By The
Associated Press
Edited by Michelle Gamer
Monday, January 15, 1996 Page 2
Russian troops display force
PERVOMAYSKAYA, Russia —
Flare-firing Russian jets and helicop
ters roared early Monday over this
bleak village, where government
forces surrounded Chechen kidnap
pers and their hostages in the seventh
day of an unnerving standoff.
Russian authorities said Sunday the
rebels, who hold 100 hostages, had
been given the night “to think things
over.” They did not specify what ac
tion would be taken if the gunmen
continued to ignore demands to re
lease the hostages.
Aircraft buzzed the mist-wrapped
village during the night, apparently to
maintain pressure on the rebels. Shock
waves from low-fiyingjets broke win
dows in surrounding villages.
Interior Ministry officials in Mos
cow said the rebels took shots Sunday
at Russian troops and military heli
copters, wounding two soldiers. But
an official from the local Interior Min
istry said no shooting occurred.
Russian troops have been walking
a narrow path in the hostage crisis,
trying not to give ground to the rebels
while doing nothing to endanger the
!-—-—
hostages, which include women and
children.
The rebels have threatened to shoot
the hostages if they arc not granted
safe passage back to Chechnya, the
secessionist republic where rebels
have been fighting Russian troops
since December 1994.
The rebels had seized up to 3,000
hostages Tuesday in Kizlyar, a town
in the neighboring republic of
Dagestan, but released most the next
day and headed for Chechnya in buses.
They were stopped by Russian forces
at Pcrvomayskaya, about a mile from
the Chechen border.
A Russian Interior Ministry offi
cial in Moscow, who declined to be
identi fied, said that as the troops pulled
back Sunday evening, the rebels shot
at them and fired rockets at two heli
copters. The official accused the rebels
of trying to provoke a Russian assault.
But an official of Dagestan’s Inte
rior Ministry, whogave his name only
as Lt. Col. Musayev, denied the re
port, calling it a “provocation.”
In the nearby village of Sovetskoye,
no gunfire could be heard.
“If even one hostage is
shot, I will act
immediately. ”
MIKHAIL BARSUKOV
Head of the Russian Federal
Security Service
Gen. Mikhail Barsukov, head of
the Federal Security Service, and In
terior Minister Anatoly Kulikov ar
rived in Dagestan on Sunday to over
see the operation, the ITAR-Tass news
agency reported.
“If even one hostage is shot, I will
act immediately,” Barsukov said Sat
urday. He did not say what steps he
would take.
Earlier, a Russian assault on the
hostage-takers seemed imminent.
“We arc preparing the operation.
There is a deadline of 10 a.m. (2 a.m.
EST.) We start then,” Maj. Gen.
Alexander Mikhailov, spokesman for
the Federal Security Service, told re
porters early Sunday. But that dead
line passed with no action and it was
not clear for how long it was extended.
Mikhailov said there would be no
pardon for the raid’s leader, Chechen
rebel Salman Raduyev, or his lieuten
ants.
“He has a lot ofblood on his hands,”
Mikhailov said.
Moscow showed no sign of back
ing down from its demand that all
hostages be released unconditionally.
In a similar hostage crisis in June,
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin
held televised negotiations with the
rebels and allowed them to escape to
Chechnya, where they released the
last of their hostages.
This time, the Kremlin and the
Russian public, exasperated by the
13-month-old war and continuing rebel
raids, might support the use of force.
The Kremlin sent troops into
Chechnya to put down Chechen rebel
leader Dzhokhar Dudayev’s three-year
drive for independence. Up to 30,000
people have died. Raduyev is
Dudayev’s son-in-law.
News
in a
Minu
Bush admits to Gulf War error
WASHINGTON—Former President George Bush says he underes
timated Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s political staying power after the
Persian Gulf War and regrets that the allies didn’t do more to undercut
Saddam’s authority.
In an interview with David Frost to be aired Tuesday on PBS, Bush
said he still thinks Saddam will be overthrown by his own people. But
Bush recalled that during the 1991 Gulf War he and others felt a sound
military defeat would lead to his downfall.
“I miscalculated,” Bush said. “I thought he’d be gone.”
Bush reiterated his olt-statcd view that it would have been a mistake
to order the U.S. military to hunt down Saddam in Baghdad, and that it
was a correct judgment to end the war after having evicted Iraq’s
occupying army from Kuwait.
But the former president, in the interview taped last Dec. 12 in his
Houston office, said Saddam fooled him when he used his surviving
military power to quickly crush postwar revolts by Kurds in Iraq’s north
and Shiites in the south.
“I think he took us by surprise,” Bush said.
Man shot at Catholic Church
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A man armed with a knife was
killed by a police officer Sunday after he tried to steal a collection plate
during Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, police said.
Police spokesman Lt. Alan Scott said the unidentified suspect was
shot once in the torso after he lunged at three police officers with a knife
when they tried to arrest him in a restroom in the church vestibule.
He said the knife had a 7-inch Iplade.
None of the 350 worshipers orchurch employees was injured. The
suspect, who may have been a transient, died at Memorial Hospital
shortly after 11 a.m., Scott said.
Fans dislike ticket agencies’ tactics
AUSTIN, Texas—Many loyal Bruce Springsteen fans who lined up
for concert tickets over the weekend were out of luck after ticket
c agencies paid 100 homeless people to camp out for tickets.
The homeless lined up Friday night and bought most ofthe S30 tickets
when they went on sale Saturday morning. By Saturday night, ticket
agencies were reselling them for as much as S400.
