flkf 1A7 CZ T Associated Press
X ft %r Edited by Jennifer O'Cilka
Turks moving
Kurds from theii
mountain camps
ISIKVEREN, Turkey - Turkey or
Monday began moving thousands of
ill and starving Iraqi Kurds from this
mountainous border settlement to
camps farther inside Turkey where
they will be closer to relief supplies.
Iraq, meanwhile, claimed that
thousands of the refugees had begun
to return home. But a Turkish official
said the Kurds were still coming across
the border and that their number could
soon reach 700,000.
Reporters on Iraq’s border with
Iran and Turkey said that thousands
of refugees continued to stream out of
the troubled country.
“Iraq is my homeland. 1 was bom
there and I want to die there,” said
Dia Sindi, a 17*year old Kurd in this
tent city of 160,000 refugees. “If the>
kill Saddam I will go back,” he said
Sindi was among 2,100 refugees
moved down from this 7,200-foot
plateau to a new camp near the town
ship of Silopi, 36 miles inside Tur
key. The new camp will have water,
electricity and medical supplies. The
tent settlement will have a 400-bed
hospital, 64 doctors and 129 medical
personnel, Health Minister Halil Sivgin
said.
The order to move the refugees to
new bases represented a major policy
shift for President Turgut Ozal’s
government, which previously had
kept the refugees in the mountains,
saying it could not deal with the in
flux.
Turkey has fought attacks by its
own restive Kurdish minority and still
shelters thousands of Kurds who fled
Iraq in 1988.
The Istanbul newspaper Hurriyet
said Turkey allowed the refugees
deeper into the country after Presi
dent Bush reportedly assured Ozal
that the refugees would return to Iraq
■ Turkey
thousands <rf Kurdish .>.
• refugees from the _•-'. c ; ^
III;:mountainous border
;£:. .settlement of tefcveren to
1 k-.Erbil'
4—Kurd Majority
. «-s !
§ Mediterranean ©
I cfa __ Baghdad '' IRAN
* C~ '"^.x IHAQ
ISRAEL 4V JORDAN SAUDI
g ARABIA lv
Demilitarized ^
zone KUWAlft'
VV?/''?5
■ Iraqi reports say refugees are accepting 9
Saddam’s amnesty and returning to the
Kurdish cities of Dohuk and Erbil.
■ U.S. troops begin to pull out of southern
Iraq and a U.N. peackeeping mission
j prepares to move into the buffer zone.
Med f ■ Foreign ministers of the European
Sea Community urge the U.N. to bring
% Saddam Hussein to trial for war crimes.
■ An envoy was en route to Baghdad to
It assess humanitarian needs in Iraq for a
\ U.N. emergency aid program.
)_
As of 5 p.m. EDT AP
when Saddam Hussein’s government
collapsed.
Turkish officials stressed that the
resettlement was temporary.
Hayri Kozakcioglu, governor of
Turkey’s southeastern border region
with Iraq, said that the number of
refugees may rise to 700,000 in the
next few days as Iraqis continue to
flee.
Officials have said 500,000 refu
gees are already on the Turkish bor
der.
Iran’s official radio, meanwhile,
said the country ’ s Red Crescent Soci
ety, the equivalent of the Red Cross,
was running out of relief supplies for
the more than 900,(XX) of Iraq’s 4
million Kurds who have fled to Iran.
Hundreds of refugees are believed
to have died in the border camps.
In other developments Monday,
Kurdish rebels renewed a plea to the
United Nations for protection from
Iraqi loyalist forces inside Iraq.
Kurdish refugees distressed;
Iraqi police to handle border
SAFWAN, Iraq - Iraqi police will
handle law and order in part of the
demilitarized border zone with Ku
wait, and refugees said Monday that
is tantamount to sending them to prison
or worse.
Several serious problems remain
unresolved as U.S. troops pull out of
southern Iraq and a U.N. peacekeep
ing mission prepares to move into the
buffer zone straddling the Iraq-Ku
wait border.
About 300 worried refugees blocked
a road Monday with a sit-in outside
their dusty tent camp, chanting slo
gans in English such as “Save The
People of Iraq,” and “Saddam, Sad
dam, Same As Hitler.”
