s—as. News Digest as^
Security scaled back as Los Angeles remains calm
LOS ANGELES — Police on
Monday scaled back a heightened
street presence and Rodney King's
lawyer said his faith in the justice
system was renewed after two po
licemen were convicted of violat
ing King's civil rights.
Major crime was down about 25
percent city wide during the week
end police alert.
“Los Angeles is not a war zone.
. .not a city with people fighting
each other and afraid of each other,’'
police Chief Willie Williams said
in a television interview Monday.
The7,700-officer police depart
ment went on tactical alert Friday
afternoon, putting thousands of ad
ditional officers on 12-hour shifts,
when it was learned jurors had
reached verdicts. Full deployment
was ordered at dawn Saturday to
avert possible rioting.
Last April, the acquittals of four
white policemen on nearly all state
assault charges in the videotaped
beating of King, a black motorist,
set off three days of rioting in which
54 people were killed.
There was no verdict-related
crime over the weekend, said Lt.
John Dunkin, and police reduced
the full deployment.
Hundreds of National Guard
troops sent to armories began pull
ing out Sunday, and the Sheriffs
Department went off 12-hour sh i fLs
and resumed normal operations.
The black community savored
the convictions of Sgt. Stacey Koon
and Officer Laurence Powell, said
King’s attorney, Milton Grimes.
“It does something to make one
believe that the courts will deliver
justice to African-American
people,” Grimes said. “There is a
renewed hope that justice will pre
vail in the courtroom.”
The federal juj7 acquitted Offi
cer Theodore Briseno and former
rookie Officer Timothy Wind.
King was stopped in a Los An
geles suburb on March 3, 1991,
after a high-speed chase, and a
resident in a nearby apartment vid
eotaped him being clubbed, kicked
and shocked with a stun gun by
police.
The beating raised a furor about
police mistreatment of minorities.
King hasn’t spoken publicly
about the verdicts, but Grimes said
- it-—
There Is a renewed hope
that Justice will prevail
In the courtroom.
—Grimes
King's attorney
- -— ft -
he was gratified for the convictions
and disappointed about the acquit
tals.
Koon and Powell face up to 10
years in prison at sentencing Aug.
4. Koon’s attorney, Ira Salzman,
said the sergeant took the verdict
well.
“He’s a very strong person,”
Salzman said. “He hung in for two
years wiui unparaucuxiatniM;, slan
der.”
Briseno said his two convicted
colleagues shouldn’t be impris
oned.
“The publ ic—they would never
understand it,” Briseno said in a
Los Angeles Times interview pub
lished Monday. “But believe me,
we’ve been through two years of
living hell.They’vedonc their sen
tence, believe me.”
A federal official said Monday
the trial’s sequestered jury drew up
“a dream list” of places they wanted
to visit on weekends.
“One time they chartered a boat
and went out deep sea fishing,”
U.S. Marshal Craig Meacham said.
Serb guns silent;
evacuations continue
-
TUZLA, Bosnia-Hcrzegovina —
Serb guns trained on Srebrenica kept
silent Monday while U.N. helicopters
flew out hundreds more sick and
wounded and U.N. troops sought to
cement a truce for the beleaguered
Muslim enclave.
More fighting was reported be
tween nominally allied Muslims and
Croats in the central part of Bosnia.
The Serbs’ grueling siege of
Srebrenica led to the virtual surrender
Sunday of the town, one of only three
eastern enclaves held by troops loyal
to Bosnia’s Muslim-led government.
That moved the Serbs closer to their
goal of seizihg *11 of eftslCm Bosnia
and uniting it with Serbia, and Serb
held areas in Croatia to create a
“Greater Serbia”
French and British hcl icopters flew
469 people from Srebrenica to Tuzla,
a Muslim city about 45 miles to the
northwest, on Sunday and Monday,
U.N. officials said. That emptied the
hospital, where patients had suffered
for months without adequate medi
cine and care.
U.N. officials said they planned lo
start truck evacuations within a few
days for all residents warning to leave
the town.
