Ssfettw*— News Digest ^ee^
Thousands of Rwandan refugees overwhelm
U.N. officials at tiny Tanzanian border camp
NGARA, Tanzania — A handful
of relief workers struggled Sunday to
cope with 250,000 refugees who
flooded into a camp in Tanzania, seek
ing sanctuary from weeks ofbloodlet
ting in Rwanda.
Refugees spent the night huddled
in the open, soaked by an intermittent
rain that doused their campfires and
left small children wailing in misery.
United Nations officials were
stunned by the number of people who
left Rwanda, Tanzania’s northwest
ern neighbor. In all, 250,000
Rwandans crossed the border in a 24
hour period Thursday and Friday in
what the United Nations called the
biggest, fastest exodus ever seen.
Thousands ofrcfugecs wercstill trudg
ing in the rain Sunday, walking the 10
miles from the frontier to the camp.
“We went down to the border cross
ing at about 4 or 5 o’clock Thursday
afternoon on a routine check, and
when we looked across the h ills on the
other side of the river were streaming
with people,” said Maureen Connolly,
a U.N. High Commissioner for Refu
gees emergency officer.
In the face of a rebel advance into
southeastern Rwanda, the Rwandan
army fled without a fight and left the
border unguarded for 24 hours - long
enough for the massive exodus. The
rebels scaled the border Saturday.
Officials fear another 250,000
people could swarm into Tanzania if
the border reopens.
“It is quite a mess,” said Dr. Etienne
Krug, the medical coordinator at the
camp.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand
people is like a small city and we have
nothing organized.”
At least 100,000 people have been
killed in nearly a month ofsavagery in
Rwanda, and more than 1.3 million
have fled their homes.
The United Nations, the Interna
tional Committee of the Red Cross
and some private agencies already
had between 30 and 40 staffers and
supplics on hand in this small, remote
Tanzanian town because of an earlier
crisis in Burundi.
But it wasn’t enough.
BradlcyGucrran t of t he U.N. World
Food Program said available food
stocks, enough for 50,000 people for
two weeks, will feed the expanded
refugee population only two days.
The first food distribution is sched
uled Monday, and Guerranl predicted
it would be “chaotic and disorderly”
because of the huge number of people
to be fed and the few rcl ief workers on
hand to do it.
A U.N. Official in Kigali, the capi
tal, said militia gangs responsible for
so much of the savagery in Rwanda
arc withdrawing south from the capi
tal aheadofadvancingTutsi-lcd rebels.
Fighting in Rwanda began April 6
after President Juvenal Habyarimana
and the lcadcrof Burundi - both Hutus
- were killed in a suspicious plane
crash in Kigali.
U.N. efforts to mediate a cease-fire
have been unsuccessful.
Tanzanian President Ali Hassail
Mwinyi said Sunday that Rwanda’s
government and the rebels had agreed
to meet Tuesday for peace talks, Tan
zanian radio reported, monitored by
the British Broadcasting Corp.
Decrease in crime statistics won’t be a trend
WASHINGTON — The number
of murders rose 3 percent last year but
violent crimes overall edged lower,
the FBI reported Sunday, reflecting
whatonccriminologist called thc‘‘lull
before the crime storm.”
Preliminary findings of the FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reports, which com
pile information on crimes reported to
I aw enforcement agencies nationwide,
found violent incidents declined 1
percent in 1993. Nearly 1.91 million
violent crimes occurred, or roughly
the same number as in 1991. There
were 1.93 million violent crimes re
ported in 1992.
The 3 percent increase in murders
in 1993 — after a year in which the
number dropped by 3.8 percent —
would reflect a total of about 24,500
slain. About 23,760 were killed in
1992, while a record 24,703 were
slain the year before.
The FBI provided only percentage
changes, not national totals of crime
incidents.
Property crimes, meanwhile,
dropped by 3 percent, the FBI said, to
an estimated 12.1 million.
That caused the overall number of
reported crimes to fall by 3 percent, as
property crimes account for about 87
percent of all reported crimes.
The FBI said burglaries declined 6
percent, to about 2.8 million; larceny
theft decreased 2 percent, to about 7.8
million, and motor vehicle theft
dropped 4 percent, to 1.5 million.
“This may be the last good report
that we see in a long time,” said Jack
Levin, professor of sociology and
criminology at Northeastern Univer
sity in Boston. “This is the lull before
the crime storm that we’re going to
have in this country the next decade.”
The reason, he said, is that homi
cides by juveniles as young as 14 and
15 years old arc on the rise. They arc
in the leading edge of the mini-baby
boom of children of the post-World
War 11 baby boomers, a nd they haven ’ t
yet reached the 18- to 24-year-old age
group that traditionally commits the
overwhelming majority of murders.
he said.
“They aren’t even there yet, but
they’re committing homicide,” Levin
said. “What arc they going todo for an
encore?”,
One of the worst aspects of the
current murders is that many appear
to be over trivial matters, said James
Alan Fox, dean of criminal justice at
Northeastern University.
“What shocks the American public
to the core is when they hear of a
young boy in Miami killing a home
less person over a piece of pizza, kids
in California killing their best friend
because they’re jealous of her hair,”
Fox said.
Rwanda j
unrest
Developments in Rwanda:
030 to 40 U.N. relief workers
struggled Sunday to cope with
250,OCX) Rwandan refugees who
found sanctuary at a camp, just 10
miles from the border in neighboring
Tanzania near the town of Ngara.