The U.S. Army is caring for more
than 11,000 refugees at an abandoned
construction company in Safwan.
About 6,000 displaced people, mostly
Iraqis, are at a Red Crescent camp
about a mile away on the Kuwaiti side
of the border.
They are among 40,000 Iraqi refu
gees in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Ara
bia, and some say they will try to
prevent the Americans from leaving
Safwan.
“We will sleep in front of the
American trucks,” said Abu Nathal.a
history teacher from Nassiriya. “Only
the Americans can protect us from
Saddam Hussein.”
The tens of thousands of U.S. troops
still in southern Iraq are being with
drawn rapidly through the desert now
that a formal gulf war cease-fire is in
place.
Nearly half the 540,000 American
troops have left the theater, the U.S.
Central Command said, including the
17,000 troops of the 1st Infantry
Division of the VII Corps, which this
week began rolling from the Euphrates
River south toward Saudi Arabia.
Some U.S. soldiers will remain
temporarily with the refugees in the
demilitarized zone until the U.N. Iraq
Kuwait Observation Mission, a Lightly
armed 1,440-person peacekeeping
contingent, is in place.
The DMZ stretches six miles into
Iraq, and three miles into Kuwait along
120 miles of border.
The head of the mission, Austrian
Gen. Gunther Greindl, arrived Satur
day in Kuwait, where he met with
government officials before traveling
to Baghdad, on Monday for similar
discussions.
But U.N. peacekeepers are not
expected to arrive in Kuwait until
later this week, and it would appear
their deployment on the border is still
one to two weeks away. U.N. offi
cials have refused to give any time
table.
Once in place, the peacekeepers
have a strict and limited mandate to
observe and “to interfere as little as
possible” in the affairs of Iraq and
Kuwait, said Joachim Hutter, the U.N.
delegation’s acting spokesman.
Iraq and Kuwait will not be al
lowed to send troops into the DMZ,
but their governments will handle civil
administration in their territory, in
eluding police duties.
The Iraqi refugees, who include
many fighters against Saddam’s rule,
say this is intolerable.
“The police will arrest us and kid
nap us,” said Ali Ali, a teacher from
the southern city of Najaf. “Many of
us will be executed for opposing
Saddam. They will write down our
names and kill our families.”
The U.N. peacekeepers will carry
sidearms which are to be used only in
self-defense, said Hutter.
“Given Saddam’s track record, these
people (refugees) probably have a
reason to be scared,” said U.S. Maj.
Tom Grubbs, of Olney, Md., who
helps administer the refugee camp in
Safwan.
Rail workers to strike despite pressure
WASHINGTON - President Bush
tried to budge deadlocked freight rail
roads and their unions Monday, say
ing a nationwide strike threatened for
midnight Tuesday could severely
disrupt the economy. But no progress
was reported at the bargaining table.
Also Monday, as part of the Bush
administration’s efforts to head off a
strike, Transportation Secretary
Samuel Skinner met with union lead
ers to discuss the three-year-old dis
pute over wages, health care and work
rules.
Meanwhile, negotiations wore on
toward a midnight Tuesday deadline,
when a federally imposed “cooling
off’ period expires and the nation’s
235,000 freight line workers are free
to follow through on their promise to
strike.
Bargainers “are all at the table
with one eye on the clock,” said George
Whaley, a spokesman for the Asso
ciation of American Railroads, which
represents the nation’s big freight
carriers such as Burlington Northern,
Conrail and Norfolk Southern.
Though the strike would involve
only freight crews and freight yard
workers, passenger travel on Amtrak
and commuter lines could also be
disrupted because most of those trains
run on freight-owned tracks.
Wages are a key stumbling block,
and the two sides don’t even agree on
what figures to use when discussing
the issue. Management contends rail
--—
We’re not interested in
shutting down the
nation and inconven
iencing the traveling
public in any way at all.
FitzGerald, spokesman for the
Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers
-1* -
workers receive an average total
compensation package worth about
$56,000 a year and says that’s far out
of line with other industrial workers.