Under the cease-fire, the area is to
be completely demilitarized within
72 hours, said a U.N. peacekeeper
spokesman, Cmdr. Barry Frewer. That
could be accomplished either by pull
ing out weapons from the area or
turning them over lo peacekeepers.
Serb militamcn were expected to
move out of the Srebrenica zone.
Muslim fighters seemed to have no
choice but to hand over their arms.
After that, U.N. troops would be re
sponsible for the towh’s security.
“If the Serbs give up their weap
ons, we will give up weapons,” said
Jakub Salihovic, 35, speaking from a
hospital bed in Tuzla. “Our com
mander told us the last man will die
fighting.”
Several of his comrades, all seated
on nearby hospital beds after evacua
tion from Srebrenica, nodded in agree
ment.
Even as another U.N. food convoy
U.N. peacekeepers
arrive In Srebrenica
arrived in Srebrenica, the leaders of
Gorazdc, the largest Muslim enclave
in eastern Bosnia, appealed for relief,
Sarajevo radio reported.
The message claimed people were
dying from hunger, while the Bosnian
Serb artillery daily destroyed the
Gorazdc region that is still free. It
could not be independently confirmed.
Italians vote to overhaul system
ROME — Disgusted by corrup
tion and a half-century of weak gov
ernments, Italians voted overwhelm
ingly to overhaul their scandal
plagued political system.
The landslide referendum vote,
results of which were announced
Monday, paves the way for sweeping
electoral reforms and the fall of yet
another government, Italy’s 51st si nee
World War II.
It climaxed 14 months of revela
tions that have shaken the country
since prosecutors began uncovering
systematic corruption reaching the
highest levels of politics and finance.
“It’s not only a great victory, it is
almosta cry of liberation,” said W iller
Bordon, an official of the reformist
movement Democratic Alliance,
which battled for the referendum to be
held.
Projections Monday from two days
--
It's not only a great victory, It Is almost a cry of
liberation.
Bordon
—Democratic Alliance official
of voting showed electoral reform
received a resounding 82 percent of.
the vote while a proposal to end huge
government subsidies to now discred
ited political parties won approval by
* nearly 90 percent. Both figures far
surpassed what polls had predicted.
Politicians, trying to put the best
face on it, immediately promised steps
to meet the expectations.
In the next few days. Premier
Giuliano Amato is expected to resign
to pave the way for a stronger, more
authoraiive government to lead the
f?
country into elections with the re
vised voting system,
Amato met with President Oscar
Luigi Seal faro immediately after the
polls closed and said his government’s
“task is over” though Amato has not
ruled out forming another governing
alliance.
Italians voted for a measure that
would require three-quarters of the
315- seat Senate to be elec ted directly,
lather than apportioned according to
the percentage of votes received by
each party.
Experiment may lead to cure tor disease
WASHINGTON — Researchers
have begun transferring normal genes
ink) cystic Fibrosis patients in an ex
I I
disease in the United Stales.
The National Heart, Lung and
Blood Institute announced Monda\
tint a pioneering effort using a modi
fied cold virus to treat cystic fibrosis
wilhatype of gene therapy started last
Saturday, .the day after the experi
mental nrocedure was aDoroved.
*C A version of an adenovirus, a com
mon cold virus, modified toxapy a
normal human gene was dripped into
ihoitose and aiht*y»of aZi Jew-old
snanwbohascysut fibrosiy,.;^
“The patient is fine. There were no
adverse effects. No fever,** said Dr.
Ronald Crystal, a Cornell University
researcher who developed the gene
therapy technique while working at
the National Institutes of Health.
Crystal said identification of the
patient was being withheld. A second
patient is in isolation awaiting a sec
ond try of the technique in about a
week, he said.
The NIH and the Food and Drug
‘Administration on Friday approved
Crystal’s application to treat 10 cystic
fibrosis patients with the experimcn ,
tal technique. The experiment is be
ing conducted at the NTH clinidl
center.
t "This pioneering research marks
dhe first use of gene therapy for p
common genetic dfsOrtfcr.” said Dr.
ClaudeLenfant, director of the Na
' i
tional Heart, Lung and Blood Insiilute.
