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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 1992)
rs—.. NFWS Digf st Edited by Alan Phelps X 1 J Y Y L/ 1 V V I I A I X Pentagon set to spearhead Somalian effort Security Council approves international military rescue UNITED NATIONS — The Secu rity Council launched the world’s big gest armed humanitarian rescue Thurs day night, ordering a U.S.-led force to silence the guns of Somali bandits and help feed hundreds of thousands of starving people. The council voted unanimously to approve the huge operation. After planning with his generals and working the phones to drum up troop donations from abroad, Presi dent Bush was poised to unleash the largest U.S. military operation since the Gulf War. Given the order, 1,800 troops aboard a three-ship strike force float ing in the Indian Ocean could land on Somali beaches within hours and the ful 1 force of28,000could arri ve w ith in weeks. France will add as many as 2,000 troops. Italy offered unspecified help. It came more than a year after severe food shortages and civil unrest were first reported in Somalia. And the Security Council mandate was vague: to use “all necessary means” to create “a secure environment” for relief operations. The resolution did not say if that might mean creating some kind of U.N.-controlled civil government in chaotic Somalia and it said nothing about how long the operation would last. Clan battles have raged in Somalia since the collapse of President Mohamed Siad Barrc’s rule in Janu ary 1991, worsening a famine that has killed 300,000 people and pul another 2 million at risk. Well-armed militias have stolen at least half of the food and medicine shipped to Somalia and paralyzed a 500-member U.N. peacekeeping force in place since September. The port and airport of Mogadishu have been virtually shut down by the threat of banditry. The maddening delays created by? the port’s closure could be seen Thurs-f day at a beach north of Mogadishu, where the Red Cross unloaded a ship filled with rice donated by French schoolchildren. WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has ordered some 28,000 troops to stand by for deployment to Somalia to spearhead a U.N. military rescue mis sion to the beleaguered African na tion, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday. President Bush scheduled a meet ing with congressional leaders Friday morning to discuss U.S. participation in the relief effort, the White House said after the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved the operation. “We arc pleased by the U.N. vote to authorize military forces to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to alleviate the starvation and human suffering in Somalia,” said the state ment, issued by Bush’s press secre tary, Marlin Fitzwater. Earlier Thursday, Bush called his top military advisers to the White House and telephoned leaders around the globe seeking additional forces for the effort to clear a way for food and other aid to reach starving Soma lis. Bush and his advisers discussed the risks of the military operation, said spokesman Marlin Fitzwater,“but the feeling was that the need there is great... and that we can’t allow the starvation to continue.” “We don T see this as a big invasion force,” said Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams. “We arc not looking to go We don’t see this as a big invasion force. We are not looking to go in with guns blazing. I wouldn’t expect a big confrontation. — Williams Pentagon spokesman -ft - in with guns blazing. 1 wouldn’t ex pect a big confrontation.” Fitzwatcr said, “Our purpose is to first of all to... get the aid through and secondly to accomplish that as rap idly as possible and to turn it over to peacekeeping forces of the United Nations as soon as possible.” He even suggested that the U.S. forces could be out of Somalia by the time President-elect Clinton takes office Jan. 20. “If we could have them out before then, that certainly would be prefer able,” he told reporters. Williams also noted that Somalia is riddled with “lawless gangs of thugs” who have endangered relief workers and stolen food from hu manitarian stocks and that the mili tary would have to create “safe areas, safe havens” and corridors for deliv ering relief supplies. Williams said 1,800 Marines aboard a thrcc-ship amphibious strike force were off the coast of Somalia awaiting further orders. Those Marines would move in tc secure Mogad i sh u ’ s port and airstrips allowing other forces to flow in from the United Slates and other nations, a senior Pentagon official said. The largest contingent would be some 16,000 Marines from the lsi Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Pendleton, Calif. In a second wave, up to 10,000 soldiers from the Army’s light infan try 10th Mountain Division at Fori Drum, N.Y., will be added, said the official, who com men ted only on con dition of anonymity. Williamsconfirmed that units from Pendleton’s 50,000 Marines had been alerted to get ready to move, as well as elements of the 10th Mountain Divi sion, but he declined to say exactly how many might be sent to the East African nation. In line to command the venture on the scene is Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Johnston, who was one of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s top aides in the Persian Gulf War and is the com mander of the 1st Marine Expedition ary Force. Stale Department spokesman Ri chard A. Boucher said thcUniicd States “would have appropriateconuol”ovcr American forces in Somalia. Oil flows after tanker runs aground on Spanish coast 5 LA CORUNA, Spain — A tanker crashed onto rocks-joutside a fog-shrouded harbor en trance Thursday, breaking apart in heavy seas and spilling millions of gallons of crude oil that threatened the area’s rich fishing grounds. Hundreds of people fled their homesafter an -explosion tore the stem loose and set off an inferno only a few yards offshore five hours after the ship ran aground. All 29 crew mem bers were rescued from theGrcck ship,officials said. Curiosity seekers gathered along the rugged coastline of this city of 250,000 to watch huge orange flames boiling from the stem section. Fire licked from oil alongside the tanker and thick, black smoke billowed high over the city, which is on Spain’s northwestern comer about 280 miles from Madrid. Aulhorilics said an oil slick up toa mile wide