0 The Rwandan army fled without a
fight in the face of the rebel advance
into southeastern Rwanda and left the
border unguarded tor 24 hours. It was
through this narrow window of time
that the refugees crossed. Rebels
have closed the border. An estimated
250,000 more refugees are poised to
crosrif the border reopens.
0 Rwandans were blocked from
going south into Burundi, Friday and
turned southeast into Tanzania. The
slaughter in southern Rwanda is
reportedly even worse than in the
capital, Kigali.
AD
Garagut^nomy
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AP
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Arafat and Rabin to sign
final agreement in Cairo
Control of beaches and legal jurisdiction
among minor disputes to be worked out
CAIRO, Egypt— Israeli and PLO
delegates opened their expected final
round of talks on Palestinian autonomy
Sunday, with both sides expressing
confidence they would meet a Wednes
day deadline.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli Cabinet
gave its approval for signing the agree
ment for limited Palestinian self-rule
in the occupied Gaza Strip and West
Bank town of Jericho.
Palestinian negotiatorNabil Shaath
said PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s Fatah
movement had also accepted the agree
ment, and the PLO’s executive com
m ittec was expected to approve i t soon.
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin arc to sign the au
tonomy agreement Wednesday at a
ceremony in Cairo. They arc sched
uled to meet Tuesday night to iron out
any last-minute disputes.
Maj.Gcn. Amnon Shahak,thcchicf
Israeli delegate, brushed past report
ers as he entered Sunday’s talks, said,
“Wait until Wednesday - everything
will be finished.”
Palestinian negotiator Khalcd cl
Qudra said the two sides were drafting
the final wording of the agreement.
“I think we’re near the end and I
thir\k we’ll finish.” he said.
The two sides have been negotiat
ing for more than six months on how
to implement the Sept. 13 agreement
for IsraeHo withdraw from Gaza and
Jericho.
Under the accord, the Israelis were
tostart withdrawing Dec. 13 and com
plete the pullout by April 13. But the
deadl inespassed with negotiators still
argu ing over how broad the autonomy
would be and how Jewish settlers
would be protected in Gaza.
When the scheduled signing was
announced last Thursday, differences
remained over control of territorial
waters and beaches, the freeing of
Palestinian prisoners, and jurisdic
tion over lawbreakers. But both Is
raeli and PLO negotiators said the
disputes were mostly minor and could
be worked out.
Two disagreements have been set
aside for Rabin and Arafat to resolve:
how much land Israel will i»ivc un
around Jericho and whether a uni
formed Palestinian will be stationed
on the bridge between Jordan and the
West Bank near Jericho.
Shaath, who heads the Palestinian
delegation, returned Sunday afternoon
from Tunis, headquarters of the Pal
estine Liberation Organization. He
said the PLO’s executive committee
had not yet given its expected ap
proval of the agreement because some
members were late arriving in the
Tunisian capital.
Responding to criticism in Israel
that the PLO is not ready to lake over
running Gaza and Jericho, Shaath
said members of committees that will
handle the transfer of power would
begin arriving in Cairo on Monday.
“I think that once we arc ready and
once we know exactly what we arc
signing, we will be going in as soon as
possible,” Shaath said.
In Israel, officials expressed doubt
that the Palestinians were prepared to
take over.
“We are concerned that they have
not taken any practical measures what
soever to take over,” Economics M in
istcr Simon Shclreet said. “Our big
gest worry is whether or not they arc
ready.”
Environment Minister Yossi Sarid
said the army would pull out of au
tonomous areas within fivcorsixdays
of the signing. Up to 2.000 Palestin
ian police arc expected to deploy there
by Thursday.
Palestinian sources who spoke on
condition of anonymity said Palestin
ian police may not be ready to deploy
as rapidly as hoped. But Shaath said
the police would begin moving into
Gaza and Jericho “as soon as we sign.”
Russian Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev and Secretary of Slate War
ren Christopher will attend
Wednesday’s signing.
GAO finds troops
fail fitness tests
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas—Lax
training has resulted in National Guard
and military reserve troops not being
physically fit for combat, a govern
ment investigation has found. The
March 23 report by the General Ac
countingOfTicc, the investigative arm
ofCongress, was obtained by the Cor
pus Christi Caller-Times, the news
paper reported Saturday.
“We believe that the DOD (De
partment of Defense) can no longer
afford to continue lax oversight, per
mitting the retentionof reservists who
repeatedly fail fitness tests, allowing
large numbers of reservists to go un
tested, and creating a testing environ
ment that allows failing scores to be
changed to passing ones,” the GAO
concluded.
Earlier in March, a GAO investi
gator told a House subcommittee that
National Guard and reserve forces
may be under-trained for emergency
combat duty at a time when the Penta
gon increasingly relies on them.
“It became apparent during the
Gulf War that Army National Guard
combat brigades had significant train
ing-related problems,” said Mark
Gcbickc, a military ope rations expert.
ThcGAOstudicd information from
35 reserve and National Guard units
for the report cited by the Caller
Times. Atone Navy unit visited by the
GAO, eight reservists failed a recent
fitness test, but three failures were
changed to passing scores on paper
work passed up the chain of com
mand, the newspaper reported.
ThcCallcr-Times has reported that
some Texas National Guard soldiers
who repeatedly failed tests were al
lowed to remain in the service, while
others who failed a lest once were
denied a chance to retake it as regula
tions allow. Lt. Col. Edmond
Komandosky, spokesman for the
Texas Guard, denied that there were
widespread problems.
“To the best of my knowledge, the
physical fitness standards arc enforced
according to the regulation,” he said.