Kent Taylor, the Showtime Tickets owner who hired 50 homeless
people to buy as many tickets as they could, said he doesn’t feel guilty.
He gave people a chance to make S50.
“Everybody has a fair chance to be the first ones in line,” said Taylor,
who said he hires the homeless about twice a month, “ft’s easier to round
up homeless people. They’re more flexible than people who work.”
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Front-line soldiers
i withdraw in Bosnia
OKRUGLICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina
—Several thousand government, Serb
and Croat troops withdrew from their
front-line trenches and bunkers across
central and northeastern Bosnia on Sun
day, beating a deadline to create buffer
zones between the forces.
The withdrawal came live days
before the Jan. 19 deadline for the
creation of 2 1/2-mile buffer zones
along former front lines throughout
Bosnia.
The deadline is part of the U.S.
brokered peace agreement signed last
month, under which Bosnia is to be
partitioned into two ethnically based
entities and a 60,000-man NATO-led
peacekeeping force deployed.
“This is a tremendous beginning,”
Maj., Alistair Ross, a NATO spokes
man, said at this front-line village,
120 miles northwest of Sarajevo. “It’s
too early to say the peace will hold,
but what we’re seeing today hasn’t
been achieved in almost four years of
war.”
“I’m going home soon, but in the
meantime I’m happy to be four kilo
meters (2 1/2 miles) away from those
Serbs rather than just 300 meters
(yards),” said Toni, a mud-caked
young soldier who declined to give his
full name.
In another sign of subsiding ten
sions, Serbs on Sunday released two
“This is a tremendous
beginning. ”
MAJ. ALISTAIR ROSS
NATO spokesman
people who had been held since cross
ing into Serb sections of Sarajevo
around Christmas.
The release of the two was not
directly related to the exchange of
around 900 people planned for Mon
day and Tuesday, mandated by the
peace agreement that says all war pris
oners must be freed by Jan. 19.
But it was likely to boost the confi
dence of the hostile sides. Other pris
oner exchanges have foundered at the
last minute.
The peace agreement creates Brit
ish-, French- and American-patrolled
sectors in Bosnia. British troops in
armored vehicles will patrol their area
of the front line over the next several
days to verify compliance.
“It gives us considerable satisfac
tion. This mandate is very different
from the old one. It seems to be work
ing,” said Ross, who also was a mem
ber ofthe U.N. mission that the NATO
led force replaced. That mission was
widely seen as ineffectual.
Historic King district gets
additional land for center
ATLANTA—The site of a former
pencil factory will be added to a his
toric district honoring Martin Luther
King Jr. on Monday as part of celebra
tions marking his birthday;
The 5.5 acres will be converted
into a parking lot for a King visitors
center that is being built by the Na
tional Parks Service. A milelong walk
way will connect it tothe Carter Presi
dential Center’s library and museum.
With Atlanta the host of the 1996
summer Olympics, officials expect
many more visitors to the sites.
“For someone visiting here from
France, England, China, what they’re
going to think about is 'Where is
Martin Luther King?’ and 'Where is
Jimmy Carter?’ We’re connecting
them,” said Rand Wentworth, a repre
scntative for a trust that has acquired
and transferred land to complete the
15.5-acre district.
In the 1950s, the Scripto pencil
plant was Atlanta’s largest employer,
providing jobs for residents and cus
tomers for businesses.
The land transfer is one of many
ceremonies marking King’s birthday
in Atlanta and elsewhere around the
nation. President Clinton is scheduled
to attend a service at Ebenezer Baptist
Church, next door to the King Center,
before touring the Olympic Stadium.
The King Center, which is run by
King’s family, will hold itsannual march
and rally .Emory University will show a
port fol io of rare photographs taken dur
ing the last year of King’s life.
Budget
prospects
not bright
WASHINGTON — Saying
“we’re universes apart,” House
Budget Chairman John Kasich
on Sunday gave little chance for
a balanced budget deal this week.
But he said Republicans prob
ably would agree to raise the
debt ceiling, avoiding a govern
ment default, even without a
budget compromise.
Democrats, blaming the Rc
publ icans for intransigence, were
only slightly more hopeful about
reaching a budget agreement
soon. The Wline House and
Republicans arc due to make
another stab at compromise on
Wednesday.
Kasich, R-Ohio, said Repub
licans would likoty shift strategy
if the budget impasse continues
by raising the debt ceiling and
targeting only federal programs
they dislike for another govern
ment shutdown.
Unless the debt ceiling is
raised, the nation risks becom
ing unable to pay the interest on
its debts. “You don’t want to
mess around with defaultinghere
in the United States,” Kasich
said.
A day earlier. House Speaker
Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said that
Congress would “find a way to
solve the debt ceiling.”
But on Sunday, White House
Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said
that'President Clinton would
vctoanyspendinglegislationthat
cripples programs Clinton feels
arc important.
“The Republicans aren’t re
ally interested in compromise,”
House Minority Leader Dick
Gephardt of Missouri said on
NBC. “They want it their way or
the highway and the president is
not going to do that.”
Gephardt said 50-50 odds for
a deal were “probably as good as
you can put on it.”
Without a deal, the nation
possibly faces another partial
government shutdown whencur
rent temporary funding measures
expire on Jan. 26, and a govern
ment default on Feb. 15 when
the Treasury must pay interest to
bondholders.
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Advertising Manager Amy Struthers
Asst. Advertising Mgr. Laura Wilson
Publications Board
Chairman Tim Hedegaard
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