stretched 12 miles northeastward up the coast of Galicia, as the region is known. Environmentalists expressed fears for fish ing grounds. Fishing is Galicia's most impor tant industry. The tanker, the Aegean Sea, was carrying an estimated 23 million gallons of crude from Britain’s main North Sea oil-loading terminal at Sullom Voc to a refinery in La Coruna when it ran aground about 5 a.m. Antonio Gomis, a spokesman for Spain’s Repsol oil company, which chartered the tanker, said two or three of the ship’s nine tanks had ruptured. He said each tank held an average of 2.7 million gallons of crude oil. Wc believe about two-thirds of the oil is on the ship, and oil from two or three tanks has gone into the sea,” Gomis said. The international group Greenpeace said it was sending three international maritime and oil experts to the site. “An environmental disas ter looms,” Greenpeace said in a statement released Thursday evening. Juan Lope/ dc Uralde, the Spanish spokes man for Greenpeace, said the possibilities of keeping the spill from fouling the coast were “practically nil” because it was so close to shore. He said the biggest harm was likely to be suffered by the fishing and shellfish grounds in the Ria dc Bctanzos and Ria de Ares, two inlets northeast of the La Coruna harbor. Gunfire nits U.N. commander’s plane over Bosnia; logistics flights halted r SARAJEVO,Bosnia-Herzegovina — Gunfire hit a plane carrying the U.N. commander in Bosnia on Thurs day, but the aircraft landed safely. The United Nations suspended all flights into the capital for two days. No injuries or serious damage were reported when the Soviet-built Antonov 12 logistics plane carrying commander Gen. Philippe Morillon was hit in the rear by six bullets, said Shannon Boyd, U.N. spokeswoman in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where .he plane landed. It was not clear who fired at the plane, Boyd said. Heavy fighting be tween Serb and Muslim-led govern ment forces was reported near the airport most of the day. Following the incident, U.N. chief Gen. Salish Nambiar suspended all logistics flights to the besieged Bosnian capital and extended the sus pension of relief flights for at least another 48 hours, Boyd said. Relief flights were suspended Tues day after a U.S. Air Force transport was hit by small-arms fire, but U.N. flights between Sarajevo and Zagreb had continued. Islamic foreign ministers meeting in Saudi Arabia urged the United Nations to allow arms deliveries to Bosnia’s Muslims and they appeared to give Islamic states the nod to do so if there was no U.N. action. In a 12-page communique, the ministers said Islam ic countries should “extend their cooperation to the re public of Bosnia-Hcr/.cgovina in the exercise of its inherent right to indi vidual and collective self-defense.” In Paris, the Western European Union denounced atrocities in former Yugoslavia, including the rape of women and children and the castra tion of men. The union urged member govern ments to “bring to justice the authors of these crimes against humanity.” It dropped language in a draft proposal that explicitly blamed Serb militias for committing the majority of rapes, mainly against Muslim women. Despite artillery fire, Bosnia’sarmy command said its forces successfully fended off Serb auackson the Sarajevo suburb of Otes and had destroyed four enemy tanks since Tuesday. The Bosnian army said Otes faced a major Serb infantry and armor at tack from the west and south. Officers reported somcclose-rangccombatand an unspecified number of casualties on each side. Defense officials reported more tank movements near Pale, the Serb headquarters cast of Sarajevo. Bosnia’s Health Ministry said 41 people were killed and 118 wounded during fighting in government-con trolled areas of Bosnia over the previ ous 24 hours, including 22 dead and 47 wounded in Sarajevo. The Fighting was keeping truck convoys from reaching Sarajevo, at’s though one convoy did get through on » Thursday, U.N. officials said. 1 Russian lawmakers shout, shove in Congress fracas MOSCOW — Lawmakers plunged into a shouting and shov ing match over President Boris Yeltsin’s reforms Thursday, halt ing work on economic reform plans and debate on proposals to have Yeltsin relinquish some powers. A leader of a hard-line group in the Congress of People’s Deputies predicted there would be more chaos Friday. The upheaval caused a committee drawing up a resolu tion on Yeltsin’s economic plans to suspend its work. The outburst came during de bate on constitutional amendments that would shift power from Yeltsin and his Cabinet to the Congress and the smaller Supreme Soviet. The fracas also culminated two days of bitter debate in which Yeltsin and Acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar pushed their most controversial reforms on the un friendly parliament, dominated by ex-Communisis elected long be fore the collapse of the Soviet Union last year. Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov pushed through a motion for se cret-ballot voting on the amend ments. Yeltsin sal expressionless during the vote. A handful of pro-Yeltsin law makers rushed to the carpeted po dium in protest, screaming that the parliament’s rules require at least four-fifths support to make the vote secret. “Get away! Get away!” Khasbulatov shouted into his mi - it Dear deputies, pro tect me from these deputies! — Khasbulatov Russian lawmaker -99 ~ crophonc. “Dear deputies, protect me from these deputies!” Khasbulatov cried, his plaintive voice resounding along thcchambcr’sbarrcl ceiling. Depu ties who remained in their scats laughed at the spectacle. One even brandished a telescope for a better view. Plai nc lothcs sec uri ty officers and hard-line lawmakers rushed to the podium to form a barrier in front of the reformers, and a shoving match began inches from Khasbulatov and a few feet from Yeltsin. One hard liner grabbed the lectern and held firm like a sailor on a rocking ship. The president left the chamber in disgust. Khasbulatov left briefly and security officers restored or der. The speaker returned minutes later, recessed the session without a vote and walked out again. No injuries were reported, but plenty of egos sccmcdbruised. The pro-Yeltsin lawmakers said secret balloting would let undcc ided depu ties oppose Yeltsin without reprisal. “It was manipulation by Khasbulatov!” declared Ella Panfilova, the minister for social welfare.