For the experiment, a cold virus
was disabled so it could not cause
infection and then was modified to
contain a normal of the human gene
which is defective in cystic fibrosis
patients. A solution of the virus was
put into the nose of the CF patient and
then dripped into his left lung using a
bronchial tube.
Cystic fibrosis patients inherit $
defect in what is called the cystic
transmemberane conductance regu
lator gene. This flawed gene inter
feres with production of a protein that
controls the flow of sab through cells
lining the airways Heavy mucous
builds up m fhb lungs, leading to
inflammation, progressive lung tfete
rioration and eventually death.
S. Africans boycott
work; violence resumes
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
— Millions of blacks across Soulh
Africa boycotted work Monday to
honor slain leader Chris Hani, who
was buried in an emotional ceremony
as police clashed with enraged youths.
At least 26 people wcrckilled Sun
day night and Monday, nearly all in
Johannesburg’s black townships, in
cluding two people whose charred
bodies were found in a house near the
stadium where the funeral was held.
More than 80,000 grieving blacks
honored Hani at a peaceful ceremony
in the stadium. Thousands of mourn
ers, unable to get into the packed
stadium, stood outside.
Police fought running balllck oui
sidc Bid* stadium with hundreds of
youths who fired guns, hurled rocks
and set fire to several buildings. At
least 10 people were wounded, offi
cials said.
Business groups said at least half
the country's six million black work
ers stayed away from work Monday,
the second major one-day strike to
mourn Hani in a week.
Johannesburg and other city cen
ters were largely deserted.
Nineteen people were killed Sun
day night in drive-by attacks by black
gunmen in the Scbokcng black town
ship, and three people were killed
Monday in Vosloorus as they went to
the funeral, police said. Also Mon
day, police said they found the body
of a man who had been shot to death
in the Katlchong township out of
Johannesburg. It was not clear if the
deaths were linked to the funeral.
Police fired shotguns and rubber
bullets at protesters blocking a road
near Cape Town on Monday, injuring
five people.
Hani, head of the Communist Party
and a lop African National Congress
offic ial, was one of the country ’ s most
popular black leaders.
Despite scattered violence since
Hani was killed by a white gunman
April 10, reaction to the death of one
of the country’s major black leaders
has been fairly restrained.
Violence has been confined to a
few areas with relatively few deaths
in a country where dozens die monthly
in political violence.
50 years later, survivors
hail courage of uprising
WARSAW, Poland — As survi
vors and world leaders hailed the cour
age of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in
50th anniversary ceremonies Mon
day, the rebellion’s last living leader
questioned whether its lesson had been
learned.
The struggle we pul up half a
century ago in Warsaw reminds me of
what is going on now in the former
Yugoslavia. The main analogy is the
passiveness of the world.” Marck
Edelman told the Zycie Warszawy
newspaper. <
Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin,
U.S. Vice President Al Gore on his
first foreign trip and Polish President
Lcch Walesa led the commemora
tion.
The official events were only a
backdrop to the excruciating memo
ries, miracles of survival and hope for
[ future generations ofTered by the Jew
ish ghetto survivors reluming from
around the world.
* “Most of my family was killed
I during rite uprising and their memory
• is precious to mc,n mid Australian
Boris Kaplon. That is why I came.**
“No words can explain,” said
Waller Cykiert of Detroit, seeing for
the first time since World War II the
place where his three brothers and
two sisters died. He escaped the upris
ing to the shelter of a Catholic woman
and spent weeks in a closet.
As day dawned 50 years ago Mon
day, German soldiers surrounding the
barbed-wire and brick walls of inc
Jewish ghetto prepared for its final
liquidation. Instead, within hours, a
pitched battle was under way, the first
armed civilian uprising against the
Nazi occupiers in Europe.
The courage of those 1,000 or so
Jewish fighters who held out against
the German tanks for nearly a month
in the name of400,000 Warsaw Jews
already murdered and another 40,OOU
condemned was honored Monday.
Rabin stood solemnly atop ihc
bunker that became a grave for the
leaders of the rebellion and he saw
Umschlagplatz, the railroad siding
where the Nazis crammed the Jews
aboard trains to death camps.