The union says a typical rail worker
makes between $30,000 and $40,000
a year.
Sieve FitzGerald, a spokesman for
the Brotherhood of Locomotive En
gineers, one of 11 unions involved in
the dispute, said the unions are anx
ious to settle.
“We’re not interested in shutting
down the nation and inconveniencing
the traveling public in any way at
all,” he said.
Three unions have reached tenta
tive settlement, but the others have
not. In the past, if one rail union walks
out, all have followed their path in a
show of solidarity.
Bush, speaking to a business group
at the White House, said a rail strike
“could potentially idle hundreds of
thousands of workers and would af
feet virtually all Americans in one
way or another.”
The president stopped short of
indicating that he would ask Con
gress to intervene and stop a strike,
saying, “It is always better for labor
and management to resolve their dif
ferences and produce an agreement."
Still, the president clearly was
seeking to exert pressure on both sicks.
Bush said a strike “could severely
disrupt the economy just as the econ
omy in our view is trying to turn
around and get out of this recession.”
Neither union leaders nor Skinner
would comment on their 90-minutc
session, but labor sources had said
they did not expect anything signifi
cant to come of it.
Nebraskan
Editor Eric Planner
472- 1766
Managing Editor Victoria Ayotle
Assoc News Editors Jana Pedersen
Emily Rosenbaum
Editorial Page Editor Bob Nelson
Wire Editor Jennifer O'ClIka
Copy Desk Editor Diane Brayton
Sports Editor Paul Domeier
Arts & Entertain
ment Editor Julie Naughton
Diversions Editor Connie Sheehan
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
1991 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Peace talks possible
Baker returns to Middle East
WASHINGTON - In a quick turn
around, Secretary of State James Baker
will return to the Middle East on
Thursday hoping to capitalize on the
interest Arabs and Israelis have shown
in peace talks, the State Department
said Monday.
“No one knows how long this
opportunity will exist,” Margaret
Tutwiler, the department spokes
woman, said in announcing Baker’s
third visit to the troubled region in a
little more than six weeks.
He will leave Tuesday night and
go first to Luxembourg for talks with
European foreign ministers. In all, he
will have been home in Washington
between trips barely 100 hours.
This time Baker may make a stop
in Jordan, thereby completing a re
versal of U.S. policy — from irrita
tion with King Hussein for condemn
ing the economic and military assault
on Iraq to including the Arab king
dom in planning for a Middle East
settlement.
U.S. aid to Jordan, which had been
tentatively set at $57 million for the
fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, was
suspended and President Bush said in
February that Jordan had “moved over
— way over” to support Iraq.
Hussein, meanwhile, said the war
to free Kuwait was “against all Arabs
and all Muslims and not against Iraq
alone.”
Jordan controlled the West Bank,
now held by Israel, from 1948 until
1967. Baker last month left Jordan
out of his itinerary, but on his trip last
week he held talks in Geneva with
Foreign Minister Taher al Masri.
Stopping in Amman, the Jorda
nian capital, on the new trip would be
a diplomatic gesture toward the king.
At the heart of U.S. policy in the
Middle East is an effort to persuade
Israel to give up all or most of the
West Bank. Bush. Baker and other
U.S. officials have been intentionally
vague, however, on whether the aim
is to have Jordan control the territory
again. 1
Baker returned from the region
late Friday night, reported to Bush
over the weekend, and they concluded
all parties are taking a serious ap
proach to peace in the Middle East ”
spokeswoman Tulwiler said.
Bush and Baker believe following
up now, directly with the Arabs and
the Israelis, is important if progress is
to be made, Tutwilcr said.
She concluded the brief announce
ment with the customary caveat that
“there is much work to be done, ques
tions to be answered, and a long way
to go.”
The Stale Department withheld
Baker’s schedule, but it was learned
he would go to Israel from Luxem
bourg and then make stops in Egypt.
Saudi Arabia, Syria and probably
Jordan.
Israeli Foreign Minister David
Levy, speaking prior to the public an
nouncement of Baker’s return trip,
commented in Jerusalem: ‘This is a
good sign. It shows his labor is bear
ing fruit.”
