive steps in 30 years
to close the gap between the low
prices it charges consumers and ris
ing production costs.
But the prevailing mood among
Moscow shoppers was that the econ
omy would gain little from the changes,
nor would they benefit from the
complex system of wage hikes and
other compensation that Soviet Presi
dent Mikhail Gorbachev ordered to
ease resulting tensions.
“It may help the economy,” said
Lyubov Biryukova, who is on mater
nity leave from her job at a Moscow
brewery. “All this compensation is
not enough.”
Most food stores and farmers’
markets in the Soviet capital were
closed Monday. Employees said they
expected to post new priceson freshly
delivered goods overnight.
The Communist Party newspaper
Pravda also published a presidential
order threatening to punish slate-owned
stores that exceeded new centrally set
prices.
Roman Podemy, an employee of a
geological institute, called the pnee
hikes ‘inevitable” but said they should
have come last fall when Gorbachev
agreed with Yeltsin on the so-called
500-day plan to shift from a central
i-—-—_
Soviet
Price Hikes
Here Is a look at some of the
price increases facing Soviet
consumers. The average salary
Is 270 rubles a month, or about
1.50 rubles an hour.
In rubles*, || Old-l|| New
per kg | prices § prices
..nm-iimii
Beef 2.00 f 7.00
Pork 1.90 j 5.30
Chicken 3.40 fj 5.60
Cheese 3.20 1 6.40
Wheat flour 0.4Q j 1.40
Rice 0.88 j 2.20
Sugar 0.85 j 2.20
Tea 9.60 | 18.00
Eggs (ten) 1.30 I 2.60
Milk (liter) 0.28 j 0.50
Bread
Rye 0.12 | 0.48
White 0.50 | 1.20
T-ahlrt 1,34 j 4.70j
Man's suit 107.00: 245.00
(wool blend)
Girl’s school 12 00 ; 62.00
uniform
Baby 68.00 136.00
carriage
Sofa 188.00 ; 346.00
Color TV 765.00 jl.218.00
’The Soviet Union has four exchange
rates: the official rate of 1.75 dollars
per ruble, the commercial rate of 58
cents per ruble; die tourist rate ol 17
cents per ruble and the black market
rate of 3-4 cents per ruble.
AP
ized to a market economy. Gorbachev
then balked and the economy wors
ened.
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